I dont know if anyone would know where or when it took place. But i wonder when the first time and how early in time a car pulled the front wheels off the ground in a race or on the streets and what peoples reactions were and whatnot. It must have been crazy.
very true. i've wondered about things like that as well. imagine taking some monster engine back to 1932 and showing them the culmination of the trend that the little ford v8 started. how about taking the wright bros for a spin in an f-22. we tend to forget how revolutionary some things once were, we take them for granted because we see them every day. i like to look back and think about those revolutionary times and what they mean to me, keeps me a little more grounded...kinda like when i show people the hydraulic lifters in the '38 caddy i'm building.
You KNOW it scared the unholy hell out of whomever it was. "Whaddaya mean the FRONT TIRES CAME OFF THE GROUND?!?
still working on getting them...we have a few new cars to leave out this weekend and watch to keep it on topic, what do you think the first guy who had a car stolen felt like? think it took over a year from the first auto or was it just a matter of days. wonder when they started putting key locks on them as well
Should be do***ented somewhere..I know there is do***entation of the first car wreck..Hell, for awhile the naysayers thought humans shouldn't travel faster than 60 mph, they thought our blood would boil or we would suffer some sort of dementia, well...they were right about the dementia part I guess....
I've heard rumors that henry ford chained up his first car because people would take it for joy rides around town.
Makes you also wonder about how they figured out how to do doughnuts and brake stands. I guess this could have been a start... http://youtube.com/watch?v=jFRwacfPq7A Horse driven cart "drifting" in snow as they call it. i heard something about the first person killed by an auto Was in Europe by a Steam powered vehicle. Coroner said it was the most horrifying site he had ever seen. But i could be horribly wrong with that.
Dunno about the first wheelie; could have been a steamer. Lots of low end torque. I guess you could have stolen an early car, but the roads were so bad I doubt you could get very far before a guy on horseback caught up with you.
In the early NHRA races they were worried about keeping their insurance, and didn't want anyone "powerstanding". The flag starter would disqualify you if you popped the front wheels.
The first I ever saw was a picture of Romeo Palamides' dragster carring the front wheels just off the ground. It was on the cover of R&C around early '58 I think. Everyone was quiet imperessed.
I started going to the drags in '54, and the TF cars at that time stayed firmly on the ground. I can recall a couple of cars at San Fernando circa '57 or '58 that would pull the front wheels briefly on the 2nd gear shift (one Hudson, one Buick), but not at launch. I think it was late '50s before HP+weight distribution+traction = enough to wheelstand. I did build a model dragster in 1954 using a Schuco windup motor and a slingshot tail (upside down midget tail, copying Calvin Rice) and I was astounded when my toy did a wheelie. It was five or six years before I saw a real car do the same thing.
As an old flagger, it was a regular occurrence in 1959. I think it started around 1955 when the lightweight small block came out. Ed Pantley, (The Giant Killer) used lifting weights to hold down the front of his dragster. When we had a lull in the runs, we would ask him to take off the weights and make a run to keep the crowd happy.
to keep it on topic, what do you think the first guy who had a car stolen felt like? think it took over a year from the first auto or was it just a matter of days. wonder when they started putting key locks on them as well [/quote] whoever it was i bet if its anything like round here hes still waiting for the cops to show up to investigate it !
Probabaly done first around the turn of the century by someone who put too much horse**** in the back of a truck and then stomped the gas.
I used to have a collection of over 6,000 hot rod magazines, dating back to '46. I had read them all cover-to-cover, starting in 1958, when I bought the first one. I recall, many years ago, reading a story about "TV Tommy" Ivo, where they told of people laying on the ground near the starting line, because they had heard you could see daylight under the front tires of his dragster! In the story, it was reported that observers had found this to be true, which astounded everyone at the time.
Relatred Topic: In 1967 A guy in my high school cl***, his dad had a Dodge van style pickup (like the little red wagon). Heres the plan , he layed the tailgate down put a row of concrete blocks across the taigate and slid a pipe through the blocks and roped them down at each end.He went out to the local midnight dragstrip,pulled it up to the line reved it up ,popped the clutch, and with all that extra weight hanging out on the tailgate, it came up in a giant wheelie,scared the **** out of him,he shoves in the clutch ,it comes down like a ton of bricks and recambers the front end! He had a fun time explaining to his old man what happened to his new truck. The stupid things we did when we were young!
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