Hot Rods Hiding in plain sight - Dragula

I went today to Ellsworth Kansas to look at a 1939 Ford Sedan which turned out to be a very nice car, so I bought it. While I was there the owner, Sam McCain, showed me some other parts he was trying to sell. While walking through his shop I spotted something out of the corner of my eye and he casually said, “Oh that’s my Dragula car”. Dragula I said, what do you mean? The story was that he and his brother used to own NorCal Street Rods in Sacramento CA, started it in 1969. He said he worked with many people, built cars for Jay Leno and Tim Allen and worked with Boyd, Foose, Brizzio, Barris and a lot of others. He was amused that I was so interested in his past so he told me to hold on and went inside his house to grab his photo album on the Dragula build they did most recently. He said their shop NorCal helped build the Dragula’s back in the day, they did a total of 11. MGM got 9 of them and he and his brother got the other 2. The ones they did for the Munsters show required extending the back out to accommodate the taller “Mr. Munster”. Sorry I dont know the history of this car, but wanted to pass along what I thought to be a very interesting story.

 

Well that's a cool story! Thanks for sharing!

 

That is cool !! And you got pics !!


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I'm surprised they built that many of them, for a car that only appeared in one episode of the show. I found an information page about the Dragula that gives the location of a few of the other cars. https://munster.fandom.com/wiki/The_Dragula

 

Don't forget it was also in the Munsters movie too.

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Awesome story! I wonder if that's the one at the Salina KKOA show?

 

One of them was bought by Frank Fritz on American Pickers.
Frank unfortunately is reported to be in a home due to a bad stroke

 

What a cool story. They almost single-handedly kept the coffin factory in business!

 

Rotated a couple of your shots for you....

 

Awesome story. Some cool people have recently moved to Kansas, to get away from the silly personal living habits that people have acquired in areas of increasingly populated areas here in the great US of A.

 

I thought Barris built them.

 

Congratulations on the '39, appears to be a nice, solid car.

 

Barris may have claimed to have built them, but even if they came together at his place, how much did George actually do? He had access to some very talented people.

 

I'm gonna have to call B.S. on the story you were told. If NorCal Speed Shop was started in 1969, there's no way that they were involved in the original Dragula build. They were 4-5 years too late.

 

If I recall these were popular promotion - public appearance cars. Sent out on "tour"

 

"One of them was bought by Frank Fritz on American Pickers.
Frank unfortunately is reported to be in a home due to a bad stroke"

Sorry, different car, wasn't part of this group. here is the coffin car that George Barris sold Fritz for $5,000 based on a '23 frame. Saw it in one of those car flyer for sale mag a few years ago for $30,000.

 

I guess that casket could have just as well been his wife in there but I didn’t inspect it very much. I also don’t know a lot about the history of Dragula so yea it could have all been a story.

 

Cool story and congrats on the 39!

 

He said he and his brother ended up selling NorCal to someone from New York and later opened his own shop in Colorado. He is retired now and from the looks of his shop it’s jam packed full of commercial shelving and stuff that would have been in a speed shop. At any rate he had some good stories.

 

"I think it's fair to say there have been more than few clones built and I'm sure more than a few "stories"."

last I knew Butch Patrick (aka. Eddie Munster) has a set of clones that he uses when he does shows/publications stunts or whatever you call them. His copies were made by Posey.

Interesting back then you needed a death certificate but now anyone can just order them thru walmart if you wanted to. that is where I got my first one from. I never got the hearse built so I ended up selling it to someone else for a little profit and figured I could buy another one later to build a toy out of if the hearse ever got done.

I have seen the one that was at Volo.

 

The chassis they built - the radiator was laid flat, the frame was welded directly to the ford 9” rearend, the motor they built was waaaay too much power for it so they removed the hilborn injection and detuned the motor, his brother didn’t want to part with how it looked with the hilborn, so the hilborn stacks are just an air cleaner.

 

Big Deuce, the one at Salina was Butch Patricks clone as was the munster coach.

 

On my venture back to collect the 39 Ford I bought I managed to get another story or two out of the old guy. (I need to be careful about "old" I'm probably there and just don't know it.) I asked him about the Dragula again and he said that Barris built the original and MGM came back and asked him to build more and he said no way. MGM came to his shop and asked them to build them and he agreed, Barris had to ok all of this which he did.
He built the first one with the rearend welded to the frame and later changed that and added 3" of travel suspension. He also said the frame rails had gas on one side and anti-freeze on the other so that they could have access capacity for both. I think he said those coffin bodies only cost him about $50 a piece. Once a mortuary has viewings with a casket they have to sell it as scrap, can't re-use so to speak (this in the instance they have viewings and the individual ends up being cremated).

I also asked him what his biggest build was over the years and he said it was either Leno's 1932 Chrysler Imperial or Tim Allen's 1955 Chevy Nomad. He had a length story on the Tim Allen 55 Nomad. I guess it was a family members car and had sentimental value, they built it for him back on 1981 or 1982. The body was toast but he wanted it restored. They put a 496 BBC with alum heads - 600-650 HP and started with a 9-inch rear, changed to a quick change (to big, gawdy, ugly) and swapped back to a 9-inch. Tim flew out to test drive it and proceeded to lay rubber in the parking lot and wrapped both rear wheels forward folding up the rearend. He got out and loved the power and told him to beef up the rearned, they settled on a Dana 90. Once Tim finally got to pick the car up he drove it home and proceeded to get pulled over 10-15 times. He did not end up getting any tickets as a picture and a peak under the hood was enough to make all the cops happy. I didn't ask, but I don't believe its the same as the Home Improvement Nomad.

 

Cool people have always been here.

 

Yes cool story and cool 39! Lippy

 

Great story, but they were built by Barris shop. The casket isn't even right. I think this is just a guy who wanted to build his own Dragula. Cool car, if the original didn't exist. Butch told me had had two bodies done by Dick Deans son, and I think he had one of them built. He also said he was having a Munster Coach built . Probably done by now. I met him at a Halloween show in Long Beach.

 

Congratulations on the 39 . Thank You for sharing the stories and pictures that You heard and saw .

 

The original is hanging over a Bar in Atlanta if I recall.

 

Oh tisket-a-tasket, grandpa munsters altered casket,

Yes his motor died,
And this he cried,
Oh fudge I've blown a gasket.