Lucky Teter and His Hell Drivers

Gather Around Children and Let Me Tell You About the Man Who Drove Through Fire (Day 73)

Just another day at the office for Lucky Teter.

The legend of Lucky Teter began in the early 1930s when he was working as a gas station attendant and test car driver in Noblesville, Indiana. Back then he was just plain old Earl Teter and had a little side gig going where he’d make his own car polish and sell it at fairs and carnivals.

The story goes that an over-enthusiastic customer challenged Earl and his polish - roll your car for $300 bucks and see if the polish works then. Early wasn’t a guy to take a potential sale sitting down. Well, he was sitting when he rolled the car, anyway. The polish still worked. The car was demolished. But Earl, who was certainly lucky he walked away from the wreck, discovered that demolishing cars was pretty neat.

So, by 1932, Lucky and a couple partners had formed Lucky Teter and His Hell Drivers and started making a mess. It was the first time an auto thrill show was conceived as a traveling attraction and, as it turned out, it was just what audiences during the the Great Depression needed.

No roll bar. No restraints. Just Lucky and his Plymouths.

All the car stunts you see in shows today - two wheel driving, bus jumps and so forth - started here. My favorite is the straight up “crash stunt.” Here’s how it worked: Two drivers would get behind the wheel of their Plymouth sedans, drive as fast as they could toward each other and crash into each other head on. That was it. Just BOOM, crash. Audiences loved it!

At one point in the early 1940s, Lucky had dozens of stunt drivers working for him, with stunts getting more and more elaborate. For example, they’d build a wall of wood, push it right up against a ramp and set it on fire. Then the stunt men, sometimes on motorcycles, would drive right through it.

Note that the motorcyclist has his whole head covered!

Remember, no roll bars. No chest seat belts or fasteners. Lucky himself would perform his stunts with his left arm out the window so he could wave to crowds.

If you’re thinking that eventually Lucky’s luck would run out, you would be correct.

In 1942, Lucky and many of his drivers, had signed up for military service. War was her. Fairs were closing shop. The Hell Drivers would soon be no more. But Lucky wanted to go out with a bang. Well, an extra bang. He wanted to break a car jump record.

He called the stunt a Rocket Car, where he’d jump a metro bus. He’d done it successfully many times, reaching jumps of 120 and 140 feet. But on the Fourth of July, 1942, Lucky had one jump left, one final stunt before he headed to war and the Hell Drivers disbanded. Two buses. 150 feet. A new record.

He never made it. Witnesses heard his car backfiring upon approach and when he hit the ramp he wasn’t going the 65mph needed to span the distance. His Plymouth came in five feet short, plowing into the understructure of the landing ramp and sending the top cross bar of the ramp through Lucky’s windshield and breaking his neck.

Lucky died on the way to the hospital.

World War 2 was raging and the world moved on. Lucky’s operation was sold to a race car driver by the name of Joie Chitwood who went on to found the Thrill Show after WW2 using some of Lucky’s stunts and cast. Joie brought Lucky’s stunt show into the mainstream, appearing on Wide World of Sports and doing stunts for Hollywood. Even Evel Knievel himself credited Joie for being his inspiration.

Poor Lucky… all those stunts, all that fearlessness. A daredevil lost to the short memory of time. But not today, not today.

Lucky Teter and His Hell Drivers

Housekeeping: Happy weekend everyone! Hope your year is off to a great start. Try not to roll any cars. Once again, just a quick note to say I appreciate you, and hope you’re enjoying these daily missives. I know I’m all over the place, but I try to be entertaining and not overstay my welcome.

Speaking of welcome, our numbers here are growing and as I often do, if you’d be so kind to tell and family or friends to come on aboard and subscribe, Little Bean and I would be ever so grateful. And remember, this is all free, but if you’d like to throw a DONATION our way, we’d gladly buy some coffee and juice boxes with that!

There’s lots happening in the next few weeks: Announcements about our second rocks field guide, gigs over at NH Home Magazine, NY Fire Towers, essays about music lessons and snowmen and books. We’ll just keep forging ahead until you get tired of me! See you tomorrow at Day By Day!