Hot Rods The Ultimate Willys Gasser Thread

This is Vinnie Tarantula's 40 Willys record holder. Vinnie owned Vitar Engineering and built the hydros and other transmissions that were in a lot of east coast race cars. This picture is from about 1968 after this he built a SS/DA Camaro. Vinnie was a very bright man who helped out a lot of racers. His shop was upstairs from Jack Merkel's in Ridgewood NY. The car is still around and is a hot rod Louie DiDinato owns is and was on hamb.

Pat

 

Learning curve for me restoring the Fred Teixeira Willys for owner Dave Clark, I was very fortunate for him to ask me to do the task, being the car was a local NHRA Winternationals B-GAS champion.

 

@1934coupe and @Royalshifter I've got both of these cars in my Iconic cars thread.
https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/iconic-cars-then-now.1267934/ When was the Power Shift car painted to the version in the black &White picture?

 

Jack Merkel at NY National speedway circa 1968

Pat

 

The B and W photo is the first rendition, that car had a blown Buick nailhead it was all steel. Vinnie was thrifty to say the least and switched to 288" SBC around 64 and immediately started setting the C/GS record.

Pat