I knew about the Jeep. Pretty sure it was powered by the Jeep engineered SOHC Tornado engine. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeep_Tornado_engine The Morehead family of Newburgh ,NY campaigned a Volvo or two, back in the 60's. I believe they were a Volvo dealer at the time.
I don't understand how a foreign manufactured vehicle was legally able to compete in Junior Stock. Maybe it was just a local exception to the rule? Pete
I remember the Volvo Steve. Saw it run at Island Dragway on several occasions. He had paperwork from NHRA showing HP To weight factor and approved engine specs. I remember the car as being from upstate New York... It was more competitive than you would think...
Even so, Janet, a Volvo IS NOT AN AMERICAN PRODUCTION CAR, something I thought was a requirement to compete in Junior Stock and Super Stock. Can someone clear up the issue? Pete
Read the 1964 and later rule book. It says "American factory produced automobiles and certain foreign and domestic Sports Cars" You may or may not remember that 1964 and earlier NHRA had Stock Sports car classes (look at the list of winners at the 63 Nationals). EX: A/SP through G/SP maybe lower. If NHRA had shipping weight and engine specs provided by the manufacturer they would accept them in the Sports classes, then later sports classes were moved into Stock Eliminator after they canceled the lower sports classes.. BTW NHRA stlill accepts certain year Opel's in Stock eliminator and they are German built cars...
Enjoying this thread reminds me of the (excellent) PBS series History Detectives http://www.pbs.org/opb/historydetectives/, where the eclectic quartet of hyper-talented and very-entertaining investigators unravel complex historical mysteries. So heres a history question for you guys It has to do with the FIRST Drag Race event held at York. The very-first time I visited the York, PA airport facility was for an extremely special (at the time) one time/one-day event. I think the year was around 1955. The event was advertised almost solely by word-of-mouth. And, as I recall, it was really promoted as lets see how this goes and maybe, just maybe, it will become a regular sort of thing.' At the crack-of-dawn on the morning of the event I was part of a caravan of perhaps a dozen cars that left from Baltimore. The track, then simply a small municipal airport, was about 90 miles from our point of departure, but the journey took well over two hours. The Harrisburg Expressway (I 83) had not been completed yet it was a (narrow) two-lane-blacktop trip! What an incredible experience it was! It was as if we were finally having our day. Those occasional 1/8th mile drags on rutted dirt strips were in the past. It was a new era! As best 'I recall, Aquasco, Capitol, Cecil County and Old Bridge Raceway (Englishtown) had not been constructed at this point. I dont remember any admission fee, and all who attended pretty-much had free rein in all of the areas pits, staging lanes starting line ... everywhere! Somehow, relative order prevailed. This, was a drug free (if you dont count the Lucky Strikes and Camels), pre-Woodstock experience, but the high was sure there, derived from a potent stew brewed from Atlas Bucrons, Caslers, Sunoco 260 and a good helping of adrenaline! It would be a few years later before York opened for business on a regular basis, and not until 1965 when yet another huge one-day event was held there. So, my question for the H.A.M.B.s very own History Detectives is Does anyone else remember the FIRST one-day York event and the date? Update: Darwin Doll tells me (via email) I remember attending a race or two in the mid-fifties around 1955 or 1956. The Hanover Rod and Kustom Club ran the drags in 1957 and until Bill Holz took over in 1960 as York US 30 Drag-o-way. We know the last drag race date but it would be nice to pin down the exact first date that drags ran there. I am particularly interested as I have been accumulating information for a book on the history of York US30 Dragway.
There are Hondas in the current NHRA class guide. ( I don't know where they are made) P426 Now that I think about it, didn't you ever see a VW in Stock? I remember when they were in the books at about 28 # per.
Mark as a fomer resident of Ohio you should know about Ohio and Honda. Some of the cars are made in East Liberty, Ohio. The engines are made in Anna, Shelby County, Ohio.
OK Verne, my curiosity has really gotten the best of me ... is it 'WILDFIRE' the restaurant, the school, the (lighting) company ... or the "car"? http://www.caranddriver.com/var/ezw...ng-US/wildfire_650c_1_gallery_image_large.jpg PS: For those who missed it (it's now archived) here's the link to the recent HRM piece ... "Junior Stock Drag Racing - When Stock Was Hot" http://www.hotrod.com/whereitbegan/hrdp_0907_junior_stock_drag_racing/index.html
Here's that Volvo 544 you guys are referring to. Not a great photo, but Junior/Stock Volvo photos are hard to come by.
Simply Amazing that you found that image! By the way, here's my old (sold it in '07) 300 HP (H/SA ?) Volvo 'R'
In the late 60s a Saab 2 stroke and an Opel ran in junior stock at Miami Dragway. I was theer with my P/S 59 Biscayne as well as Bob Dwyers Crockagator Studebaker
Not really Jr. Stock, but my 66 Malibu SS 283 4speed car was not listed in the books in the 70s. It was a factory 283 car but was changed from a Glide to a 4 speed.
Ken Ted Struse will be at Chryslers@Carlisle the same week end as the York Event July 9-12. I think he did a article on you wagon for Super Stock Magazine.
Sorry, don't have any anymore. "Well, golly!", like Gomer Pyle used to say. That I remember reading about. Nope, none that I can recall seeing outside of those in Pure Stock and Modified eliminator. Pete
Wow Bill, Aside from the early Volvo, what an interesting staging-lanes shot. Is that a '58 Chev four door I see? Thought I was one of the very-few that configured a 4-dr racer. Seems they were not all that uncommon. http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showpost.php?p=3233913&postcount=247
Anyone have any opinions as to why Pontiac's Over Head Cam 6 was never a serious contender in the Junior Stock ranks? Was it because of the factory horsepower rating? (207 HP in 66). The first 2 photos are of the OHC cars that Knafel Pontiac campaigned in 66. The other 2 are the GTO C/Stockers. That's Doc Dixon in the last photo.
Bill, probably because of its poor classification. If not, who wanted to run a pedestrian-looking six cylinder engine during the height of the supercar era, with all those mind-boggling and, for lack of a better term, sexy and cool-looking, powerful hi-po V-8s being produced? I sure wouldn't unless the car/engine combo was EXTREMELY underrated. I recall (as a mere lad) a friend of the family who had one of these engines in his 1968 Pontiac LeMans Sprint. When I queried him a few years later about the car, he told me: "it had a six in it but ran like an eight." I guess you can say it was a poor man's GTO. Car was this color: (1966 Pontiac Grand Prix / El Camino prototype was built by Pontiac. Only one of its kind exists.) Pete
While I don't remember anybody racing one of those engines, I wrenched on a few. I can remember valve train noises, worn cam carriers (all aluminum with no bearings), trying not to tear the water pump gasket when sliding the pump to tension the cam belt. Parts got scarce pretty quick, if I remember correctly. One of my high school classmates has a cam grinding business and could not get cam cores back in the 1980's. Jerry Woodland was about the only guy in the country that had any of that stuff. There is a retired teacher in town that used to bring his '68 Firebird to Ramsey's for service. He has two sons (now in their 30's) who started a restoration on the car abut ten years ago. I think it is stored somewhere, still disassembled.
Overlooked (potential Jr. Stocker) engines ... interesting topic indeed! Here is another Pontiac effort that 'sounded pretty good,' but didn't quite deliver! I remember it as the 'cut-in-half' 389. The Pontiac Tempest and the Four-Cylinder Engine <!-- dtl_id=463368 //--> One of the many innovative decision John Z. DeLorean brought to the Pontiac Tempest was the four-cylinder engine. Though the Buick and Olds Y-bodies would be powered by a choice of newly designed V-6 or aluminum V-8 powerplants, DeLorean's engine of choice for the related Pontiac was going to be an inline four. It would have to be more powerful than competitive sixes and be inexpensive to develop and manufacture. Indeed, Pontiac was truly up against the wall with respect to cost. With the majority of developmental funds tied up in the unique drive-shaft system, the rest of the driveline would have to consist of as many off-the-shelf pieces as possible. DeLorean and his team determined that a four-cylinder based on the production Pontiac V-8 would make the most sense. In order to prove that the concept was valid, engineers took a production 389-cid Pontiac V-8 engine, put holes in the left bank of pistons, disabled the valve-train for the same cylinders, and reinstalled it in a full-sized Pontiac. Even with the extra drag of the deactivated cylinders, the cobbled-up test engine had enough steam to propel the 4,000-plus-pound sedan to a top speed of 92 mph and still give satisfactory gas mileage. Later, the left banks of several production 389 engines were removed. A series of specialized parts were then developed for production, including a specific crankshaft, camshaft, two different intake manifolds, a four-cylinder ignition system, and various downsized accessories. The production 195-cid ohv "slant-four" block came a bit later. It was heavy, weighing about two-thirds as much as the V-8 because the 389's crankcase was retained almost unchanged. The good news was that interchange-ability with the 389 abounded. The two engines shared pistons, rings, pins, connecting rods, bearings, cylinder heads, oil pan and pump, water pump, crank pulley, and harmonic balancer. The four also used the same machine tooling and traveled down the same assembly line as the V-8, greatly reducing manufacturing cost. All told, there were three basic versions of the "Trophy 4" engine for the 1961 model year. The first was a regular-fuel engine with an 8.6:1 compression ratio and a one-barrel carburetor. It was rated at 110 bhp at 3,800 rpm, with 190 pound-feet of torque at 2,000 revs. For automatic-transmission cars, this engine was rated at 130 horses at 4,400 and 195 pound-feet of torque at 2,200, thanks to a hotter camshaft than that used in the stickshift cars. The second version retained the single-throat carb, but compression was raised to 10.25:1, necessitating the use of premium fuel. The manual transmission version was rated at 120 bhp at 3,800 rpm and 202 pound-feet of torque at 2,000 spins; the automatic version made 140 bhp at 4,400 rpm and 207 pound-feet at 2,200. The raciest iteration of the four was equipped with a Rochester four-barrel carburetor and an even hotter camshaft. Both sticks and automatics were rated at 155 bhp at 4800 rpm, generating 215 pound-feet of torque at 2,800 revolutions. Buick's 215-cid V-8 was also available. Fitted with a two-barrel carb, it also was rated at 155 bhp, but generated slightly more torque at 400 fewer rpm than the meatiest four. *from ... http://auto.howstuffworks.com/1961-1963-pontiac-tempest2.htm
A 1966 or 67 Lemans 2 dr HT was at the top of the 15. # per HP weight break, but would race in the same class as the severely underated 55 Chev 195 HP engine, we all know how they worked out. A dealer I knew in NJ fooled around with one in the new "pure stock" or whatever the hell it was called in 72..
Now this is DIFFERENT ... check out the (Canadian) 1956 Pontiac Sedan Delivery! http://www.areinc.us/garydaniels/1956pontiac.htm
I remember racing that Volvo at Englishtown. It was known as "Tom Thumb", ran "T" stock and ran close to the record. Had to hit the brakes about 3 cars back and slide past him! I think Dom will remember him also. Whoever it was ran the car a couple years and then I never saw him again.
Could this be the same guy? I say yes. Owner's View Lincoln Morehead "I was looking to pick up an import line, and met with the man who held the Volvo franchises in November 1957. He came up to see my dealership, and the very next day I had a load of cars! For $794, I got Volvo's special tools, spare parts and a dealer sign," recalls Lincoln Morehead, owner of our feature car and founder of Morehead Auto Sales in Newburgh, New York, one of the first family-owned Volvo dealerships in America. "The first cars I received were PV444 Deluxe models, which cost $2,140 without a radio. At that time, this cost more than a Chevrolet Super Deluxe with all kinds of trim. I had to do a lot of demonstrating before I sold my first one. I remember a customer telling me about going to his bank for a loan on a new Volvo; he said that the bank officer asked him why he'd buy a Swedish car. They may ship a few over here and then stop, or parts may be hard to find. The banker told him that if he were looking for a small car, he should buy a Rambler! http://www.hemmings.com/hsx/stories/2006/01/01/hmn_feature10.html Pete
"The Morehead family of Newburgh ,NY campaigned a Volvo or two, back in the 60's. I believe they were a Volvo dealer at the time. <!-- / message --> <!-- sig --> "__________________ MARKYAC Yeah, and I said that two pages back. We had a Volvo at Ct Dragway, too. It was out of Weatogue Garage, which is an old section of Simsbury,Ct. I remember it had a megaphone out the back of it, and it was LOUD! Next up, the L/Stock Mini Cooper....
Maybe if the guy and others like him had bought the Rambler or any other AMERICAN car Detriot wouldnt be in the shape they are in today and AMC might still be in business.
Hey Mark. good call! ... sure looks like Drag Racing stayed in the Morehead family's blood! ---> http://www.southernsnacks.com/LincolnMoreheadProfile.html
The Jalopy Journal
