RM Auctions is holding the Icons of Speed and Style auction on September 26th, 2009 at the Peterson Automotive Museum. Little Red Wagons is going up for bid. Estimate is $200,000 - $300,000 (photo credit: Darin Schnabel)
I grew up watching the "Crazy Injun"!!Ron Sellers is a good buddy of mine,we have sat for hours drinking beers talking about Virgil's crazy ways! RIP Virgil
My favorite wheelstander is Randy Curtis's Fugitive........Me and Jimmy Mungle used to help sponser that car by buying hot rod parts from his speed shop.....and we did help him from time to time sand on that fiberglass body when we were in high school in the 70's in corpus christi, tx
The "WAGON and all the other stuff in the auction was to be together in a big museium along with some stuff that was already sold. Would have been a neat place. ALL famous stuff, no clones no normal stuff. Tuff times I guess!! I hope some JERK doesn't end up with it and smash it. I wish I could afford to be there bidding. I wonder what is up with the one in Garlets place? The same guy bought that too. Oh Well I still have the ORIGNAL in my shop. GEORGE!! QUOTE=LowKat;4347654]RM Auctions is holding the Icons of Speed and Style auction on September 26th, 2009 at the Peterson Automotive Museum. Little Red Wagons is going up for bid. Estimate is $200,000 - $300,000 (photo credit: Darin Schnabel)[/QUOTE]
The aution was Sat the Wagon broungt $550,000 Almost twice of anything else. I believe the next thing down the list was the Deora, another A-100. Check out the RM auction site. GEORGE!! [/QUOTE]
I see no one mentioned CHUCK SWIFT from Bellingham Washington,.. High N Mighty,..ChuckWagon,.and another one slips my mind. Chuck swift,.. Wild BILL Shrewsberry those were my favs growing up at Seattle International Raceway
I used to work for Gary Watson in Corpus Christi, TX back in '00-'01. He owned the "Paddy Wagon", "Fugitive" and "Flying Red Baron" all at the same time during the 70's. They were all driven by other drivers as well as himself. He still has the original Vega Panel "Paddy Wagon" that was a drag car, then later a wheelstander. He also had a "Paddy Wagon" Corvette, and a '74 Mustang called the "Red Baron". I never got to see the Vega myself because he was a grumpy bastard but he had tons of pics in his office wall. The "Fugitive" was sold to the local engine builder Randy Curtis in '74 who lives around the corner from my folks. He's recreating the Fugitive and you can see the build at www.fugitivedragracing.com I'm not sure what became of the "Paddy Wagon" Van or "Flying Red Baron" Mustang. Maybe I'll stop in there one of these days I'm back home and see if he's got any never before seen photos of his nose-up days.
Found this video tonight, wish there was sound,but really cool none the less. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0myEgVTvzMU
Hello, guys. First post here, but I thought I'd let you know about the fate of one of these tanks. Meatball is correct - the tank on top of the storage container on the I-10 freeway in Tucson, AZ, was NOT the original Hell On Wheels tank. It is "Hell On Wheels II," a full-on custom "monster tank" designed and built by the late Bob Perry. While many people believe the tank was an M-1 Abrams, which the aircraft-grade aluminum body was patterned after, in actuality it was a 1970 M-548 Lance mobile rocket launcher (basic chassis, suspension, running gear, and tracks designated M-113) destined for the scrap yard after gunnery practice destroyed a good portion of the tank and almost all of the running gear. Motive power was/is provided by a supercharged 540-cubic-inch Chevrolet big-block with a custom 17-quart oil pan. The transmission is a specially-modified Allison AT 540 4-speed industrial automatic witha B&M torque converter and shifter. Various other pieces from military aircraft have been used in the build, including cutting brakes from an F-4 Phantom jet, a transmission cooler and radiator from a military helicoptor, and a hydraulic driveline brake from military helicoptor rotor brakes, with the master cylinder for that coming out of a T-33 navy trainer aircraft. As for other vehicles Bob Perry has built, he is credited with The Fugitive I & II (I - 1964 Chevy Greenbriar van, II - 1968 Corvette, the first of many Fugitive Corvettes), Hell On Wheels, the original wheelstanding replica M-60 tank (1971), Hell's Fire (self-propelled howitzer cannon wheelstander, 1974), Galaxy II and Starship (both later 1976), and finally, Hell On Wheels II (1989). Current whereabouts of all except Hell On Wheels II is unknown. (In case any of you are wondering how I can be so precise on this, I'm reading the original 1990 press kit release on the tank, given to me by Anita Perry, Bob's widow. She lives less than a mile from my house, and the Hell On Wheels II makes an amazing yard conversation piece! Yes, the tank is still around, and in remarkably well-preserved condition.)
Connie Swingles Trash Truck was my favorite. My Dad worked at NY National Speedway. One Sunday a big race got rained out. Connie stayed at the hotel around the corner from our house. I was sick and couldn't make it to the track that day. The rains stopped and Connie came to our house and backed the truck off his transporter and wanted to do wheelies up & down the street for me. Unfortunately my Dad stopped him. Connie got even with my Dad the next time he was at NYN. He pulled up to the starting line with me hanging on to the roll bar while my Dad was working on the starting line. Needless to say Dad ran up and yanked me right out of the truck through the window. Damb those were fun times to be a little kid.
Don't get me wrong, I love the Hemi under glass and the Little Red Wagon but to me those are more like exhibition cars. I'm more partial to real world drag cars that run competitively and scrape their rear bumper on a regular basis. This is "Gold Finger", '64 Dodge altered Hemi car. I have no history on it except I think someone has recently restored it.
a "wheelstander" is an exhibition car. The Goldfinger was a one-time racer with a rather poor performance history and it was then campaigned as an exhibition/wheelstander. At Lions, the Goldfinger would do a wheelstand, go down the track part way, turn around and do another wheelstand back towards the starting line. Thats all it did at the end of it's career... No real race car ever did a wheelstand as part of a race by race performance. Wheelstands were a waste of time and horsepower and any wheelstand that was too dramatic would always result in that car losing the race. as in this photo that I took at Lions, while Phil Bonner's wheelstand was thrilling, it also resulted in his loss to Dick Brannan's SOHC Mustang
yeah Mazooma is right! the best part of running a wheelstander is at the end of the weekend IF they make their passes they get a paycheck win lose or draw.Oh yeah and very rarely break anything serious.............
Bobwop's 63 409 Bel Air "Faded Memories" I know--it's a stretch, but it puts BIG grins on everybody's face. And before ya take potshots at me, Mazooma...... 1. It always leaves HARD with left front up about 3 ft high off the track 2. It's a real purpose-built race car 3. It runs the NSSA circuit(exhibition) Wheelstander? Technically, yeah, I think so. And more, cause it ain't SUPPOSED to do it
By your definition its not a wheelstander, which is one and the same... It sounds like it is a hard-core race car, and that's cool in itself...maybe even more so. The exhibition/wheelstander cars were not exactly race cars, by any stretch...they really just did what they were designed to do.
Wonder how I missed this post? Some interesting stories about the Chuckwagon--the twice motored did only use the front motor 'cause he couldn't keep a trans in it otherwise. I believe this was the fourth chuckwagon, the first never really saw the light of day-said after finishing it they wanted to see if it would pull the wheels 'cept they tried it in a shop with the ceiling too low. Then after crashing the second one Chuck built a VW pickup (later called the American Flyer? driven by Art Morrison) The twin engine truck was sold to a woman up here (Sylphia Braddack) the first and I think the only female wheelie driver. Does anyone else remember what was painted inside the AMX emblems on wall to wall's car?
Any pics of 'Shower-Power',, bath tub 'stander? I've got an 8x10 photo of the LRW that I got from Bill at Alton Dragway when I was maybe 6 or so. What's cool is , he signed it "Do you want to be a racecar driver someday?". I'll have to dig it up and post it.
The Jalopy Journal
