As shown here, there were three names for Ultra Van Club’s newsletters and here is that story:
UVMCC newsletters started as “Ultra Club News”, “Club News”, “Club Bulletin”, etc. But it wasn’t too long before they were just sent out without any title. In 1995, Jim Howell took over the UVMCC club’s newsletter. In 1999 he went from quarterly to bimonthly, and then in 2000 he converted it to the “Ultra sounder”. By 2004, he went back to quarterly. When the clubs merged (see Group Ultra Van (GUV) below), he was ready to retire. The Ultra sounder name was retired with him.
Group Ultra Van (GUV) (story here) became a separate club in 1982 and published a newsletter titled “Whales on Wheels (WoW)”. The last GUV WoW was Oct 2005 when GUV merged with UVMCC. Jim Isbell was GUV WoW editor at the time of the merger and continued publishing WOW under the combined organization. The first UVMCC WoW was Jan 2006.
UVMCC Whales on Wheels (WoW)
Old Cars Golden Quill Award
2021 – Editor, Molly Bacon
2022 – Editor, Molly Bacon
CORSA Chapter Newsletter Award
2019 – 3rd Place – Editor, Molly Bacon
2014 – 3rd Place – Editor, Brenda Standal
The two latest newsletters are withheld for the club members. Consider joining UVMCC here and keep up with the latest Ultra Van news.
The origin of the name Ultra Sounder. (From Norm Helmkay’s son, Grant)
Dad suggested the name of Ultra Sounder for consideration of the newsletter name at the Sept 1999 National Rally in Ruidoso Downs, NM. The name had come up earlier that year when Dad and I were on our way to the Indy 500. He mentioned they were looking for a name for the newsletter and did I have any ideas. I blurted out the name Ultra Sounder with the thinking of the Ultras being referred to as Whales on Wheels, plus whales using ultrasonic sounds to talk to each other, and newsletters being a communication media format. He actually got really excited about it, almost yelling it out “that’s perfect” and he’d pass it along as a name. I guess the rest is history in that it won the vote for the name change.