Ron Attebury
It has been reported that Ron began his car building business at the ripe old age of five when his parents gave him a pedal tractor and he started taking body panels off it to make it lighter and faster. When he was 7, Ron started racing go karts after his father opened a go kart club in Los Gotos, CA. One of the true influencers in Ron’s life is his brother in law, Jack Castella, who is the holder of several Land Speed Records. In 1969 at the ripe old age of 20, Ron, along with his brother Raymond, built and raced his first real race car, a supercharged Chrysler powered AA/Gas Dragster. Ron drove this car to his first major class win at the WCS event at Bakersfield, CA in 1973.
In 1975 Ron built his first “for pay” car, a AA/Fuel Dragster for Frank Bradley that opened the door to Ron’s future as a chassis builder when Frank won the 1976 NHRA season opener Winternationals at Pomona, CA. Ron’s list of clientele after this reads like a Who’s who including Gary Beck, Warren and Coburn, Dennis Baca, Tommy Ivo and Shirley Muldowney to name just a few. One of the things that set Ron apart from some of his competitors was the fact he was also a racer so he knew first hand what other drivers and crews looked for in a car.
Ron and Jungle Jim Liberman soon became close friends and in 1977, Ron moved to Pennsylvania to become the only open wheel car to be part of the Jungle Jim racing team. 1978 found Ron back in California working out of his parents garage where he built Ivo’s first jet car. Later that year Ron changed careers by going to work at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. Before long Ron realized he liked building cars more than the government job so in 1983 he opened Atterbury’s Street Rods in Morgan Hill, CA and began producing some of the most outstanding street rods to grace the streets with some of them competing for the Most Beautiful Street Roadster award at the Grand National Roadster show over the years. Many of his street rods also found their way onto the pages of various magazines over the years and two of the race cars he built for Tommy Ivo were featured on the cover of Hot Rod Magazine. It needs to also be noted that one of his Jungle Jim Funny Cars became a Johnny Lightning die-cast model.
In 2001 the racing bug bit Ron again so he built himself an A/Fuel Dragster to compete in the GoodGuys Nostalgia circuit. In 2003 Ron won the coveted GoodGuys A/Fuel Dragster Championship title and retired from driving again. The “bug” bit Ron again in 2009 and he built his last race car, a gas powered, modified roadster he last raced at Bonneville in 2012. Ron retired in 2019 but he is still considered to be one of the premier dragster chassis and outstanding street rod builders ever.
In 1971 Ron was elected as one of Car Craft Magazines elite Hi Risers and in 2021 he was one of the NHRA Hot Rod Reunion Honorees. Today, Ron is still working out of his shop in Grass Valley, CA producing award winning street rods.