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1957 Halliday Renault Special
Dale Halliday’s Background
Dale Halliday Work Profile
While not a great deal is know of him personally, other than the fact he had no children and I believe Joel has his DOB. However, that cannot be said about his professional career. From the various Newspaper articles, we know that he learned the mechanic’s trade under the tutelage of Clay Smith. Smith was an iconic and one of the most prominent mechanics in Southern California during this period. Smith also was a crew chief on numerous racing operations including an Indy 500 winning car.
We know that Haliday was a mechanic in the Long Beach Area starting in 1950, and he worked at Import Auto Sales, the Long Beach Renault and Peugeot dealer which was located at: 516 East Anaheim until 1957. In May of that year, Dale was named the new service manager of a new English Ford dealership which was located at 2580 East Pacific Coast Highway. However by February of 1958 he was the service manager at Vine Motors, which was located at 9625 Garden Grove Boulevard in neighboring Garden Grove, and finally in June of that year, he had his own shop, at 3580 East Pacific Coast Highway back in Long Beach.
We also know that Halliday was still running his own shop in 1958 or 1959 when John Horton paid a visit to his shop near the intersection of the PCH and Redondo, which 3580 East Pacific Coast Highway is within two blocks of. While we can not confirm, if he worked for anyone else or remained his own boss between the years on 1959-1963, we do know in October of 1963, he moved around the corner to 1333 Redondo Blvd, which is less than two tenths of a mile from Haliday’s PCH shop. So more than likely he was his own boss during that period.
Unfortunately, after that the trail goes dead, but we have a fairly precise idea of his work history over this period of time.
Ads or Business Issues
1957, May 26 – (unknown but have the clipping)
1958, February 14 (unknown but have the clipping) – Ad for servicing your car at Vines Motors – Dale Halliday is Service Manager
1958, June 14 (unknown but have the clipping) – Ad for mechanics by Dale Halliday
1963, October 4 (unknown but have the clipping) – Discussion of Dale Halliday of Sports Car Clinic handling new Simca business
Articles About Dale Halliday’s Work
Road and Track, January 1953
Road and Track, February 1953
