History Drag cars in motion.......picture thread.

I think that this Corvair (with injected big block Chevy power) was probably the first of a long series of wheelstanders for Roy Trevino. There was also an El Camino (Rare Bear 111 with a blown L-88), a VW buggy body based car and finally a second generation S-10.

Roo

 

Thanks mate! Mystery solved.

Roo

 

Well I didn't think that would have gotten by you so easily but I only saw that web site URL ending with ".au" so I thought just maybe...

 

"The Judge" , 3 window coupe of King Speed Shop launches at US30 Gary Indiana.

 

Looks like a tight fit in that roll cage...

 

I'll post a couple of pictures of the last two drag cars my dad Jerry Lipori constructed along with partner Steve Malise at their Brooklyn, Speed & Machine shop in NY. Steve was a dealer principal at Mid-County Buick-Opel in Brooklyn and during his time at General Motors Institute (GMI) in Detroit, he would hang out with the Logghe boys so the chassis in Ingenue is pretty much a straight-up Logghe copy.

The Buick is of course a ultra rare piece, the body was made by Ron Pellegrini of Fiberglass Limited fame in Chicago, it's one of two built (the other was Ron's Super Bird which didn't lift and was 392 Hemi-powered) and the only one in existence...it remains to this day the World's only Buick-powered Buick funny car ever built.

I have both of these car currently, Ingenue is 2/3rds completed, working on building a nitro cackling 430 as we speak, the dragster will have to wait it's turn...check out the website on Ingenue recently constructed by Clare "Jungle" Sanders, complete history on both Buick-bodied floppers is there: www.buickfunnycar.com










I've got plenty more of the funny car but we'll move on to the dragsters for now...the one that started it all is the AA/C they first constructed in 1965, dad's the tall one and Steve is in the car, photo taken outside of Mid-County Buick, snow still on the ground. Dad's thing was to run 8-71 blowers, so all of his cars (including Ingenue) ran them...

Freshly built with a wedge motor, car wasn't even painted yet...


Next up was this 157" AA/GD in blue metal flake, the boys realized they could hook up the power and decided a longer wheelbase was in order...car had a custom hat that dad constructed.

Then it was on to the last one built in late '67, the "Gold Car", 168" wheelbase and powered by a late Hemi, one of the very first on the east coast, magnesium body by Tom Hanna...this is the car I currently have:







Dad ran in a circuit with the Lynch Brothers, the Shott Brothers, Ed Moses, Joe Gerdleman and a few others, here's a handout for track officials:

Only dragster (AA/GD & AA/FD) in the country to run a 8-71 blower...ran 7.67 @ 198 right off the trailer:

Ed Moses & Bill Pecorale:

The Shott Brothers:

John Levins & Holly Santos:

Joe Gerdleman & Eric Fooder:

Billy & Bobby Lynch...still talk to Billy every few weeks:



Top speed of the event...

 

A few more,AA/C photo by Charles Milikin Jr:






Dad always made his own tanks...

Both cars have uber-rare M/T magnesium center sections:

 

Good to see you back Buickfunnycar haven't seen any updates in your thread here on the HAMB in a long time.

 

Bill Thomas



Bill's Speed Shop



Bliss Weney & Bliss



Chris Karamesines



Cox & Gott

 

Bean Bandits, looks like Paradise Mesa. This was Paul Schieffer's lakes modified roadster, which would later get reconfigured as a rear-engine modified roadster, run by Henslee and Cook (Emery Cook was Joaquin Arnett's brother-in-law)


SoCal roadster, looks like Paradise Mesa...from the Dode Martin collection.



Not sure if there is an earlier picture of Willie Borsch driving the Harrell Engines roadster.


Early Paradise Mesa, looks like a flathead 4



Caption is wrong, Gorman ran a Studebaker....


Here is another shot of Bob Gorman's modified, Bantam body, '40 Ford hoods for a nose, still flathead powered here.



Early rear-engine car, no i.d.

 

Vintage car, very modern photo.

 

Dick Swecker



Don Prudhomme



Dougs Headers Chevy II much



Fearless Fred Forkner Atlantic Speed Center




again

 

Unidentified - US 30, Gary, Indiana.

 

Hello,
Nice photo... Here is version 1.5 back in 1959-60. It was something else to see this "monster" on a trailer, let alone going down the strip. Pure showmanship for the times...
Jnaki
(as the thread says, drag cars in motion...)

 

Ganes & Maurino Dragsters Unlimited



Gas House Gang



Gunther Bros SB Ford Power




Interesting pair of dualies

 

The car in the far lane is the Schoen, Foos and Tibboles "Hurry Up-The 111" with a 301 Chevy backed by an Olds. The car was originally built in 1958 but as the near lane car is Ivo's side by side double the photo may be from Ivo's 1960 tour where Don Prudhomme was his crew guy. You can read more about both cars at this excellent website; http://twotogo.homestead.com/

Roo

 

Interesting photo by Roger Phillips from Ontario Motor Speedway where the pit road became the drag strip once a year. The photo is from 1971 and the 2nd Annual Supernationals. Walt Rhoades in the near lane and about to lose to John Wiebe with a 6.80 to Kansas John's 6.58. This was the first race for the brand new Donovan 417 engine and Wiebe had only one half pass on it prior to this event but still managed to set low e.t. of the event on Saturday evening .

Roo

 

The Orange County Metal Processing car at Lions. Originally campaigned by Madden and Yates for OCMP owner Jack Flatley it was run in late 63-early 64 by the Frantic Four guys. Weekly drove (for a percentage of the winnings) and Fox and Holding were paid by Flatley to build and maintain the motor. The team continued to run their own car at the same time and at one point put that in the #1 spot on the 1320 Drag News list (at Pomona) while putting this car in the #8 spot at Ramona during the same week. When Flately had had enough they returned the car to him and it was sold to Val LaPorte who managed to sink it in the water at the end of Lakeland Dragway in Florida.

Roo

 

Hi Roo

After Big John passed at Ramona Ron & Dennis Winkle ran the OCMP car for awhile for the plating company

 

Thanks mate! I really appreciate the extra background information. In most of the cases from this time period I have to rely on what has been published as I did not get to this side of the planet until 1984. I have spent enough time with guys like Gary Densham (lived at his Bellflower house and toured with him in the summer of '84) to hear a lot of the stories but most of them are from a bit later than the front motor era. We ran a photo of the car when La Porte owned it in my Retro Rewind feature in Traditional Rod and Kulture a while back.

Roo

 

Ron Bizio vs Big John's "Football Austin" -- Irwindale



Texas drag racing...Caddo Mills??



Brockter & Bonthaller, at Santa Maria


Jim Busby's first drag car, which he ran with John Thurber, at right...Busby was 15 then.


Busby would go on to much bigger things, here with a trophy at the Winternationals in the Beach Boys car, Hank Westmoreland driving. Hank passed away recently...Jim is still building racing cars, after winning class at the 24 Hours of LeMans.

 

That picture of Bill Jenkins rings a bell. Only time I saw him race this car was at York US30. He was struggling to take the hood off by himself so as a 17 year old I asked if I could help. I tried very carefully not drop it or scratch the side or top as it was going on the roof so he could work on the engine. He goes" just put the F'n thing on the roof." Guess that's why they called him Grumpy!!

 

Got my own little "Grumpy" experience (told here before).
I too was a teenager, barely out of high school, Bill had his first Vega Pro Stocker at Portland International Raceway, waiting in the staging lanes, I noticed one of the deck lid pins was not in place, he noticed my concern and came over to see what was up and I pointed it out and he goes "don't worry about it kid".
Man, how could you not love the Grump!

 

1960 NHRA Nats at Detroit

 

You know he was lettin air out.

 

Thanks, I thought that it probably was (knew that it was Detroit) but could not find any confirmation.

Roo

 

Black Shadow at Connecticut Dragway



Hemi-Bug hauler doing wheelie at Connecticut Dragway



IVO vs Turbonique kart



Jimmy Nix