Keep On Truckin’
John Taylor enjoys high level
of success in pair of pickups
By Van Abernethy | Photographs by Van Abernethy and Bryan Epps
J
ohn Taylor vividly recalls those
exhilarating radio spots he used to hear as
a kid growing up in New Jersey, where the
iconic sounds of “Sunday, Sunday...SUN-
DAY!” blasted across the airwaves in a sen-
sory overload that detailed upcoming events at
Englishtown. Ironically, though, Taylor never
once laid eyes on Old Bridge Township Raceway
Park, because his scenery changed dramatically
in 1969 when at age 14 his family relocated to
Naples, Florida, where Taylor still resides to this
present day.
To be certain, the life-changing move was never
questioned for a second. “Naples is so beautiful, I
loved the place immediately and I’ve never want-
ed to leave here,” he says with assurance. Taylor
finished out his last few years of high school in
Florida, and began tinkering with his daily driver,
a 1970 Camaro. It was right about then Taylor
would meet Mike Thompson, a local gearhead
who would eventually become a well-known en-
gine builder along Florida’s Gulf Coast. The two
May 2018
made fast friends and amazingly, Thompson is
still building engines for John 45 years later!
It all started with John’s high school Camaro,
on which they performed an engine swap with
a Z28 car that was acquired. Certain sparsely
populated areas of Florida created some street
racing hot spots in the early 1970s and Taylor
found himself to be a usual suspect of the prac-
tice. When he finally did venture out to enjoy
drag racing on the organized level, Taylor, then
17, drove his Camaro across the opposite side of
the Sunshine State to visit a track just outside
Miami in the town of Hialeah.
“We used to throw our slicks in the trunk and
back seat and head off to Hialeah to race our
cars, not giving a second thought to how we’d
get home if we broke our cars!” Taylor laughs.
He and his newly-made friends were regulars at
the track in Hialeah until the facility shut down
sometime in the 1970s. “After that, I started fol-
lowing some NHRA stuff and I used to drive up
to Gainesville to the Gatornationals to watch
Mike and his brother Tony race.”
Taylor eventually sold his Camaro at age 21
to buy his first house, and he would later take
an even more drastic approach at responsibility
when he briefly left the sport of drag racing so he
could launch Taylor Elevator in 1991. The elevator
business is a unique occupation, one that began
for Taylor in 1972 when he went to work for one
of his good friend’s father. “Me and a buddy went
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