Wow, I had no idea their was so much intrest in this consept. If I live long enough I will have one, it may not look pretty but it will work. Thanks for the great response. Jerry
A simple answer is yes indeed. The car was finished a Carron Classics in Dearborn Hgts., MI before they closed down. A guy that I still work with today was then general manger of Carron at the time and he really did beat the shit out of it and relayed that the car was extremely fast and scary to drive. One of the biggest hot rod thrills he'd experienced if you hear him tell about it.
Ivo's "Showboat" was and still is a piece of art . The two and four motor concept came about because of the short lived nitro ban by NHRA. Problem with the 4wd layout was the weight transfer unloading the front slicks under acceleration . Talk about tire smoke ! It was sold by Ivo and became "The Wagonmaster" with a fiberglass Buick wagon body . Tom Ivo remains one of the nicest guys in drag racing and spends much time supporting the NHRA museum/hot rod reunion.
And I suspect that the only reason he's not today is he quit building the "big" cars to keep himself out of the "gunsights" of out of control lawyers. As I remember it there were some TOTALLY unwarrented judgements handed down against performance car builders who had no control over the outcome and weren't necessarily guilt of anything. I'm a fan of Kent so I'm biased but IMO when he left the building realm, Top Fuel lost it's soul. Sure they've gone faster and quicker but a Fuller car ALWAYS did it with grace and style. Today cars are just slab sided projectiles totally lacking any artistc component . Fullers cars were works of art. A blind man with his sense of touch intact would tell you the same thing by just running his hands over one. When we were still competing on the national level with stockers and M/P cars I always couldn't wait to get to the wire wheel area at Indy to see in person the latest Fuller cars that were built/running during the last year. Now, I just wish that he would/could finish his Bonneville car and run it. If it's a matter of $$$ that's just a shame. I don't understand how someone who contributed so much wouldn't be swamped with offers to sponsor an effort such as this. Kent deserves to see this project through and see it run on the salt. If I were in a position financially to do it he'd have basket full of $100 bills sitting there to use. Rant over. Frank
A little new, but how about three. One in the front, two in the back. I saw this thing run in the late
...must'v been an old Vette. Vettes have way better power to weight than a twin engined LHS. They're coming out of the box with 450-500 hp, traction control, and yadda yadda yadda (depending on how deep into the 90's you're talkin'). And since we're talking all in fun here - torque steer is harder to handle than any burnout. I drove one of the all wheel drive Mitsubitchy Eclipses and it was a bear once it hit the peak boost range. Almost scary - and it wasn't much over 200 hp. I will tip my hat to modern V6's though. My brother had one of those Buick GS models with a factory supercharger and holy shit was it fast. It looked like your grandpa's car - but it hit like a fuckin' musclecar. We handed out some beatings in that car. Specifically I remember a guy in a mustang that followed us around all night after we whipped him because he wanted to know more about the car. When he found out it was a factory stock Buick he protested. But my brother invited him to the buick dealership to show him that there was a whole row of these stealthy fuckers. This must have been around 1998 or so. The MFS III(?) has coverage of how they mated two engines into the Mysterion bubbletop remake. Of course if you don't talk about TV Tom's Twin Buick dragster you are doing a vast disservice to the readers. I mean why put two engines together if you aren't doing it to go faster right? http://www.standard1320.com/Ivo/Buicks/TwinBuick/TwinBuick.html Tom Ivo had some stones man. I mean - not knowing what kind of forces he was going to be dealing with when he pushed down on the loudpedal....gotta feel that rush just thinking about it... Roth? Well, he was a showman by trade. But the Mysterion was still just cool as hell. I mean gimme a break. (and yes, I realize this isn't the original - but it was as close to the original as anythign could be). http://www.rodandcustommagazine.com/featuredvehicles/0601rc_ed_roth_custom_hot_rod/
that must have been a bitch having 14 zoomies empty out right in front of your face, and why are there 14 and not 16??
Jamie Frankland had two motors back in his dragster at Bradenton this weekend. He used to have carbs - I guess he wanted to try the injection system out - didn't get a chance to talk to him. It's gotta be better than than playing with 5 carbs per engine... Mutt
Tell us more... What is it? 4WD? What kind of Engines? What kind of Racing was it built for? That thing is cool!
Actually, it was a single engine with side by side twin superchargers on the one engine. He drives it a lot too.
the 5 carb engine was a big GMC. the injected engines are 292 chevys.jamie ran the GMC with 5 carbs in a henry J many years ago. Randy
"The Thing" was a twin engined dragster that was run in sydney sometime in the early severties (from what other people tell me). It had opposed 6's offset at an angle, one driving the front wheels, one driving the rear. Land rover front diff and some dort of AMC powerplant. According to those who saw it run they never really got it sorted. It apparently enjoyed swapping ends half way down the strip! Those pics came from another thread I posted up... http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=140918
"Kent Fuller was the KING." - royalshifter Dude. Kent Fuller is STILL the KING! He ain't dead yet - not by a long shot - and is currently building a flattie-powered Bonneville streamliner.
Hi I found this strange concept at, http://www.arizonaclassic.com/bilartillsalu.htm Crazy combo, 2 flatheads with twin transmissions?? Lars
Turn Sound on and Go here http://www.zooommm.com/video/ratz_fullburnout.MPG then read about it here http://www.zooommm.com/ratzilla.htm
Damn Doc , you got me that time ...you were posting while I was thinking about it. Unfortunaely I have been told recently that Ratzilla is in the workshop having one of it's hearts extracted. Of course there is always Flathead Jack's twin flathead rail . We even have a freight train twin Chevy that runs regularly at the drags here in Enzed.
The Jalopy Journal
