Recently, Jim Losee, automotive enthusiast, passed away. Few outside of automotive publishing and the aftermarket will recognize his name. Never an owner, but Shelbys and Fords were often topics of conversation.
His life was cars and the people involved with them. How so? In the '70s he worked at Dayco, Harold Daigh's Long Beach boutique speed shop. Besides turning wrenches, he initiated The Factory Pipeline newsletter about GM performance parts. You may have seen his tech editor byline in Popular Hot Rodding and Car Craft. He worked at Edelbrock as a phone tech representative, media contact plus various tech assignments. At the start of the dot com boom, he was hired as a consultant for CarParts.com.
His first modified car was a Pinto fitted with a Lotus twin cam head. Over the decades, there was a 69 Hugger Orange Z/28, a Buick Regal T-Type, pickups, and 5.0 Mustangs. He built engines.
Meeting him, he was bigger than life combined with a huge smile and a ready handshake.
Enthusiasts -vehicle make is immaterial- and people who knew him have lost a car guy wrapped in a gentle soul.
Our sincerest condolences to all of his friends and family
R. I. P.
Jim passed yesterday morning, at his home near San Antonio, TX. He was a very close friend of mine for nearly 40 years. We worked together at Popular Hot Rodding in the '80s, and stayed in touch in the decades since.
I visited him last Sept, and he had recently had a tough run of luck. His house burned down, he had a stroke and a heart attack, and broke his foot so severely that he wasn't allowed to walk for many months. But, he still had his giant mischievous grin and hardy laugh.
We recounted dozens of our often crazed fast-driving competitions, on the track and off. The time he passed me on a Michigan Interstate by speeding through a rest stop at over 80 mph, deftly avoiding vehicles and humans, and managing to merge back onto the highway ahead of me, is something I can't even explain. But, he did it.
I used to say that Jim could make a car do things it was never designed to do. That was his usual driving style: Foot to the floor, his big ham-hands thrashing away at the steering wheel, and simply driving more loose than hooked-up. As you can imagine, riding with him was a dashboard-gripping experience.
Jim liked to play the role of a tough guy (his forearms were nearly as big as the average guy's thigh) but he was actually a wonderful fellow with a heart of gold.
RIP, Jimmy, my ol' friend.