The Driver Suit Blog

By David G. Firestone

Going off topic today, but I’ve wanted to do this for a while. September 18 1968, was an uneventful day during an eventful year. While the rest of America listened to Harper Valley PTA, red Testimony of Two Men, or watched Hang ‘Em High, one lucky person got to meet, and get an autograph from a man who changed the face of fast food, fried chicken, and the cooking industry, all at the same time.

Even if you’ve never eaten at KFC, you know that Col. Harland Sanders founded the company, and came up with the famous “Secret Recipe.” You might not know that he was a jack of all trades prior to KFC. He was a military man, a railroad man, an amateur lawyer, an insurance sales man, a ferryboat operator, and, by 1930, a Shell gas station attendant in Corbin, Kentucky. That Shell gas station was the best thing to ever happen to Harland Sanders, but at the time, he didn’t know it. He served food, including his chicken, country ham, and steaks in the living quarters of the service station.

Sanders’ temper was well documented, having lost no fewer than three jobs due to disagreements or brawls with people, including one in a courtroom during his law practice. During an encounter with Matt Stewart, a competitor, a shootout took place. The story goes like this, Sanders painted an advertising sign to lure more customers to his station, which enraged Smith, who painted over Sanders’ sign. Sanders and two Shell officials caught Smith in the act, and the shootout occurred. Smith was shot in the shoulder, and wound up killing one of the Shell officials. Smith was sent to prison for murder, and Sanders had the market all to himself. Around that same time, Sanders was named a “Kentucky Colonel,” and was recommissioned one in 1950. He began to call himself Colonel Sanders, and the name stuck.

During the World War 2, he was worked as a supervisor in Seattle, and later ran government cafeterias. He had already perfected his now legendary “Secret Recipe” and discovered that frying in a pressure cooker made the chicken more moist and flavorful than pan frying. After the war, he returned to his kitchen, and in 1952, franchised his chicken to Pete Harman of South Salt Lake, Utah. A sign panted named Don Anderson came up with the name “Kentucky Fried Chicken” for the new Utah restaurant. This would be a turning point, as Sanders, who had failed at most of his businesses, found the recipe for success, no pun intended…he just didn’t know it yet.

In 1956, he sold the Corbin Restaurant that he had called home for so long. Realizing he needed money, he started his quest to franchise Kentucky Fried Chicken. Initially, it was slow going, but people began to see that Kentucky Fried Chicken would work, and, by the 1960’s, over 600 locations had opened, in the US, Canada, England, and Mexico. In 1964, an aging Sanders could not handle the stress of managing the restaurants, and sold Kentucky Fried Chicken to John Brown, and Jack Massey for $2 million, over $15 million in 2016 dollars.

Sanders was the mascot of KFC, and continued to appear on packaging, and advertising. Sanders himself wore the white suit and black string tie which he would forever be associated with. Sanders was, in real life, a foul-mouthed control freak, who would visit franchises to make sure that the chicken was being prepared correctly, and would snap if he found that it wasn’t. He remained active, even after being diagnosed with acute leukemia, and was active until his death from pneumonia on December 16, 1980, at the age of 90.

On that rather uneventful day, September 18, 1968, someone met Col. Harland Sanders, and got his autograph.Torn from, appropriately enough, a chicken advertisement, this 7 inch long piece of paper was signed by Sanders, “Sincerely, Col Harland Sanders, 9/18/1964.” While the paper has aged with time, but the signature is still bold. It also looks as though there was something else written, either by Sanders, or an unknown hand, as at the top right corner, there is an underlined S. What was written, has been lost to history.

Next week, I will examine some unique items from the bottom of the sea.

By David G. Firestone

I’ve talked about the promotional advantages of driver suits and racing suits before. True, a racing sponsorship can pay a lot of dividends. According to this article from Fox, “A new study conducted jointly by the Los Angeles-based media agency Wasserman and Buffalo, New York-based Nervve showed that Denny Hamlin’s Daytona 500 victory was worth $1.9 million in earned media value for his primary sponsor, FedEx.”

But where racing suit design differs than regular work design is that the sponsor or team can design the suit in ways which most normal companies wouldn’t be able to. Denny Hamlin’s suit can be designed for maximum sponsor exposure. While Denny for some reason doesn’t wear TV logos on the sleeves, if any FedEx employee were asked to wear a uniform similar to Denny’s suit or the teams pit shirts, the company would be a laughing stock.

While racing suit design for promotional appeal is a new concept in marketing, mechanics in auto racing have been around since day one. Mechanics make the cars run, and keep them running. They have to work on cars and wear special clothes, as the fluids in the car can ruin most street clothes. This Race Rock Racing team suit is a perfect example of the fusion of both.As much as I have searched, I haven’t been able to find any information on Race Rock as an auto racing team. However, they were apparently a racing team. This suit was a mechanics suit designed for them. The suit is made from Jupiter, Florida based RJ’s Racing Equipment. It feels like it’s a single layer of Nomex, but could also be polyester. It isn’t SFI certified.

The front has a CART patch and RACE ROCK RACING TEAM embroidered into the chest,a checkered flag stripe, and a yellow stripe across the chest with a PPG patch and a BILSTEN SHOCK ABSORBERS patch sewn into the yellow stripe. The belt, and legs are unadorned.

The shoulders have yellow unadorned epaulets, and short sleeves with MOPAR PERFORMANCE RACING TEAM and CHAMPION SPARK PLUG patches on the right sleeve, and VALVOLINE RACING and HOLLEY patches on the left sleeve. The back of the suit has a giant RACE ROCK RACE TEAM logo embroidered into it. Other than that, there are no designs present at all. While racing has been used as a promotional tools for decades, the innovation of the driver suit as a promotional tool is something that has taken the racing world by storm. Hell, you wouldn’t be reading this if you didn’t find racing suit design interesting, and I wouldn’t be writing it. Next week, we will look at the signature of an innovator who created a product known throughout the world, and revolutionized a whole industry.