Description
Billy Arnold was an American championship automobile racing driver best known for winning the 1930 Indianapolis 500. Active during the late 1920s and early 1930s, he competed in AAA Championship Car racing, representing the daring, mechanically adventurous spirit of early American motorsport before retiring young after injuries and changing racing. This scarce, promotional flyer advertises not only a live appearance, but it also promises attendees a free screening of Hell Drivers “in motion and sound”—a wonderful snapshot of early Depression-era motorsport promotion and dealership spectacle.
Hell Drivers was an early-1930s sound-era racing short featuring real automobile competition footage. Shown as a promotional attraction rather than a narrative film, it emphasized speed, danger, and engine noise, capitalizing on the novelty of synchronized sound to bring the spectacle of modern motor racing to live audiences. There is no widely documented surviving print of Hell Drivers in major public film archives, and it’s not in commercial circulation. If a copy survives at all, it’s likely in a private collection, on a mislabeled reel, or in an uncatalogued archive holding.
Ephemeral survival of this kind was never the point; examples like this were meant to be posted, handled, and then tossed in the trash after the event. Today, it stands as a rare survivor tied to American open-wheel racing history, Route 66–era Arizona, and the showmanship that surrounded early automotive heroes.
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