The Texas Ceegar

By As Told To Richard Backus Herb Harris
Published on December 20, 2016
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The 1955 record-breaking team with tuner Jack Wilson (third from left), designer and builder J.H. “Stormy” Mangham (sixth from left) and rider Johnny Allen (far right).
The 1955 record-breaking team with tuner Jack Wilson (third from left), designer and builder J.H. “Stormy” Mangham (sixth from left) and rider Johnny Allen (far right).
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Left to right: Allen, Mangham and Wilson with The Devil’s Arrow at Mangham’s shop after their 1955 192.7mph run.
Left to right: Allen, Mangham and Wilson with The Devil’s Arrow at Mangham’s shop after their 1955 192.7mph run.
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Left to right: Mangham, Wilson and Allen with the streamliner, now called the Texas Ceegar, after the successful 1956 record 214.4mph run.
Left to right: Mangham, Wilson and Allen with the streamliner, now called the Texas Ceegar, after the successful 1956 record 214.4mph run.
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The Texas Ceegar lying in pieces after Allen’s 1959 crash. Allen walked away, but the streamliner was heavily damaged.
The Texas Ceegar lying in pieces after Allen’s 1959 crash. Allen walked away, but the streamliner was heavily damaged.
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Three streamliners in Mangham’s shop, two wearing Texas Ceegar colors. The larger racer is likely streamliner #4, built to house a Chevy V8. Note the frame housing a small block V8 in the lower left of the photo.
Three streamliners in Mangham’s shop, two wearing Texas Ceegar colors. The larger racer is likely streamliner #4, built to house a Chevy V8. Note the frame housing a small block V8 in the lower left of the photo.
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George Roeder gets a lift from his crew after setting a new 1965 world record in the Harley-Davidson/Aermacchi-powered streamliner built by Mangham.
George Roeder gets a lift from his crew after setting a new 1965 world record in the Harley-Davidson/Aermacchi-powered streamliner built by Mangham.
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Roeder with the streamliner in Ohio after getting it from Harley-Davidson.
Roeder with the streamliner in Ohio after getting it from Harley-Davidson.

In the early 1990s, Herb Harris struck up a friendship with the legendary Triumph tuner Jack Wilson, builder of the 650cc Triumph twin engine that powered rider Johnny Allen to a 214.4mph world record at the Bonneville Salt Flats on Sept. 6, 1956, a feat that cemented Triumph’s reputation in the U.S. and launched the iconic Triumph Bonneville.

A lawyer-cum Vincent restoration specialist, Harris is perhaps uniquely appreciative of the value of documentation, a matter of extreme importance in law and increasingly important in vintage motorcycle and car circles: It’s one thing to say something is true, and often quite another to prove it.

Much has been written about Wilson, Allen and J.H. “Stormy” Mangham, the American Airlines pilot who built the Texas Ceegar streamliner. Harris and Wilson talked often about that famed 1956 record, and as the two got to know each other, Wilson explained “the real back story on how it all came to pass,” Harris says. In 1999, a year before Wilson’s death, aged 73, Harris realized he should document what Wilson had told him. “It was a fascinating story and I wanted to preserve it as Jack was close to the end, so I got Jack to agree to be taped.”

Streamliner inspiration

As Wilson related in the resulting taped interview (later transcribed), the inspiration for the Texas Ceegar was basically down to a taunt. In 1953, Wilson was working at Pete Dalio’s Triumph in Fort Worth, Texas. There were regular card games at the shop after closing, and one Saturday a shop regular, Col. George Kohne [the tape transcription says “Caney” but it’s assumed Wilson was referring to Kohne, whose role in events has been documented elsewhere], started bragging about NSU’s 1951 world record run of 180.29mph and how no one would ever top them. “World War II hadn’t been over but a few years,” Harris says, “so there were raw feelings, I guess.”

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