Technical Willys That DIDN'T run a Hemi

That's the car,pictures are elusive at best for me so thank you for posting this.
Jack has a engineering degree and modeled the rear suspension from a jaguar design he found in a sae paper he had read years prior to the build.
It used a open olds diff,and canceled the spider gears by means of a torque arm placed in a specified spot determined by the gear ratio.
This and many other details show what a true innovator he was and still is.
There is a radiator in the front not used for water but fuel,cooled as mph increased. Helped on the hot days running on gasoline.
To this day I will visit his shop where he goes and still works with his son Scott 6 days a week and always leave learning at least one thing before I leave.

 

Barbra Hamilton

 

Safeway Sandblasting Willys.

 

This one ran a 482" Dodge.

 

Now, that is splitting hairs a bit isn't it??? Still a Hemi, just not a Chrysler Hemi......

 

I guess i wasn't thinking about that when i posted.

 

This is mine raced in California through the sixties and ran a olds engine

 

The Bill Carroll and Roger Taylor Drag Racing Team campaigned a small block Chevy, Hilborn injected '40 Willys gasser in the sixties, winning the Indy Nationals in 1966. I'm told by Bill that this photo was taken around 1967. Bill (driver) and Roger (wrench) are sitting on the push truck behind the Willys.

 

A favorite of mine because it was run by a couple brothers about 20 miles from where I grew up. Car competed at Indy several times and I believe won their class one year(but I can't recall for certain). The Grove Boys Gladiator Willys out of Fort Dodge, IA. In the early '60s the car had a 394 olds then later switched to a 427 Chevy. Car was found in the desert a number of years ago and restored to 427 configuration.
Pic is of the 427 configuration. Somewhere(perhaps on the Iowa Dragstrips thread) there is a pic with the Olds and steel front end.

 

Flathead powered.

 

Bing's Speed Shop.

 

One we worked on in High School Auto Shop 1973

 

This one was raced in the 60's by my good friend who's passed away a few years ago now. I can't remember all the details, but I know it had ran a small block Chevy at one point and a 430 Lincoln at another. When my friend got the car back in the 90's he built a 534 big block ford for it. He ran a 4 spd toploader and it ran hard.

 

The guys at Customs and Hot Rods of Andice are restoring the ‘33 with the Cammer in it.
https://www.customsandhotrodsofandice.com/project_gallery/33-willys-gasser

 

Found it, in Miami!
https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/41-willys-gasser-found.1339035/

 

low 13s

 

Hello,

Most Gas Coupes in the early days of the late 50s at Santa Ana Drags and the Lion’s Dragstrip had cars that were modified with flathead or SBC motors. The flathead came with a lot of models and modifying them was a process, but hardly any difficulties in design was had. Then came the multitude of engine mounts for SBC motors into all sorts of chassis and early hot rod cars.

There was not a shop in So Cal that did not have a set of motor mounts for an SBC motor in a Ford Chassis or any of the early models. Where did the motor mounts come from? The early ones were homemade. The later ones were made by companies as part of their mechanical parts and supplies for all cars to make a motor change. Size and fit were the two main things that tended to favor flatheads and SBC motors.

Since one of our teenage friends had an early Olds Motor in his 34 Ford Coupe in 1958, then a different build was on my brother’s plate. That and Joe Reath trying to sell us his finished built up flathead motor. He realized that when we got started with an SBC motor, that was going to be the start of a long distance build thread and tons of new parts required. So, he and his mechanics taught us the basics of high performance power from the SBC motors. Our first was a 283.
It is always nice to drive back to the speed shop to show what was finished, in order to race at Lion's Dragstrip.

Starting in December 1959, after months of building and putting together our 1940 Willys Coupe and the 283, it ran fine for a street legal hot rod and still competitive in the class. But, what a class it was. Jr. Thompson, K.S. Pittman, Gene Adams, etc. So, they had to have street legal hot rods, too. If my brother wanted to drive the 283 SBC powered Willys Coupe to school, then he just needed final upholstery and paint. Otherwise, it was a good running set up until the top dogs came into the elimination lanes with their competition race cars.


Fully street legal as per specs, but, who could imagine seeing the black 41 Studebaker sedan of Junior Thompson sitting outside of your high school window parking spot. Or the red 41 Willys Coupe of K.S. Pittman driving around on the Bixby Knolls streets, plus coming into the parking lot hot spots during this time period. It could have happened, but likely not. They were street legal in paper only and the class absorbed the rest of the rules.

Jnaki

We then stepped up our build and added a new 292 c.i. blower spec SBC motor with all new parts and a 671 supercharger, plus an Isky-Gilmer belt drive. It, too, was a street legal driven on the streets of Bixby Knolls for a couple of weekends.

But, by 1964, there were no more Gas Coupes/Sedans that drove to the dragstrip to race with their header pipes opened. The remaining class stars had full competition only race cars that looked like the normal street hot rod, but were not daily drivers as the class was originally set up…YIKES!

So, with the competition using SBC motors, Oldsmobile motors and some ohv Ford Motors, the racing was fierce. It was that way until a Hemi motor showed up that changed it for daily street legal drivers. Then, within a year or two, the street legal classes disappeared for good and then it was a two vehicle fuel dragsters and funny car racing, or so- called drag racing… YRMV

 

Gene Cromer ran Fords.