This is Benjamin F. Gregory, a small-time car maker, and racing and stunt driver from Kansas City, Missouri, pictured in 1921 in a front-wheel-drive racing car which he had designed and built the previous year. When the photo was taken, it was powered by a Curtiss OX-5 aero engine.
Later the car received a different engine, under somewhat unusual circumstances.....
Gregory was supplementing his income at that time as a limousine driver for one of Kansas City’s politically well connected houses of ill repute. The madam of the house had two large diamonds that she carried around in her hands for good luck much as a man might fiddle with dice. Eventually, Gregory managed to steal the diamonds and drop them into the limo’s gas tank until things cooled down. One day, the madam told Gregory to get the car ready to be delivered as she had sold it. It took Gregory several hours but he finally managed to fish the diamonds out of the gas tank. He delivered the car, then quit his job and moved to California for a time. There, he sold the diamonds and used the money to install a Hispano-Suiza engine in the racing car.
It's a good story. I wonder if it's true.
