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My father built engines for these:
Hillegass is perhaps best known for his midgets, which he began building as the midget racing boom took off in the Thirties. At the time he was living in Syracuse, New York and working Carrier Corporation's research and development department. He continued there through World War II but then returned to Allentown where he set up his own shop at 2435 South 4th Street.
Midgets, as builders like Frank Kurtis and Pop Dreyer proved, were viable business and Hiram Hillegass approached it as such, even going to the extent of investing in cast iron bucks over which he could accurately, quickly and repeatably form the complex body panels that clothed his creations. Racers earned their livings wîth the diminutive but shapely single-seaters, sometimes racing every evening of the week during the season and twice or more a day on weekends. The cars and their engines had to be quick enough to command appearance money, bring home prize money regularly and stand up to constant use and competition.
The midgets of Hiram Hillegass met the test, and it is not surprising that the drivers who survived racing his midgets turned to Hillegass for bigger cars which were then known simply and logically as 'Big Cars'. These were the sprint cars that carried bigger engines, campaigned on larger tracks and each year adjourned for the month of May to Indianapolis, Indiana for the 500. Hillegass built two Big Cars in the Thirties, one for Frank 'Butcher Boy' Wierer in 1937 and one for Doc Keim in Hillegass's hometown of Allentown in 1939.
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