Art & Inspiration Why do you like Ford, Chevy, Dodge,etc

Grumpy did pretty well, concidering no G.M. backing

 

A sponsor is a sponsor. As long as you have the dollars behind you and some sort of talent (Grumpy was talented (an understatement) ) it really does not matter where the money comes from.

 

So did Gapp & Roush, Bob Glidden, Don Nicholson.

 

And they did it without the heavy weight break advantage that was given to Jenkins' Vega by NHRA, so the Chebbie could "win"

 

I guess the big blocks weighed a little more than the 327 Grumpy ran against em

 

Educate yourself, look it up. Jenkins was given a huge lbs/ci weight break over just about everybody- SOHCs, Hammys, Clevelands. NHRA did it on purpose to make the Chebbie fans happy so the Chebbie could "win"- but the fix was in. Go ahead, look it up

 

Around 770 lbs. less than a Hemi Belvedere. The L-79 chevy 2 was a high 14 second low 15 second car from the factory. Bill Jenkins was a miracle worker to make it run with the Hemi's.

 

Grumpy won a lot of races before the weight breaks, even built some fast mopars.
NHRA made the rules not Grumpy, just like ALL STAR NASCAR makes the rules

 

There's a difference between reading the rule's and reading thru the rule's...

 

Yep, he had a good career and was a helluva racer- never dais he wasn't. I even bought his book, cause the pistons all go up and down. But in the case of the Vega, the fix was in. Go ahead, look it up. NHRA admitted it on their own website. It was also to reason the Tijuana Taxi was built, got back some of the weight break with the long wheelbase

 

As a Kid in the 60's I was a Chevy guy, still tend to be a GM guy to this day and a SBC guy for sure, had them all from a 265 all the way to a 410 with a few BBC to 454. My Open wheel racing/p***ion/hobby for 21 years, started in Midgets, Chevy II, Sesco/1/2 a Chevy V8, some very successful years using racing VW engines, finished up in wing Sprint cars, all SBC powered. My definition of a Hot Rod is a Ford from a model T through 1940, as an adult through the years I've owned a model A HighBoy Roadster, 32 3 Window, and a 51 Mercury mild Kustom, all SBC powered. My current OT hobby cars, a Camaro Ragtop SBC and a Magnum RT Hemi car, thinking/looking for a Corvette, the only car I never got around to owning and my time is winding down. Like most everyone here I have/had die hard Ford and Mopar friends, it's just a personal preference on the flavor, like ice cream, I like ****er pecan, they are ALL GOOD my friends. Everyone, Have a Great Day !

 

For me it was Don McLean? “Drove my Chevy to the levee”.

 

Everything on the internet is true, I hope everybody knows that.

 

When I was a kid living in PA outside of Philadelphia we used to ride our bikes to a gas station a couple of miles away (Sunoco?) where Grumpy had a Mopar drag car in the rear bay. I can remember looking in the dirty windows at the car on a Sunday when the station was closed (PA had blue laws back then). Must have been 1964 since it was a Mopar not a Chevy and I moved to SoCal in 1966.

 

My dad was a died in the wool Chevy guy, I was raised that way, but I have love modern Ford trucks. But I have had all brands when it come to hotrod or race cars. If its old I really dont care what it is!

 

This could certainly make you a Chevy fan!

 

Lots of "fixin" in pro racing. Hence the term "if you can't beat 'em outlaw 'em!!!"

@MeanGene427 you will appreciate this. I was thinking about racing for a while in a nostalgia sanctioning body. I knew a guy that was racing a dart door slammer in that particular group. They actually had a rule in their books that said, "No MOPAR that was 426 cubic inches in any configuration." he was running a 426 max wedge (gennie) that he punched .010 with custom pistons and do***ented it so they had to let him run.

 

They all have something to offer the world. I enjoy the sound of a dodge rumbling down the road blowing black smoke out of its ***mins, I love the chrome lines on my 55 fairlane how they curl around the body and doors to draw the eye right along the car to the fins and beautiful front grill, I love the comfortable almost cloud like feeling of cruising in my 88 Buick lesabre estate wagon he**** ( so far I have yet to be in a more comfortable smooth car), I love the feeling of power and just sheer raw cool factor of a 1969 Camaro, 66 chevelle, 68 cuda, 69 super bee, and many other muscle cars. It was a time when America was supplying the country with roaring sleek raw muscle. I like Ford square body pickup trucks because they are simple. I’m by no means a mechanic but feel pretty confident that I can fix 95% of what breaks on them. I’ve had many trucks and have just had the most luck with Ford. They constantly break but if you always have a Ford repair fund ready then you will be fine. Almost every maker has a claim to fame. New dodge trucks can pull a small building without straining to much. It doesn’t matter what make you love, it matters that you were here now in this incredibly small time in history, when a person burned ancient dead plants and animals inside a metal box that literally produced fire and explosions to run it down the road. Just get out on the road and remember that this tiny blip in time will soon be over. More and more are going to electric. All our babies will one day rust away and be a footnote in history. Most kids even now will never know how it feels to fly down the road in a 440, 428, or even a nicely built 350. Preserve as many as you can for future generations. Leave your baby in the hands of someone that understands what they really mean to us. The freedom of the late 60s and early 70s, the beautiful hundreds of pounds of chrome and unrivaled style of the 50s, and even some of the late sweet rarities like the legendary Buick Gran National. Most of these cars have meant a lot to someone well before we unearth them. Whether it was an old reliable family car, the muscle car a kid worked so hard to get before going off to war and never coming back, or even just the way someone got to work everyday to support their family. Most of the time we spend more on them than we could ever hope to get back but it’s really preserving history. I guess my point is that no matter what you have, you have a piece of history. Enjoy it, preserve it, and show it off. Finish that old project, or find someone that will. It’s only a matter of time before all the old hot rods, muscle cars, and gas burners are gone. It’s inevitable. Gas will run out one day, and before that they will probably become outlawed. In the race to cool the earth governments are going to get stricter and stricter and we will forever lose this culture of muscle, chrome and freedom.

 

For all the Chebbrainwashed who like to crow about Jenkins' Vega "kicking Hemi ***" lol. Helps if you were around back then when it happened.

https://www.nhra.com/news/2009/history-lesson-book

"To combat the dominance of Sox's Hemi, three weight breaks were added to Pro Stock in 1972 "with an eye for increasing popularity and compe***ion.""

 

And the beat goes on!

 

I got an idea that not being a purist is a blessing for me. I don't base my life on what someone else is doing or done and I am happy as a duck.

Ya know what they say, "ignorance is bliss and I intend to be the blissest mutha on the planet."

 

The old sound things- I don't care for the sound of the pickup ***mins engines, probably from spending so much time with the full-size 855 variations. Much prefer the V8 sound of my 7.3 with 4" exhaust. Sweetest 6-cyl I ever heard was the old REO truck engines- howlers. The Mopar muscle cars with big-blocks had great exhaust systems- even the 440 cop cars of the day sounded great. Part of my love for the 427 Fords is of course the sound- stock, the R-codes with the solid lifters, and uncorked with some compression, just LOUD and nasty. Got hooked in '67 by two cars- a yellow R-code 427-8V '64 Galaxie that was still setting me back in the seat going into 3rd, ran out of room at 110. Second was Ed Lowther's 427 Cobra at Watkins Glen, t******* away at idle. He saw me standing there with my mouth hanging open, waved me over and let me sit in it as it shook and thumped- just like my Galaxie does

 

Not from a car family or even a brand loyal history but early influences were:
'55-'57 Chevvy's = '70's circle track racing + my grandparents and my Aunt had '55's in the '60's/'70's
'18-'48 Ford's = car magazines
'18-'70 Anything = Junkyards!
When I started driving the cheapest and easiest to repair were '60's-'70's Fords... Falcons, Mavericks & Rustnags...but I've owned everything American that was cheap... at one point 15 yrs. or so ago I sold the square body pu, the handwriting was on the wall I had to swallow my pride and pretty much since then all my o/t dd's have been ******** ...Guess I've owned more Fords than anything though...they generally break down in or near the driveway

 

Everyone’s memory has a slanted view, mine is no different. It seemed to me Mopar was always coming out on top at the races(mid 60s-early 70s). My family mostly drove Fords and that was my first car. However when I went to the drags and watched NASCAR it seemed Mopar was kicking ***. Petty, Big Daddy, Sox and Martin, Ramchargers, etc. etc. Hell if you walked the pits you realized just about all of the funny cars had Hemis, no matter what manufacturers body was on it. That said something to a kid. I ended up owning a bunch of Mopar’s and had fun with all of them.
That being said, I have SBC’s in my rides now. Cheap and effective HP but I still dream of having a BB Dodge powered hot rod once again.

 

Cool video! I have to admit, I like the FE myself. Once you have one your hooked.

 

Excellent video,,,,,,I’m not really a Ford man,,,,,,but I have respect for that !
You can see in his face,,,,,that’s a man right there,,,,,,driving a mans car !

Tommy

 

Basically a Ford guy cause I was raised with them & worked for Ford for over 35 years. But, I love mid 60s Mopars since I had a 64 Plymouth when we got married & it was a GR8 car. When I got engaged, had a 58 Vette & ran a boat for a Chevy dealer. They all have something "special" to offer.....

 

Forgot to mention, I LOVE FLATHEADS.....help, I'm sick

 

The history of the 'racing bans' is interesting. The first one in '57 was industry-wide and Ford (who had just recently joined the AMA) toed the 'official' line and did drop all of their performance development. But it soon became obvious they were the only ones who had dropped out as GM and Chrysler simply 'back doored' it all under a 'police and/or HD' description. Henry realized he'd been had and Ford came back with a vengeance, first with the 360HP 352 in '60 (the first purpose-built high performance motor out of Detroit, designed from the block out), then followed with ever-larger motors for the next three years. In '62 Ford went public, announcing they would no longer follow the AMA policy. The main problem is Ford went overboard, basically trying to sell race motors to the general public which limited their popularity to the hard-core. Add in that these were only available in the full-size cars (unless you were 'connected') and the lack of PS, PB and an automatic trans meant they weren't something you could put your wife into. The 289 HiPo was considerably more tractable and proved popular, but until the 428CJ came along, Ford didn't really have a 'everyman' big-block option.

The reason for the '63 GM ban isn't totally clear. I've heard four back-channel explanations (depending on the source) which were...
1. They hoped to 'shame' Ford and Mopar into following suit. Neither fell for that...
2. To stop intra-brand rivalry between Chevy and Pontiac (with Buick and Olds waiting in the wings), although the division heads pretty much ignored it.
3. To avoid embarr***ment. The Chevy W motor wasn't particularly successful in NASCAR, a 'ban' gave them a bit of an out. 'Of course we're not winning, we're not racing'.
4. Concern about becoming too popular as they were under scrutiny for anti-trust from the Feds and had been for a few years although this had seemingly blown over by '63.

There's also been some other explanations; one of the higher-ups bought his kid a Corvette who went out and killed himself and some others, the guy used his influence to get the ban. GM did pull all support from 'factory' teams which left them high and dry and continued that policy well into the 60s but never did actually stop performance development.

And the 'official' explanation, 'We're concerned about the emphasis on speed' which was pretty much a repeat of '57 but this time no one else went along. Times had changed, the country had come out of the recent recession and people had money to spend, NASCAR had increased in popularity and 'Win on Sunday, sell on Monday' was moving cars out of the showrooms.

Of course, the insurance companies did their part as insuring these cars got prohibitively expensive for young guys to insure, then emissions finished them off.

 

He is or was a HAMB member and has a thread on it here on the HAMB but can't remember his user name or thread.

Fun side note when he starts driving it at about 3:49 the blue circle just to the left of the steering wheel on the vent window is A Connecticut State Police decal.