Here is an odd one you don't see often because of the unibody construction much like the early tempest, cutlass, and skylarks. This Willys Aero was first built in 1968. The black and white pictures I've included were taken in 1971. I got these from the seller I first tried to buy the car from in 1995. 20 years later and some chasing, I bought the car and restored/ rebuilt her. Car was built with a '68 CE BBC (L88 427) hooked up to a switch pitch trans and a '57 posi rearend with welded spider gears. We built a special frame integrated to the roll cage and hung a 9" ford hooked up to a four link. I rebuilt the 427 but had to replace the trans with a th400. Did many other things to the car during the rebuilt/resto process keeping the originality of the car. She runs 12's and has fairly decent street manners with 355's. I believe the car would do 11s with 373s or steeper gears. Plans are to change the 3rd member this spring. Great post, love the odd ball gassers and have always loved the transaxle GM's turned gasser.
Here is my '65 elcamino I built. She runs a 427BBC with a tremmec 5 speed and a 12 bolt with 373's. She runs great on the road with that overdrive! You dont nsee many gasser el caminos --- mostly street freaks if any which I mainly consider this one....she is a lot to handle but tons of fun!
Last time I checked their site , they did not have any in stock, and some of the slicks as well. Things may have changed by now, I have not checked.
I really like spindle mount wheels, but I also like having front brakes. Thus, the dilemma. I think I am going to go full slot mag! They are still fairly available, and they are very much what was ran on a gasser.
55’ Stude altered, 455 Buick powered. Built it from childhood memories of the altered wheelbase cars back then.
It's not really hard to put brakes on spindlemounts for full sized ford spindles. Anglia spindles are a little lighter and I don't know if I would trust them with disc brakes for a daily driver, even though a lot of altereds and funny cars ran/run them. I'm pretty sure the rule that kept the spindlemounts off gassers were the front brake rules and not spindlemounts being specifically outlawed for the strip.
The reasons why those PT Barnum wheels look bogus are many. They are too small in diameter. They are too wide (when compared to real spindle mounts) They only have ten spokes (obviously to accommodate 5 lug nuts) Real Gassers had front brakes , so spindle mount 12 spokes were not seen on them Therefore, they don't look like anything traditional from the mid 60's, which is what I thought the deal here was. But, as we see, as my buddy from Down Under said, they came from a marketing genius ..Capitalism at it's finest.
There are a lot of reasons not to like certain things. Someone else's Opinion is not a very good one.
I'd much rather look at those 10 spoke wheels than those gaudy ass American racing polished D spoke wheels, that 9 out of 10 cars have these days. One of my drinking games is to count how many cars have those wheels as they drive by coming into an event lmao! But it proves the theory that just because somebody doesn't like something, it doesn't mean that 1000 other people do like it. That's the joy of this hobby.
Okay..You guys are on the record. The way I look at this stuff is there's only so many John D'Agostinos , Chip Fooses and Troy Trepaniers If it was easy, anyone could do it. ;-)
I have posted pics of my brothers old 62 fairlane before but posted on this thread. Car was built in 64 raced mid to late 60's mostly original paint,original interior and only 27k on the clock. Since I bought the car two years ago I have been finding some interesting things like stress cracks below both a pillars and on the rear half of the front frame member right by the firewall my guess from hard launching. Pulled the top loader out to change the clutch and found the trans to be the big dawg only put behind the 427 and some 428's. The rear end is out of a 428 Galaxie. Find stuff out all the time about this thing as I was only 11 when he bought it back in 77.
Man, that thing is cool! It reminds me of my fairlane gasser that I sold a few years back. It had a 429 and a c6. I really liked that car.
Late '50s Opel drag car on the left; only one I've found on the net - surprised there haven't been more of them:
here is an oddball for ya. Not many Anglia panels around. belonged to Joseph Hrudka. This one ran a destroked 265 originally as I recall. In the real world the imports were originally required to run smaller displacement motors.
Lloyd -my-child fear not....... When I was on my honeymoon in 1969 @ Myrtle Beach I saw a 60 Elky with the same set-up as yorn at the lil podunk drag strip. (YES I took my bride to the drag races!!! Does that mean I'm a red-neck?? WHY HELL YEAH !!!) Anyhow I saw the same car parked on the strip the next night. If that ain't a street-strip example....well "you can suck-me-silly-with-a-handy-billy!" Also saw a 54 Ford coupe with a 427 side-oiler and A SCRAT-AXLE @ the strip!! So there !!!! 6sally6
Lol damn rednecks my maiden voyage down the track is May 27th, 1/8th mile track, so we'll see how it does! Then I leave out June 14th for Bowling Green and the hot rod reunion, it'll see about 500 miles that week. That's street/ strip in my opinion
I saw this car race at US 30 dragstrip outside of Chicago when I was 19 years old. It had a 427 BB Chevy with a 4 speed. I went in the pits and looked at it close and despite my very limited knowledge at 19 I could tell it had a really questionable roll cage. I think someone has since restored this car and has improved the safety equipment in it.
My gosh, does this ever bring back memories. I remember a lot of these cars when they were new cars on the sales lot. I've even owned several of them as used cars over the years ( not gassers .. just family sedans ).
I worked on the olds on saturday, after finishing up my manx. Got a mockup motor in it. I think it sits a little better with some weight in the front.
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