Hot Rods Gasser pickups/suburbans

Ah yes, the in cab Moon tank. This was in my dad's '56 Ford blown 312 truck before the ban. He would have been about 23 at the time of the ban in '60. I'm sure it seemed like a good idea at the time...Easy access to pressurize the tank.

 

Panel truck

 

I don't know the who, what, where and when.

 

I'm 62 years old and hear some of you other old farts swear this or that never happened when I know damned well it did because I saw it many times back in the day. Maybe it wasn't an NHRA thing or a West Coast thing but...

There were a lot of cars AND TRUCKS that sat a mile high in the front. I remember in my neighborhood alone a 58 Ford that was a mile high, a Henry J and a 41 Dodge truck with a shortened box.

 

Were they NHRA legal race cars?

 

[Englishtown, New JerseyQUOTE="Gary Reynolds, post: 11825493, member: 52251"][/QUOTE]

 

Well this is about G***er's, and G***er's were and are race cars. Period. Yes the original rules said the cars had to be street legal, and it slowly morphed away from that although we ran my Anglia on the street into the 90's with plates and questionable legality.
So let's see some picture proof of these creations racing on a drag strip. If not they were just Street Freaks. Just because some Yahoo jacked up a car, doesn't make it a G***er and THAT is what we are trying to convey to the folks that just don't know as versus those that are trying to rewrite history to suit their whims. Remember the rules said no more than 24" from the ground to crank centerline - so if it was a "Mile High" it wasn't legal and it wasn't a G***er!

 

Absolutely. I remember cars with injection or multiple carburetors running 2 paper boxes!

- EM

 

There was a LOT of g***er activity back in the day that wasn't NHRA. AHRA and independent match racing were just as popular. No-one here set "must be NHRA legal" as a requirement for posts and pictures on the thread. The OP asked for some examples and likely meant Wagon when he stated Suburban. There were many g***ers that ran pie crust slicks, white wall pie crust slicks, 4x4 stance, nose high stance, fuel tanks out front and white headers. Hell, some groups allowed altered wheelbase in the "G***er" cl***. Tunnels ram like intakes were not uncommon in the lower gas cl***es, of course the large plenum style intakes (Box) were prone to blowing up but that adds to the entertainment. Hell ... the Malicote brothers ran a twin turbo sbc with blow through carbs in B/GS in 1965.

Would whitewall pie crusts with a nose high stance be an example for a mid 60's truck "G***er" - probably not, but for some one to create an example of what might have been... why the hell not? (Besides the fact white wall pie crusts are ugly). Does it fit with the site's vision and mission statement of "traditional" probably not. But the site moderators have let the odd ball stuff in and have let it stay

I fully agree that today's definition of a "g***er" is anything with a straight axle or what we used to categorize as a street freak back in the 70's and 80's. I fully agree that some education is warranted. Events like the Meltdown Drags, 100 Car Heads Up, SE G***ers and other Vintage events do a lot to promote the real deal.


Sorry - not a truck or panel - but certainly 4x4 stance


Who hasn't built this model ?? (Again - sorry it isn't a truck or panel)

 

Sigh.....Gas cl*** cars may have been "high", but you will note that the NHRA cars are LEVEL, READ THE DAMN RULES! This is just silly and boring. READ THE RULEBOOKS !
The actual rules settle this once and for all, if you ran NHRA.

Here they are: THE REAL RULES!
http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/nhra-rule-books-1958-present.870742/

Read them, the "car must sit level", "cannot be raised" Maximum 24 inch height crankshaft centerline", etc, not what you "think", "remember", or what your buddy says", READ THE RULES!!
Picture of restorations, recreations, modern cars, STREET cars etc mean ZIP, nada, nothing. Anybody can build anything. READ THE ACTUAL RULES for traditional, in the context of the HAMB, 1960's gas cl*** race cars.

 

And AHRA pretty much mimicked this. Sure other things happened at non sanctioned tracks, and small tracks combined different cl*** cars to make a field - that's why you sometimes saw an Altered or A/FX type car with a Gas designation - they felt it was better than Not racing, but that still didn't make them Gas Cl*** Race Cars.

 

So I ask again - where in the original post did it state "Must be NHRA" ?? Hey sorry... "AHRA pretty much mimicked this" is not an argument stopper. My point here is, there are examples of all kinds of stances and combinations run in the gas cl***es at a variety of sanctioned and non sanctioned events. Why are you demanding the examples be limited to NHRA ??

 

I believe y'all are overlooking the most traditional aspect of all. Racers and hotrodders BREAKING the rules. I don't think anybody running or building a car seriously considered job #1 to be adhering to the rules like a stickler on race day. In painting an accurate picture of history, I would not use the Goody 2 Shoes brush too broadly. 'Cause it was not like all that.

 

BACK TO THE TRUCKS 1964 INDY

 

NHRA NATIONALS 1963

 

Gene's car- shown here in 1965 doesn't look particularly high, or nose up even under launch

 

At some point you just gotta realize that this place is 98% know-nothing's and ******** artists and cut your losses. This is why any post with "327" or "what carb should I use" or "g***er" just isnt worth posting on. I was gonna do a thread on the genesis of the gas cl*** about a month ago, even started scanning stuff. After a while I thought " **** it, it will just get hi-jacked by guys with an agenda, I don't even want to give them a platform" and s****ped the idea. They don't want to know. They wanna build their circus wagons and the unwashed m***es ooh and ahh. The current g***er thing has nothing to do with any kind of respect for the history, it's more about pulling the gold teeth out of the corpse. There's no more point in arguing with them than you would with the guy at the cruise night telling you about his uncles Roadrunner with the 383 six pack hemi.

 

Well the term G***ER comes from Gas Cl*** race cars. Plain and simple. And the Gas Cl***es were started by the NHRA and then adopted by other sanctioning bodies. If you didn't adhere to these rules you weren't racing a G***er. The people who decided that it was cool to copy the look for a street car and then turn them into cartoons did Not have G***er's - that had street cars with a lose interpretation and eventually the name Street Freak was coined for these tings. If you want to call a car a G***er, it pretty much needs to adhere to the foundation at minimum, otherwise A) history is lost and B) any piece of **** with a straight axle and nose in the air becomes the accepted definition for generations that weren't there or don't care to study the history. And then we get This as a "G***er"

Or this


And if the HAMB is about Tradition and preserving the history than this cannot be acceptable!

 

I really wish folks would post informative reviews and educational information on how it was back in the day. Then maybe we wouldn't get so many clown cars. I am in total and complete support of opposing the current street freak fad of calling anything with a straight axle - a g***er. Too many S-10s Malibu,s and even current models being p***ed off as a g***er simply because the dropped a speedway axle under it and strapped a fuel tank to the front end.

Before you write off the current trend (which will never go away, sort of like the term Nozz) - be supportive of the efforts to re-define the term "g***er" back to what it was. Groups like the Meltdown Drag ***ociation, Great Lakes G***ers and Nostalgia G***ers to name a few, try to keep the street freaks out and stay true to form. Compe***ion groups like the South East G***ers (who live by the 1968 rule book) Ohio G***ers and AA/Gas are making waves against the current crop of clown cars. Dozens of cars are being built to meet the standards and the compe***ion is fierce and incredibly entertaining.

Don't give up hope.
We need all the help we can get

 

If you really want to help, how about pointing out the cars posted on this thread as "justification" that aren't g***ers. Hell there's a ton of them, there's one right on this page, and I am not talking about Dons obvious joke post. Personally, I know when I am being patronized. Post your own thread, I, for one, decided some time ago that I won't help the history that I grew up with and respected be used to springboard some ******** agenda.

 

I realize that some divisions within the 2 or 3 major sanctioning bodies of the day may have been more "sticklers" to the rules than others back then but it's all in satisfying the "tech. guy of the day".
The smart (serious) racers aren't gonna be spending all their time and money building a car if there is a chance it's gonna get bounced at tech-in (on a regular basis).
I think it was the guys that weren't "serious" racers that were screwing together some of those contraptions that many people think were the real gas cl*** cars of that period.

 

This has been done to death on the HAMB.
Search!
Here'sjust one!
http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/gas-g***er-rules.334715/

For you guys that just don't get it, the HAMB isn't about 70's street freaks just because they use rusty coupe (or pickup) bodies, it's a 60's cutoff! NOT the 70's the 80's or 90's! That's for ANOTHER SITE, not this one. Taking an old, rusted out car and racing WAS NOT the typical g***er AT ALL, not even close!
You COULD call 'em altereds, dragsters or go carts, it's incorrect and wrong no matter how popular or how many people do it.
Who says it's NHRA? The HUGE, VAST number of racers and tracks, that's who.
There are exceptions to every rule, it's pointless to post exceptions.
FACTS ARE FACTS, TRADITIONAL IS TRADITIONAL and the past has a HISTORICAL RECORD.
Sorry, you weren't around to get it! SOME OF US WHERE!

 

Yeah, white wall pie crust cheater slicks didn't exists either.

 

That's NOT what the HAMB is about> That's why Ryan doesn't allow street rods and street machines, muscle cars etc. IT AIN'T HAMB WORTHY! LOL! You are missing the point!

 

See the big C'ALTERED on it? ALTERED, no fenders, jacked up!
ALTERED, NOT IN THE GAS CL***ES then or now!
In all three pictures , an ALTERED! LOL C/ALTERED!!!!!!!!!!
FAIL!
Weren't a drag racer, were you!

 

Oh LOOKIE HERE!
The STILL LIVING Gene Adams World beating 50 Oldsmobile G***ER, B/G***er to be exact.
RIP Gene.
The March ’58 issue of HRM featured Adams’ oblique B/Gas ’50 Olds fastback sedan. I had to laugh—in March ’58, I was in the eighth grade making bean with bacon soup out of a can… and just beginning to sniff exhaust pipes. Adams was busy grinding up speed records at the Okey City Nationals (111.24 mph) and the Santa Ana drags (112.77 mph). In those days, nobody gave a hoot about how long it took to do it; elapsed time wasn’t even a factor. The highlight of the two-page spread was a GMC-supercharged 370-inch Olds motor. Gene had sunk the pockets in the polished combustion chambers with cut-down Chrysler exhaust valves (1-¾-inch to 11-1/16) and GMC 1-7/8-inch intake valves. Then he welded dividers into the siamesed exhaust ports so the spent gases from the two middle combustion chambers were channeled separately, thus producing a mild tuning effect.

 

Not "G***ERS"

 

Funny thing is how little it took to have a gas cl*** car. If I remember correctly. A 55 Chevy for example. With a 265 engine and no changes it was a stock cl*** car. Put a 283 in the same car and it was Modified Production. Take the front bumper off either car and it had to run Gas cl***.

 

Yep, it was a little more complicated than that, but you are correct.
It all has to do with MODIFICATIONS to "street " cars.

 

One of our own HAMB'ers G***ER from the 1960's
LOOK at it, it's stance .

Gee, it even has a license plate and lights!