Heart-Pounding Ride in the 1909 Alco-6 'Black Beast' Indianapolis 500 Racer

After filming the two upcoming episodes of the Guys Withe Their Rides Podcast, Howard Kroplick, restorer and owner of this 1909 Alco-6 "Black Beast", offered to take Rudy for a ride. Not only did Rudy jump at the chance, but he also used his new Insta360 X4 360-degree camera to capture the experience.

This video provides a Point-of-View ("POV") experience of what it is like to drive and ride along in a car that participated in the inaugural Indianapolis 500 in 1909.

The next two episodes of the Guys With Their Rides podcast will drop on Tuesday, September 24 and Tuesday, October1, 2024 when Rudy interview Howard about this car as well as the other rare and unique cars in his collection that includes Tucker 1044.

If you're not familiar with this car, the Alco-6 Black Beast Racer won six of the 15 major races which it entered from 1909 to 1911. These races included two Vanderbilt Cup Races, the first Indianapolis 500, two Elgin Trophy Races, and one American Grand Prize Race.

Nicknamed “the Black Beast,” this was one of its era's most famous race cars. A two-time winner of the Vanderbilt Cup, a major event in the early years of American motorsport, the car was the favorite to win the first Indianapolis 500-mile race in 1911. (It blew a rod, however, and finished 33rd in a field of 40.)

A century later, the 3,306-pound Black Beast still exhibits its own form of animal magnetism. Sitting outside its garage in the quaint Long Island town of Roslyn, the restored car draws stares, smiles, oohs and aahs from passers-by. Especially when its owner, Howard Kroplick, natty in early 20th-century racing garb, starts the Beast’s six-cylinder, 680.8-cubic-inch engine — an Industrial Age wonder of cast iron, brass, and copper wiring.

The Black Beast is, in some ways, like the Maltese Falcon; an icon that vanished from sight after its original driver, Harry Grant — who was given title to the car by the manufacturer as a reward for his cup victories — died after a fiery crash in another car in 1915.

For much of the next century, the Black Beast (no one knows who gave it the name, or who misspelled it in French — Bête Noir — on the side of engine) changed hands frequently, going from barns and garages to museums and showrooms. Mr. Kroplick, a 62-year-old former public relations executive, tracked it down to a luxury car dealership in Brussels, where it was on display. The Alco was an expensive $6,000 in 1909. He will not reveal what he paid for it in 2008, except to say that to him, “It’s priceless.”

Mr. Kroplick restored the car as close to 1909 racing form as possible. He also pieced together the provenance of the vehicle. It fascinated him ever since he started studying the history of the Vanderbilt Cup, organized by the railroad tycoon and auto enthusiast William K. Vanderbilt Jr. and first run on the roads of Long Island, then rural, from 1904 to 1910.

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