Charlie Yapp wrote a pair of articles in 1990 touching on the speedster segment of the hobby for Restorer, the Model A Ford Club of America’s magazine, and brought back a flood of memories for those racers and sparked a barrage of responses.
“The Model A Ford Club of America and the Model A Restorers Club, they’re purists, they do not like hot rodders,” Charlie said. “But they had already seen the speed stuff creeping into their world, so they wanted me to take charge of this.”
Charlie wrote to about 32 of those responders with a homemade newsletter, and a month later, 200 fellas wanted to receive the newsletter, 400 the following month, and 800 by the end of the first year.
Charlie, who ran a photography studio at the time, saw something going and founded the Secrets of Speed Society to publish what became Secrets Magazine, which has continued on since 1991.
After learning about this, I looked on Ebay, and found a collection for sale for about 180, 1999-2018 editions. I snapped it up, and will be letting you all know about the wonderful stuff I find in them
It's about speedster people & the neat things they do.
The Secrets Of Speed Society's (S.O.S.S.) goal is to save the history of "Ford Speed and Sport" as it was in the old days and today.
Primarily Ford Model "A", "B" & "T" (1909 through 1934) based driving, cross country touring, hill climbs and racing of all types.
Published quarterly, with 52 glossy color pages packed with facts, figures, drawings and photographs.
With research articles, stories of our membership, past advertising, new products and events about Speedsters, hill climbs, open wheeled racers, cross country touring and performance for Model T and A and B Fords.
