When Stu Hanssen was a little boy growing up in Paso Robles, his mom drove him to school in a hot rod. He remembers the shadows of oak trees flashing over the open seats — also, the time he accidentally hit the starter and bumped the car into the barn door. “I sure got a lickin’ for that,” he said. On weekends, his dad, Bill, raced the aluminum-bodied Baldwin Special on tracks in towns up and down Highway 101 against the greats of the time, such as Carroll Shelby, Phil Hill, and Ernie McAfee. This was the early 1950s, when American hot rodding had entered a postwar golden era and the Central Coast — especially Santa Barbara — was a nursing ground for young motorheads eager to prove their mettle.
Bill’s racing days ended abruptly in 1956 after he saw McAfee, a good friend, wrap his Ferrari around a pine tree at Pebble Beach; Bill had a young family to support. He sold the ’51 Baldwin Special, but he was tragically killed in a plane crash a few years later. Stu was 12 years old.
When he started racing in his early twenties, Stu Hanssen also began searching for his dad’s old car, priceless not only for its sentimental value but also as a piece of automotive history. Montecito resident and Cracker Jack heir Willis M. Baldwin, a former aircraft engineer with incredible technical expertise and a keen eye for design, built only a few of his namesake hot rods that would beat some of the fastest European sports cars. “I always wondered what happened to the darn thing,” Hanssen said. “I figured it ended up in junkyard.”
As luck would have it, in 2010, Stu received an email from the Baldwin Special’s owners in Connecticut; they’d never raced it much and heard he was looking to reclaim it. They negotiated a price — one of Hanssen’s own cars and some extra cash — and the Baldwin finally returned home. It was an emotional moment for Hanssen now 66 and living in Santa Ynez. “There’s no bringing him back,” he said of his late father. “But this feels full-circle. It brings a tear to your eye.” Before Hanssen’s mother passed away, he drove her around one last time. “God, it was something,” he said. This week, the Baldwin will head back to the starting line, this time with Stu Hanssen behind the wheel.