History Stock-S/S-F/X 1959-1966

Well; there's some pictures finally! I'm only using the tunnel ram to fit the motor; it'll run Hilborn's or if I can come up with the money, a 6-71. I've got some really nice fenders I'm borrowing from Doug "Dr. Dodge" Dutra, and making new tooling to build several versions of these fenders, since '66 Dart fenders (like '64 Fairlane's) were a one year item. The fenders on this car will be stretched eight inches, and altered four inches. to match the 12" stretched front chassis.

 

Nice start!Are you going to move the rear forward also?

 

Looks great! Nice to see it being done like they used to in later '65-6-7. My two cents is go with the injectors ... the long tubes are so emblematic of the times. Keep us abreast of the progress on it. Thanks for posting.
Joel

 

Not going to move the rears forward. At least for a time, Charlie allen's car had the rear wheels in the stock position with just a stretched nose, and I decided I've altered enough rear wheelbases that I don't need the practice. If I started with a cherry Dart, I probably would have. But the factory frame rails had already been moved inboard, and I had put the original roll bar set up in there for my wife to run it with a slant 6. I decided to just add to the areas I hadn't already covered ground upon.
I know what you mean about long stcks, I love 'em too, but I love the lurching sound of a blower, and the power at the hit of the throttle! Time will tell!
I'm not really going to worry about getting this thing to hook up, I want the nostalgia tires on it, and if it just fries them through first, so be it, we'll mile per hour it through! ( My drag bike spun like crazy through first, ran slow et's; high mph's., 7 flat at 192)

 

All sounds great ... there's that great shot of Charlie Allen doing a wheels-up burnout with his door open ... great stuff! love the F/X-funny stuff based on real steel body cars.
Joel

 

Right! One of the images that makes me love these cars. Charlie's '66 Dart is one of my favorite drag cars of all time, it just looks right. I would've bought Cragars if they weren't all uni-lug these days. I found a great pair of wheels on eBay, and I'm just tickled with them, they are perfect. I'm going to polish the bead area on them and leave the patina on the rest. Not phoney patina; real aging on an original old set of 15X10 Ansens. One thing different on my is that the Ramchargers, Dick Landy, and Bud Faubel all used some of the first straight axles I ever saw in this catagory, with coil over sprung axles rather than some sort of leaf springs. Mine is just using standard leaf springs. Of course, Landy's and the Ramchargers and I think Charlie a bit later; also used a rectangular tube chassis.

 

Currently for sale at Hemmings.com:

http://www.hemmings.com/classifieds/carsforsale/plymouth/unspecified/638948.html

 

You know it's real expensive when they don't list a price! If ya' gotta ask....

 

Harold Ramsey from National Dragster 9/22/61. Ramsey was one of the fastest S/S cars in the East from the earliest days of S/S racing winning the NHRA 1959 Stock Eliminator at the Detroit Nationals that year in a 1957 270 Chevy. After the Chevy he ran Pontiacs until about 1964. I've not seen many shots of this '61 car. Note in the caption who was the Goodyear rep.!
Joel

 

Jim Price from the Pacific NW region was a strong runner with his 401 Ford in 1961. He ran a succession of Ford S/S cars including a T-Bolt in '64.
Joel

 

I bought this shot from drag photog Gordon Miller but he had no information on the car ... a blown '63 Ford lightweight at Pomona, the year I believe is late 1964 or 1965. Anyone know anything on this car and who's S/S it was originally?
Joel

 

How many altered wheelbase cars have you built?

 

Three. Two '65 Plymouths, and one '58 Dodge (don't ask)

 

Harold was a heck of a racer!

The GoodYear guy Made Good huh?

 

I'm still hoping a few pics of my dads Pontiac will show up here. He ran a 62 Catalina for Anderson Pontiac with Vanke. The cars were identical. Vanke had the 421 and my dad had the 389.

 

Any photos?I'd kinda like to see the 58.

 

No. I moved my company frm Oklahoma to Kentucky last year. It's been the first time I used a professional mover, but I needed to because I moved five families lock, stock, and barrel all at once. I told the movers I didn't care what they tore up or lost, just take care of my pictures. The only boxes that didn't show up in Kentucky were all of my photos, family, car, aircraft, all of them except a couple of small checkbook sized boxes which happened, by accident, to be in other boxes. So all of my racing photos, from 1963 on; gone. All of our cars we've built, gone. My aircraft photos, well, you get the idea. My brother still has some boxes not opened from the move that might have some mixed in with it; we'll see. I do have some old racing and S/S and F/X pictures in my big mainframe computer which I'll hook up here in a short while and get posting them. I will tell you we didn't have a single picture of the '58 Dodge with the altered wheelbase, or our '48 Austin America more door with an early hemi in the front seat and driven from the rear seat.

 

Hello everyone, this is a question for Wally Bell or any other of the real racers from the early 60's. What kind of saftey measures did you take for clutch and or flywheel explosions? I know in the mid 60's they had cast scattershields and in the latter 60's hydroformed but did they have these in the very early 60's.

 

Randy..
RC Industries had a "blowout proof" bellhousing..thick aluminum
or
quarter inch steel shield molded by hand was used by many (us included) ( per rulebook)
blowin' the clutch...happened a lot back then.....

 

Wally is right. There was a clutch problem back then. All the Dick Harrell cars that were 409 or 427 or bigger had Aluminum scatter shields. We used Hays clutches and had pretty good luck with them.

Some guys that had access to water well pipe would cut a 36" or 40" piece of well pipe about 24 to 30 inches long and use half the cut to cover the bell housing on top. Some would weld ears on it so that they could bolt it to something to keep it from falling off the car.

A friend did the pipe thing one time on a 55 Chevy with a hot 327 roller cam tunnel ram. We went to Carlsbad, NM and second run the clutch blew. He has a foot today because of the well pipe..

Dicks cars were always NHRA legal so he would have no problems running any where he went.
Larry

 

I know Vanke had two cars(at least) in 1962 ... one was the 421 and another was a convertible I believe. There was a magazine from back in '63-64 that had a feature showing both cars. I can't recall the magazine though. What is your father's name?
Joel

 

I think ansen had a saftey shield also I had a '64 comet with a small block that ran e/modified or e/xs, a blowproof shield was required along with a driveshaft loop and a saftey cable under the engine in case a motor mount broke. they had some rules that were qustioned,but after a while they made sense.later matt

 

Ansen had a cast two piece shield. It had NHRA approved cast into the bottom of the shield. The bottom was held on by 4 on half inch in diameter bolts. It was declared illegal at a later date. Too many of the racers were leaving the bottom off during competition. Lake wood actually made a two piece housing that was legal for a while. It was constructed in a way the two bottom trans bolts went through the removeable bottom. If any one happens to have one of those please post a photo of it.

 

Do you know if that Ansen bell came bare steel or painted orange? I've seen 2 used originals that were painted, but I wonder how they came new? (need to find out for sure before York)
thanks
Verne

 

Here is an old ad, doesn't look like it. Neither the aluminum or maganese steel RC scattershields were painted.

Regards,
Dennis

 

Ansen

CC

 

Thanks a lot Looks like dull silver paint. I'd be surprised if they were sold bare.
Verne

"If 7-11s are open 24 hours, why do they have locks on the doors?"

George Carlin....RIP

 

Chuck McJury's AWB '65 come '66 NASCAR U/S Dodge at the third S/S Nationals 1967 at Cecil County, MD. The car was the re-bodied '65 factory car of Dave Strickler and Bill Stiles. Upper right just visible in the back is Kenny Vogt's NASCAR '66-7 Comet with a SOHC motor that nearly won the event but red-lighted to Tommy Grove in the final. As I recall Kenny and his yellow Comet had Grove covered with the handicap too. I believe Kenny said that the car rolled in the lights.
Joel

 

Another ex-factory AWB Mopar. Vernon Rowley's (Buckeye & Vernon) ex Sox & Martin's original Plymouth now in NASCAR trim. Behind the '65 car is Vernon Rowley's ex-S&M '66 Barracuda.
I believe the deck lid in the foreground is the Al Lewis '62 409 Impala.
Next to the first S/S Nationals in '65 this meet at Cecil was the best drag race event that I ever saw.
Joel

 

The Ansen I had was not painted.