During one set of interviews he told me that in the Stock and Super Stock days he’d dealt with the deluge, the fame, by not dealing with it, by ignoring people or by playing filibuster when a simple reply was all they wanted. “I could never get away from the phone…the calls came at all hours… the situation drove me crazy and I always groused about it, but I was flattered nonetheless.” About that time, people began calling him Grumpy. It was a good persona for Bill to operate under and he exploited it fully.
Jenkins had had one following or another since high school (1947) when he first began doing tune-ups on local street cars applying the stuff he’d gleaned from the pulp pages of Speed Age and Hot Rod. In their eyes, and mostly likely in Jenkins’ too, he was the tribal medicine man.
He graduated from Downingtown High when he was 18. As the lines in his yearbook recounted, he was “the man who will put Einstein to shame” and that everyone should “watch out for Jenkins’ Chevy (good advice).” Bill had no interest in organized sports. He dug cars. He dug girls. He was addressing his first love nightly. He deftly managed the girl part by joining the Stagecraft, French, and Photography clubs to be in their close proximity. His penchant for women has never waned.
Jenkins matriculated to Cornell University in the mechanical engineering program. As is the design of life, Bill had been preparing for this for years. He was serious about making good marks in his freshman year. He forsook cars for books and stayed at school most of the time. Yet the pull of unburned hydrocarbons was undeniable. Jenkins was hopelessly hooked on cars and in a very unspectacular moment, he realized what he’d be doing for the rest of his life.
The kid, who’d cut his teeth on one-lung pump and saw engines, dropped out of Cornell and went to work at Usher Oldsmobile in Downingtown. It was there under the tutelage of Old Man Usher that Jenkins says he learned the essence of the automobile. Usher showed
him how to “work” on them rather than replacing parts as a rote exercise. Soon, Bill became proficient as well as quick. He redoubled his efforts, gaining the respect of the locals for his superior service work. Despite this satisfaction, his internal adult continued to nag him about returning to the classroom, which he did with pleasure.
Meanwhile, the engine in his ’51 Chevy blew up late one night. Bill dropped in a brand new hopped-up six-banger and went to the dragstrip for the first time. He won. All along the way, his drag racing consorts furnished him with a kind of pipeline to Detroit, and in 1953 he heard about the revolutionary new Chevrolet V8. It sent a strong vibe to young Bill. In this regard, he was absolutely prescient. He projected beyond the obvious and envisioned a vast and lucrative tune-up market instead. In the summer of ’55, he dropped out of Cornell again, without a degree.
He bought a ’55 Chevy with a Power Pack V8 which he immediately anointed with a Corvette camshaft, bumping the brake horsepower from 180 to 195. He worked his day job at Usher Olds and spent his free time with Clarence Evans and his Chevy Six. Evans drove, Jenkins tuned. They ran in the Open Class Dragster class through 1956-57 with some success. The year prior, however, Bill had hooked up with John Good and the 354-inch Chrysler Hemi. They planted it and dug it out of a ’32 Ford station wagon, a squirrelly Crosley, then a Fiat Topolino, and finally the naked rails of a slingshot dragster. This combo represented a milestone for Jenkins. In 1958, it was the first gas-burner on the east coast to break the 150-mph barrier.
