The Saga of the Wire Wheel Car Badges

                                                By Walter Huber, NNJR

For over 35 years the cars in our family have worn an SCCA wire wheel logo car badge.  This one particular badge was purchased when I first joined the SCCA and has been on a succession of our cars.  As I recall, I purchased that badge at one of my first Northern New Jersey Region meetings after joining SCCA.  A young, round-faced driver spoke to the members at that meeting.  His name was Mark Donohue. 

For several years now I have been trying to find another badge or two so I could have one on each of our cars.  In the spring of 2010 I began my quest for another badge in earnest.  The following series of e-mailed messages will help you understand this undertaking. 

After the Drivers School at NJMP in March of 2010, I wrote the following (in pertinent part) to several key folks in NNJR:

From: Walter Huber

To: Darrell Anthony  ; Christopher Mosley

Sent: Thursday, April 01, 2010 2:22 PM

Subject: SCCA Car Badge

Chris, DA --

(Catching Chris up-to-speed....)

DA & I were talking at one point over the weekend at NJMP when I happened to see Jim Tornetta's Ferrari parked not too far from us.  Jim's car had an SCCA car badge attached to the front license plate.  I'm referring to the metal, 3¼" round, wire wheel car badge which is no longer available from SCCA -- hasn't been available for several years. This is the type of car badge which used to be popular on sports cars thirty/forty/fifty years back when sports cars had "badge bars" on them.  They've also been called "grille badges," a term which became more popular as badge bars went out and folks mounted these things on the car's radiator grill.

I've been looking for two or three of these things for some time now.  Nancy's M-B has one that I bought from NNJR back in the early '70s (for around six or seven bucks, I recall).  We took the badge with us to Germany in ’02 and the M-B has worn that badge since the car rolled out of the factory.  That car has been driven in four countries with that badge on it.  And the badge was in Canada (a 5th country) when it was on the previous car.  Notice how faded the colors are in the photos attached after 30+ years and God knows how many miles. 

Every now and again you see one come up on E-Bay and they'll go for close to $100 if in good condition.  I ain't gonna spend no $100 for one of these, though -- and I sure as hell ain't gonna shell out 2 or 3 hunnert bucks for the quantity I want either!

I've done a bit of investigation and usually the minimum order is around 25 badges if a club is going to have them made up.  And the price is around $30 - $35 bucks a badge if the club isn't looking to make money on them.

It may have been DA who said we could use them as Worker o/t Year Awards. 

Thanx everyone,

Walter

********************************

The following day I wrote to Terry Ozment, VP of Club Racing at SCCA in Topeka:

----- Original Message -----

From: Walter Huber

To: Terry Ozment

Sent: Friday, April 02, 2010 9:29 AM

Subject: SCCA Car Badge

Hi Terry,

Hope all is well with you and that you are looking forward to a nice Easter with family. 

I have recently been raising a bit of interest in NNJR in getting some of the old, no longer available wire wheel car badges reordered. 

Since the wire wheel logo is a TM item owned by SCCA Inc, our NNJR region would need permission to use it.  Where do we go for such permission?  What hoops might we have to jump through?

Additionally, do you think -- with 40+ thousand members nationwide -- there'd be interest at "National" in doing an order of the wire wheel?  In which case, NNJR would only do our own NNJ logo.

Thanks in anticipation for your help.

All best,

Terry passed my request to Eric Prill who handles “marketing” at SCCA.  Eric said that SCCA has a licensing contract with an outside vendor to make and sell items with the club’s service marks on them.  He passed my request on to them.  At one point Eric asked “Do you have a picture of the badge so I can understand exactly what we’re talking about?”  Imagine!  Key folks at National were not sure what a wire wheel car badge was!  I was amazed – in one subsequent e-mail to someone I believe I used the word “whippersnapper” for the very first time in my life.

Several months went by without a response from the SCCA’s merchandising partner.  I followed up several times with Eric, who presumably followed up with the outside vendor.  But we received not even the courtesy of a reply. 

Finally after two months with no response , in June of 2010,  I again wrote to Eric: 

----- Original Message -----

From: Walter Huber

To: Eric Prill

Cc: Terry Ozment ; James Tornetta ; Christopher Mosley ; Darrell Anthony

Friday, June 11, 2010 8:47 PM

Subject: Re: SCCA Car Badge

Eric,

The SCCA merchandiser appears to either be taking his time in "looking into this" or he simply may not be interested and hasn't bothered to reply.   It was back in early April when I first wrote to Terry Ozment and she referred the question to you.  Clearly, after two months without a reply, the merchandiser doesn't appear to be enthusiastic.

If our region decides to give these badges to our volunteer Chiefs of Specialty at year-end this year, and given the manufacturing lead time necessary, our region wishes to get started with ordering our own supply of them soonest. 

Is there some perfunctory paperwork which needs to be filled out in order for our SCCA region to get permission to use the wire wheel emblem in the manufacture of these car badges?  Whatever paperwork may be necessary, please mail or fax it to me at the address/phone below. 

Or, as a recognized region within the SCCA family of regions, is any permission actually necessary?   

Thanks,

Walter Huber

member #21912

     7 Reality Drive

     Kinnelon, NJ  07405

          973-838-8984 (fax)

*****************************

Here’s where it got to be fun.   Okay, it got to be a hell of a lot of work!  But it also became fun.   Here’s Eric’s reply to me:

----- Original Message -----

From: Eric Prill

To: Walter Huber

Cc: Terry Ozment

Sent: Saturday, June 12, 2010 9:59 AM

Subject: RE: SCCA Car Badge

Walter-

I agree with your assessment that a lack of response means a lack of interest on the end of our merchandiser.

You may make these without an agreement as long as they are not sold. We do have an agreement with our merchandiser for things for sale. So, if, as you say, they are for gifts, you have the green light from National.

Regards,

Eric

_____________________

Eric Prill

SCCA/SCCA Pro Racing

785-357-7222

So on June 12, 2010, the Region was given permission to have the wire wheel car badge (WWCB) remade.  But we were told that they can’t be sold.  I thought, “W.T.F.!?!?”

Well, it took me about two minutes of head-scratching before I came up with the idea of offering members some boxes of Cracker Jack, the iconic ball-park snack which has “A Prize in Every Box.”  Except the boxes of Cracker Jack which we would offer would have a special “extra” prize – a WWCB!   However, in keeping with the spirit of Eric’s caveat that the WWCBs couldn’t be sold (assumedly ‘for profit’), they would be offered ‘at cost.’  Of course if a buyer of Cracker Jack likes the prize and wants to round his check up to a higher dollar amount, that fine by us and the extra goes into the Region’s “Worker Fund” to offset some of the cost of the beer and pretzels for the end-of-day parties at race events.

I began talking it up at the events I attended.  And clearly there was some interest.  Most often the interest came from members whose hair was (prematurely) gray – yes, like mine.  Folks who remembered when damn near every funny little foreign car you passed on the road had one or more badges on a badge bar over the front bumper (What’s a bumper, Grandpa?) to announce the driver’s club affiliations.

There was interest.  So I ponied up the cost of having a sample badge made.  It arrived in August.  And by that time, having been to a bunch more events, I had a number of folks who were willing to buy some Cracker Jack.  I petitioned the NNJR Board of Trustees, asking if the Region would “front” the money to buy 100 badges.  The Region agreed and in early September I ordered the badges from a company in Delhi, India.

In the days and weeks following, there were a variety of hurdles still to be cleared and these caused a number of delays.  But finally, just before Christmas of 2010, the badges arrived.  All 100 badges of this first order were spoken for before they arrived.

I had already received my order of several cases of Cracker Jack.  And so, keeping true to Eric Prill’s cautionary statement in the memo of June 12^th, except for the badges given as Thank You gifts to Chiefs and Workers of the Year, all the other badges have been the prize associated with a rather expensive box of Cracker Jack.

From this first order, I believe I counted that badges will be going to eleven states -- and one of the badges is being sent further by the buyer to Europe.  (As a legal “holder in due course,” I believe he is free to sell his Cracker Jack prize on the open market for whatever the market will bear.) 

And I should also again point out that neither I nor the Northern NJ Region is making any profit on these badges.  Other than rounding the total cost per individual badge up to the next even dollar, buyers of Cracker Jack are paying what we paid.  All the extra pennies as well as any additional which their checks are written for, are going into the region’s Worker Fund which pays for the post-event parties and raffles for the volunteer workers. And we are now working on our second order of Wire Wheel Car Badges.

So now you know the longer, more complete story.  If you’d like to order one (or more), send an e-mail to WWCB@scca-nnjr.org  

Best to all,

Walter

    SCCA’s Purveyor of special Cracker Jack prizes.