Tom Medley 1920-2014

Tom Medley, best known as the creator of the hapless and humorous hot hero Stroker McGurk, passed away March 2 of natural causes in Los Angeles at the age of 93.

While Medley was best known for his McGurk character, he was part of the media empire that was Hot Rod magazine from just after its inception until his retirement 37 years later. Medley was a photographer as well as a cartoonist, covering the first Bonneville speed week and the Indy 500 from 1950 to 1964. He was also a publisher at Petersen during the height of the Mad Men era.

But it was as a cartoonist that Medley will likely be best remembered.

Stroker McGurk first appeared as a single-panel cartoon in the second edition of Hot Rod magazine in March 1948. Penned by hot rodder Medley, the strip would appear on and off for 17 more years, chronicling the fast fun and foibles of its namesake racer in a way that connected a generation of rodders across the country.

How he came to cartooning fame involved a bit of serendipity. Medley was a student at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena and would tack up his humorous drawings on the bulletin board of the local Pasadena hot rod builder, Blair's Speed Shop. It was in Blair's that a young publishing entrepreneur named Robert E. “Pete” Petersen saw Medley's work and brought him onboard at Hot Rod as the Humor and Cartoon editor. Medley also created a motorcycle cartoon for Cycle magazine called “Flat Out Snodgrass.”

Medley's son Gary recalled this quote from a profile of his father that he wrote for Goodguys Gazette:

“The idea,” Medley explained in the Best of Hot Rod book published in 1981, ''was to create a character who would become the reader's friend, one they could relate to through his trials and tribulations of just being a hot rodder.”

Medley was born March 20, 1920 in Lebanon, Oregon, from where he sometimes hitchhiked 65 miles to watch the dirt track races in Portland. When the war came he marched across Europe with the 78th Infantry Division, fighting in the Battle of the Bulge and crossing the Bridge at Remagen. After the war he and his bride Rosemary settled in Los Angeles where Medley enrolled at Art Center. It was during that time that his two-dimensional musings first appeared in print.

Son Gary Medley credits his dad's fertile imagination with a number of racing innovations.

“Stroker's - or Medley's - inspired genius came up with a host of crazy ideas that appeared impractical at first but were later adopted by every-day car builders and racers. Multi-engine dragsters, wheelie bars, and drag chutes all sprung from Stroker's fertile mind before they were embraced in the real world.”

The character of McGurk was retired when Medley became publisher of Rod & Custom, where, among many other things, he founded the Street Rod Nationals and coined the phrase “Street is Neat.”

Medley retired from Petersen in 1985 and spent many happy and active years cruising in his 1940 Coupe, racing go karts with his son Gary, and being involved with Goodguys events, most notably presenting the “Stroker McGurk” trophy at the Goodguys West Coast National for “The Most Bitchin' Highboy Roadster.”

But there was still more to him.

“For all his professional accomplishments, he was an even better father,” Gary Medley told us. “He was always my best friend. I will miss him so very much.”

Tom Medley had said that for his generation, those who survived the war, everything after that was “an added bonus.” Not only did he enjoy that bonus, but he enjoyed sharing it throughout his life with so many others.

By Mark Vaughn