One of the iconic symbols of drag racing and speed, Art Chrisman, has died after a long illness. He was 86. Pioneering the art of straight line racing in both drag racing in its earliest days at Santa Ana Dragstrip, and also in lakes and Bonneville racing throughout the 1950s, he went on to a successful career with the Autolite Spark Plug Division of Ford Motor Company, before embarking out on his own building engines and Grand National Roadster Show-winning roadsters with his son Mike in Santa Ana, California.
After becoming one of the first five charter members of the Bonneville 200mph Club, going over 235 mph in 1952, he advanced and perfected the art of dragster design, first with the distinctive Number 25 dragster—a highly modified lakes racer Art built in the mid-1950s—coming in runner up at the first NHRA national event at Grand Bend, Kansas, and then with his “Hustler I” Hemi-powered dragster from 1958, winning “Best Engineered” at the 1958 NHRA Nationals, and then went on to win the inaugural Smokers’ March Meet in 1959 at Bakersfield, California, as well as coming in runner up there in both 1960 and 1961.
He was a fixture at races such as the Indy 500, Bonneville, and Salton City 500 boat races as a representative of Autolite, reading competitors’ plugs to give a computer-like assessment of what was right and wrong about their engines.
After a short stint in the 1970s running WR Grace’s dyno facility, he and his son Mike opened Chrisman Auto Rod Specialties, restoring and building show-winning cars, including scoring the 1995 Oakland Roadster Show’s “America’s Most Beautiful Roadster” title with an Infinity-powered 1929 roadster.
Art was a diplomat of sorts for the sport of drag racing in later years, seen regularly at the NHRA Winternationals and finals at Pomona, where both his Number 25 car and Hustler I can be seen today at the NHRA Museum. He was married to Dorothy for over 60 years, and has three grand children and great grandchildren to help carry on the legacy of the family name, which included his late brother, Leroy, uncle Jack, and nephew Steve.
The five finalists for the Undiscovered Builders area of the 2016 Car Craft Summernationals have been announced. They are: Jason Vega and his 1978 Firebird, Jim Ransom displaying his Nova, Dave Kelley with a 1969 Camaro, Nick Shultz and his 2009 370Z, and Chad Davis with his 1968 Olds 442. Last year this was one of the highlights of the Summernationals as up-and-coming builders with an itch to possibly break out and start building professionally were grouped together along with their latest builds and their dreams. This year Car Craft will again group these undiscovered builders for your perusal, but we’ve also added a second part to this event. We will have both the undiscovered builders and pro-builders together in a forum open to all participants and spectators for what is hoped to be a lively discussion of the pros and cons of building cars professionally, and to explore what both groups think it takes to be the build boss. And if you have questions or are just curious, plan on attending the forum to weigh in. The forum will be on Saturday—check the event schedule for the time and place on the fairgrounds, and plan to attend.
Car Craft’s 2016 Summer Nationals is a must-attend for all Street Machiners, but it is especially so for the top professional street machine builders. Happening this July 15 – 17 at Wisconsin State Fair Park, some of the nation’s top builders will be showing off their new projects and latest components in the Pro Builders Shootout, presented by Baileigh Industrial. Here’s just some of what you can expect see.
Speedkore, from Port Washington, Wisconsin, will be displaying their 1650 hp 1970 Dodge Charger they call “Tantrum” with the insane DOHC 9.0-liter Mercury Marine V8. Yes, you need to see this beast, and find out more about the 2800 lb-ft of torque this monster cranks out.
Ring Brothers will be bringing their latest build, the half-million dollar red 1965 Mustang of Michael Schmalz. Powered by a Wegner Motorsports 427ci Ford/Tremec 6-speed combo, it’s the type of build the Ring Brothers are known for.
Fast Freddies Rod Shop from nearby Eau Claire, will have on hand Don Boxx’s titanium 1953 Chevy Pickup packing a 500hp LS3 / Tremec 6-speed combo and some clean custom body mods, riding on 20- and 18-inch rollers.
Rad Rides by Troy will have on display the factory Hemi 1966 Plymouth Belvedere featured in the latest HOT ROD magazine. Though you would think it’s a resto, though it’s still Gen-II Hemi-powered, it is far from stock.
Kevin Oeste’s V8 Speed Shop is back again this year and has put together a killer 1969 Camaro convertible they’ll have in their display in Wisconsin, packing a 700hp RHS LS7 aluminum engine spinning a TCI six-speed automatic.
Schwartz Performance, from Woodstock, Illinois, is coming back with another 1969 Mustang; this one is the silver Raybestos give-away car. Somehow they managed to cram a 5.0 Liter Coyote engine under the hood, and you can check out the install and ask how to fit one into your next project while attending the Summer Nationals.
Musclecar Restorations will have on hand a Hemi-powered 1969 Super Bee belonging to customer Greg Miller. Known for their incredible Mopar restos, this silver Bee is anything but a restoration with a mini-tubbed rear, Wilwood disc brakes, and custom, red leather interior.
The Custom Shop is bringing an all-wheel-drive 1968 Camaro. Powered by a 376 LSX, it utilizes a 4L70E AWD automatic transmission with lots of Trailblazer goodies used for the suspension, it also features some trick body mods to accept the 20- and 19-inch steamroller tires.
Show spectators can vote for their favorite Pro Builder car via text message, and their the winner will be presented with a trophy on the main stage on Sunday. Make plans to attend the 2016 Car Craft Summer Nationals!.
Streamlining any race car is a seductive exercise you’ll find in everything from drag racing to Formula 1, and it seduces its fair share of luminaries as well as backyard racers. For years in the 1960s and early 1970s there were rumors “Big Daddy” Don Garlits was putting together a streamlined dragster based off of a fiberglass body made by Jocko Johnson, with a chassis by Connie Swingle. While this shot was taken in May 1972, it wasn’t until a year later that the “Wynns-Liner” made its debut at the 1973 AHRA Grand American meet at Orange County International Raceway. Interestingly, there was another streamlined dragster at the 1973 Grand American, this one from “Big” Jim Dunn that ran both as a rear-engine Funny Car, and then with its body switched over to the streamlined aluminum dragster body, it ran in Top Fuel.
Garlits was more than apprehensive about running his streamliner, saying he was “spooked” by its handling. He claimed it wanted to fly at half-track. During practice sessions with the black beauty, he said the slicks were spinning at more than 9,000 rpm the length of the strip, supporting his sense the car was lifting. Jocko said the opposite, claiming the body produced extreme downforce and couldn’t be lifting. Either way, Garlits wouldn’t pilot the dragster, choosing instead to plant Butch Maas in the seat, where he killed the car at half-track for his maiden-voyage, one-run ride.
Back in Florida, Garlits talked “Mad Dog” Don Cook into entering it at the IHRA World Finals at Lakeland. The darting dragster couldn’t get pointed straight and made it to half-track before shutting down.
Though Garlits would continue to experiment with aerodynamics through the years, trying wings, wheel pants, and cockpit covers, the spooky Wynns-Liner was soon parted out, never to run again.
Describing why you like the styling of a certain car can be like explaining what chocolate tastes like. It’s especially not easy figuring why we like a less-popular car, but sometimes we know what sparked the outcast attraction. It might be your older brother had one, or someone down the street who roared past your house each day. Maybe your dad bought one new or you used to spy it in your high school parking lot, and something about it sang to you.
For me, the original 1966 Dodge Charger is one of those cars. As a child, my father took me to the Pan Pacific auditorium in Los Angeles for the yearly new-car show, and in 1965, my eyes fell on what I thought was the most beautiful car ever: the Charger II show car. Resplendent in silver with its flat, wide fastback, full-width taillight, and sculptured sides, it was too much of a dream to imagine it would be produced. In fact, the show car came after Charger development had begun, so the question of if it might get produced had already been made.
Then just a few months later, it debuted as a 1966 model based on the Dodge Coronet. It looked exactly like its muse to my young eyes. Though it sold marginally well in its two years of production with just over 50,000 finding buyers, most Chargers that followed—and most Mustangs, Camaros, Barracudas, and so forth—have always overshadowed the first Charger to enthusiasts.
Today the going price is way below that of its contemporaries, bearing out its continued lack of appreciative followers, which is a good thing if, like me, you love less-popular cars. The more blind sheep-like enthusiasts are, the cheaper they are for those of us who think they’re underpriced, underappreciated, and overlooked. That translates into a cheaper, unique, and more unusual project you won’t likely see duplicates of at the next Power Tour.
For the 2016 Summer Nationals Car Craft has again called out for undiscovered builders to step up and be counted. We’re giving them some love to showcase their builds and to spotlight their unique talents for a boost to launch them toward their dream of building muscle cars for a living. Yes, we know that’s a crazy, but not unobtainable, goal for all of these builders. Or maybe it’s not. Here’s one of the five we are featuring:
Jason Vega Eau Clair, Wisconsin 1978 Pontiac Firebird
Jason wanted the challenge of taking a mostly rusted away hulk and bringing it back from the dead. He admits this Firebird should have been sent to the crusher it was so bad. How bad? When the 10-bolt let go, he yanked it out by hand as the leaf spring mounting supports had rusted away from the floor. The car needed different doors, front fenders, a new floor, rockers, rear quarters, and more—so much more Jason can’t remember everything he replaced or repaired. Yikes! He got his wish, as the car looks like a creampuff plucked from a dry desert region.
Originally a 400ci automatic Trans Am with T-tops, Jason started the long trek to completion in 2002, finishing up in 2007. Starting at the rear, he slowly worked forward. The Firebird now features a Ford 9-inch rear with QA1 coil-overs. Tying the rear to the front, he retained the stock front stub and power steering, utilizing Detroit Speed upper and Speed Tech lower A-arms with original Firebird spindles and QA1 coil overs. Wilwood Drag Lite disc brakes are at all four corners. Jason built the roll cage from a universal kit. His friend Danny handled the bright red paint.
The engine is now an original 455 block .035 over with a 4 ½-inch stroker crank nets 495ci, and features Edelbrock aluminum heads, Ross pistons, roller rockers with a flat tappet cam. The engine spins a modified 200R4 by Extreme Transmissions. With a 5600 rpm rev limiter and two passes to date, Jason has run a best of 12.2 with stock trim in the quarter, but fiancé Esmeralda is vibrating for Jason to beat that time by plenty tomorrow night at the Car Craft Midnight Drags at Great Lakes. A biomedical services professional, Jason thinks he might be past the point that he can reasonably expect to break away and start building, but he says, “If this was 20 years ago and I had this opportunity I would jump at the chance.” As it is he does work for friends, and has a fully equipped shop at his house where he can build what he wants, when he wants.
For the 2016 Summer Nationals Car Craft has again called out for undiscovered builders to step up and be counted. We’re giving them some love to showcase their builds and to spotlight their unique talents for a boost to launch them toward their dream of building muscle cars for a living. Yes, we know that’s a crazy, but not unobtainable, goal for all of these builders. Or maybe it’s not. Here’s one of the five we are featuring:
Jim Ransom Oconomowoc, Wisconsin 1969 Nova
Jim had a plan for his rusty, wasted Nova, and it was to race in the quarter mile, and that’s what he’s done since finishing it three years ago. But to get to this point took a lot of time and skill, as the poor Nova is a Wisconsin car, which means lots of rust from lots of winter salt. Over four years he replaced the doors and front fenders, and then welded in a new floor, rockers, rear quarters from the midline crease down, and on any other areas the rust worm had made holes in. He also flattened the firewall, before tackling the chassis and drivetrain.
As these are unibody cars, he created a 2×3-inch frame, then made his own A-arms, incorporating stock Nova spindles and coil overs, with a rear-steer rack-and-pinion. He also mounted the 9-inch Ford rear that is a fabb’d housing he also made. In fact, making fabb’d housings is one of the ways he pays for his car building hobby. Moving inside, he made his own roll cage, certified for low-8 second passes, though the best pass to date was a 10.00 at Great Lakes.
Tom Nickerson did the machine work and set up the crank for the 512 GM big-block before Jim took care of the roller cam and rockers, Jessel belt drive, front-drive distributor, Brodix heads and intake, with an 1150 Dominator mounted on top. It’s all anchored in by a motor-and mid-plate Jim made. He also made the headers.
Jim likes to do tin-bending as well, and so he fabricated all the interior panels and the rear wing. He also extended the cowl induction hood to the windshield—they normally stop at the back of the hood opening. The bumpers have also been narrowed a bit to tuck in nicer to the body than they do in stock form. Then it was time to lay on the Hugger Orange base/clear, handled expertly by Jim.
New to the car this week is the NOS nitrous system he’s anxious to try out at Great Lakes for the Car Craft Midnight Drags tomorrow night. He’s also anxious for HOT ROD Drag Week in September where he’ll flog his Nova on a six-day thrash of gas, sweat, humidity, and potential triumph should he win his class in the Street Race Power Adder class.
Jim’s having a lot of fun with his once-wasted Nova, and would like to be able to do more builds like this should he break away from his day job. Maybe the exposure at the Car Craft Summer Nationals will help him decide when and where he might make the jump to big-time car building.
For the 2016 Summernationals Car Craft has again called out for undiscovered builders to step up and be counted. We’re giving them some love to showcase their builds and to spotlight their unique talents for a boost to launch them toward their dream of building muscle cars for a living. Yes, we know that’s a crazy, but not unobtainable, goal for all of these builders. Or maybe it’s not. Here’s one of the five we are featuring:
Chad Davis Van Meter, Iowa 1968 Olds 442 ‘Vert
Chad’s a car guy, and is known in his neighborhood as being such, so when the older dude across the street wanted him to help estimate what the old convertible hidden in his garage forever was worth, he reached out to Chad. Chad got lucky. When this 97,000 original-mile 442 poked out into the light, he told the owner, “You figure out what it’s worth, but I want it.” He never knew this was sitting within spitting distance of where he lives. The neighbor bought it originally from North Carolina, and then drove it only another 20,000 miles over a few years, so rust damage was minimal. Though decent, the green paint, parking lot rash and grime had to go, and so a rotisserie resto took the better half of three years of night and weekend thrashing. This is a numbers matching 400 ci, 4-speed, air conditioning 442 ‘Vert, a pretty rare combo. Chad fixed the rust, and then covered the body in base/clear VW Carbon Steel Gray. Midwest Machine in Des Moines rebuilt the original 10.5:1 compression engine to stock specs with the exception being a .030 over bore and the Quick Fuel carb. Hedman headers and a Champion aluminum radiator are the only deviations from stock under the hood. Stainless exhaust by the owner runs out the back. The stock Muncie 4-speed was rebuilt, as was the 12-bolt posi, now sporting 11-inch Cadillac disc brakes. Up front 13-inch Corvette discs do the stopping, CCP A-arms replace the stockers, and QA1 coils bounce the corners.
With the encouragement of wife Belinda, Chad is on the fast track to building cars for a living. He wants his two high school-age kids to finish studies before jumping in full time. His plan is to start with a couple of his own cars that he can then flip once finished to continue building more, hopefully building up to a customer base of cars to do. He does a lot of work for friends now, when he’s not doing the 9-to-5 painting components for a tractor parts supplier.
For the 2016 Summernationals Car Craft has again called out for undiscovered builders to step up and be counted. We’re giving them some love to showcase their builds and to spotlight their unique talents for a boost to launch them toward their dream of building muscle cars for a living. Yes, we know that’s a crazy, but not unobtainable, goal for all of these builders. Or maybe it’s not. Here’s one of the five we are featuring:
Nick Schultz Beaver Dam, Wisconsin 2009 370Z
Yeah, we know you weren’t expecting one of these within ten miles of the Summernationals, let alone one of Car Craft’s up-and-coming Undiscovered Builders, but check it out and hold your opinions until you read about it. First, Nick has done most of the work himself, including the water-based chameleon paint, but there’s more. He’s also done all of the figure painting, as well as the carbon-fiber you’ll see throughout the car. Take the hatch area, for instance. Nick sculpted the carbon girl, and finished with the paint, pinstriping, and gold leaf. What you don’t see are the carbon brake ducts, and full belly pan—al created by Nick.
When Nick bought the Z in 2011 it was an abused and well-used 22,000-mile nightmare that needed a lot of work due to its thrashed, yet short life. Among the many carbon fiber pieces he custom made for his Z is the top, which though not structural, was lovingly created to replace the pedestrian factory top. It’s not a structural member, yet Nick vacuum formed the layup, to give as much strength as possible. The creation alone, is what cinched Nick’s inclusion in the Undiscovered finalists for the Summernationals.
For power he rebuilt the 3.7 Nissan six-banger, bored to 3.9, with .005-over valves. And don’t forget these Zs have electronic valves—there’s no bump stick on these babies. A Stillen supercharger was chosen for the power range it provides over turbos according to Nick. He made the mounting brackets for that supercharger, too. A Stillen plenum, air/water interface, and stand alone oil and transmission coolers keep temps lower under the hood, as does the intercooler for the supercharger. With twin intakes these engines use twin MAFs and throttle bodies, FYI.
Nick is a fuel-injection system designer for a company that manufactures FI components and architecture for different vehicles. He’d love to be doing things like his Z for a living, and has dabbled in doing paint and design work, with some pinstripping and detail painting for friends and a few clients. Though he has no immediate plan, you never know what might pop up, so we look forward to seeing if the Summernationals exposure gives him a big bump.
For the 2016 Summernationals Car Craft has again called out for undiscovered builders to step up and be counted. We’re giving them some love to showcase their builds and to spotlight their unique talents for a boost to launch them toward their dream of building muscle cars for a living. Yes, we know that’s a crazy, but not unobtainable, goal for all of these builders. Or maybe it’s not. Here’s one of the five we are featuring:
Steve Grybel Southgate, Michigan 1972 Corvette
When Steve went looking for a project to cut his teeth on after finishing high school, he needed to look no further than his garage. His dad Dave bought a 1972 Corvette sales demo in 1973, and had thrashed and bashed it, leaving it to collect dirt, umbrellas, and assorted garage stuff for years. Steve picked at it for a few years, before diving head first into a complete tear down and restoration starting in 2008. Four years later it looked like you see it now. Everything that could be rebuilt or replaced was. Steve stripped it down to a bare shell and frame, then slowly massaged everything back together. All suspension components were massaged beyond just removing and replacing. Things like the stock brake calipers were ground and smoothed up before being finished and attached. A full air ride system was fabb’d by Steve including creating the cups, and hard lines, while hiding the tanks regulators in the rear. Aftermarket cross-drilled discs complete the brakes.
The only part of the small block that remains from the original is the block—everything else was replaced with aftermarket parts like the 202 heads, titanium valves, rods and pistons—all performed by Fred Wailey in Huron Township, Michigan. Unlimited Transmissions in Belleville, Michigan, built a 700R4 automatic, even though there’s what looks like a 4-speed stick in the custom made console. The wrap and dash pad were all created in fiberglass and finished by Steve, then he mixed the custom yellow base with gold pearl overlay before Scott Tangin shot the bright yellow.
Things like the headlights and wiper door were converted to electric to eliminate the vacuum lines and perform better. Chris Pisticalli for Pete’s Upholstery in Taylor, Michigan, designed the interior and C5 Corvette power seats created in black leather. 17-inch Colorado Custom wheels shine at the corners. Steve and dad Dave have put 5000 miles on the rejuvenated Vette since completion in 2012.
Steve is ready to start building cars soon, and already has a plan. Working at Roush Industries in the Ford Development section of the company, you’d think he would find it exciting and fun, which he does. But he is ready to build cars for customers, and is already looking for a proper building outside of Detroit, so this is one Undiscovered Builder that may not be undiscovered for long.
Being the Car Craft Summernationals you’ve come to expect a wide assortment of muscle cars, street gassers, restored wing cars, and a gang of Bosses, Hemis, and SS Chevys. And you’ll not be disappointed; the Milwaukee State Fairgrounds is filled with all of that and more. The thing is we don’t expect to see much of the pre-1955 stuff. You know, Model As, T-buckets, and mid-1930s Ford and Chevy coupes. The Summernats just screams burn out contests, Midnight Drags at Great Lakes just down the Interstate, and other mayhem catering to the 1955 and later heaps. Yet, again this year as last we are amazed at the large number of early iron showing up to share the muscle car love. While the Summernats attracts modified high performance and drag racing iron from all over, the locals who drive the early iron have found kindred spirits with the Car Craft crowd. So below is a 100-image gallery of just some of the early iron assemblage that came out this year to the 2016 Car Craft Summernationals.
One of the cornerstones of performance enthusiasts everywhere is celebrating 50 years of mostly uninterrupted Chevrolet pony power. Yes, HOT ROD has had more red Camaros on its cover than we can count and, yes, we hot rodders did have to endure a few years of Camaro-less blues in the early-2000s, but what a ride it’s been before and definitely since its triumphant return in 2009. From COPOs to Z/28s, the Camaro covers every enthusiast’s desires, whether it’s from a collector or a straight-line or twisty standpoint. We’ve gathered a nice group of vibrating Camaros from each era, along with some brief background behind each generation.
Where would the hot rodding world be without the first-gen Camaro? Chevrolet’s iconic entry into the ponycar world has shaped so much of automotive history.
The Original
Though late to the ponycar segment—with the Mustang dropping like a bomb in April 1964—when Chevy entered with the 1967 Camaro, enthusiasts immediately embraced them. And while production numbers trail the Mustang for most years, the Mustang and Camaro share equal supremacy to enthusiasts. The Camaro’s designers wanted a mainly clean sheet with acknowledged component sharing of suspension and some internals, but for feasibility, the Camaro was based off the upcoming 1968 Nova cowl and windshield structure. Designers wanted a lower, more raked cowl/windshield, but they would have to wait until the second-gen Camaro to get this. The Camaro, available as both a coupe and convertible, was a unibody with a frame stub tied in at the cowl. Straight-six and both small- and big-block V8 options made for a Camaro to fit both customer budgets and needs. The original design lasted two years, with the iconic 1969 facelift considered by many to be the pinnacle of Camaro design. The Rally Sport (RS) appearance option included hidden headlights, while the SS option included a 295hp, 350ci V8. A few months after launch, a Z/28 performance option with the high-rev, 302ci engine and handling package made for one end of the Camaro high-performance spectrum. The other end came from the COPO big-block 427, available as either the iron block rated at 425 hp or the ZL1 aluminum block with the same rating, but obviously shedding poundage for better performance. Only 69 ZL1s were produced. With sheetmetal tooling problems plaguing the intro of the second-gen Camaro in 1970, the 1969 Camaro soldiered on through the first half of 1970 production.
Loyal HRM readers will recall the F-Bomb Camaro, a Freigburger project that, with the help of Nelson racing engines, welcomed the dawn of the modern turbo-V8 era.
Second-Gen
The highly anticipated second-gen 1970-1/2 Camaro finally got its own unique body, shared only by the Pontiac Firebird, and enthusiasts immediately embraced it. Marketed as a more “European” design, production was about half of the first-gen’s robust numbers. Still, it was a longer, lower, and heavier Camaro, with extreme tumblehome and a unique, large grille opening that set it apart from most all car designs of the time. Rally Sport, Super Sport, and Z/28 options were all available, as was the big-block. In 1974, per government crash standards, the “locomotive” bumpers were mandated. This would also mark a steady decrease in horsepower as pollution regs started strangling performance. The big-block had already been dropped in 1973. 1975 saw the new wrapping rear window applied to the design. By 1976, the largest engine was a 350 rated at 165 hp. In 1978, the Camaro received a new soft nose and tail, which hid the 5-mph bumpers, improving styling immensely. A Type LT option was added, as were transparent T-tops. 1979 would see record production for Camaro with 282,571 units built. Though the Type-LT was dropped, a Berlinetta trim option debuted. A new V6 rated at 110 hp replaced the antiquated straight-six, with horsepower toggling throughout the second-gen’s duration continuing as Chevy tried to improve on its emissions and economy. The second-gen ended its run with the 1981 model.
Austin Gerding’s 1987 Camaro is probably the coolest third-gen we’ve ever crossed paths with. Built to tear up cones in NASA’s American Iron series, this Jerico-shift F-body hauls the mail.
Third-Gen
Released in January 1982, the third-gen’s hatchback body was a radical departure from previous years. A new McPherson strut front replaced the traditional A-arm/front stub architecture, with a torque arm and coil springs out back. Also new were fuel injection, four-speed automatic transmissions, five-speed manual transmissions, and even four-cylinder engines. Carrying over from the previous generation was the base sport coupe, Berlinetta, and Z/28. By 1984, the initial throttle-body “Cross-Fire” 350 was replaced with the L69 four-barrel; in 1985, the IROC-Z (named for the International Race of Champions) debuted, with a 5.0L, tuned-port-injected (TPI), 215hp V8. For 1987, a convertible version was added after being absent since the debut of the second-gen Camaros. Also back was the 5.7L 350. In 1988, Chevy killed the Z/28 name, but added the 1LE option, which was meant to be competitive in showroom-stock road racing. The B4C police pursuit package was available in 1991, which included some of the 1LE components. 1992 was the final year for the third-gen.
Camaro Performers readers will recall the über-slick fourth-gen of Nick Licata, now the editor of Chevy High Performance. With a stroked LS3 swapped in, this Camaro was a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
Fourth-Gen
Though touted as all new, realistically, the fourth-gen Camaro was an extensively reworked third-gen sharing its floorpan stamping and rear suspension. However, the McPherson strut front suspension was replaced with an A-arm arrangement with rack-and-pinion steering. Another twist was the use of plastic front fenders. Engine choices were down to the 3.4 V6 and detuned Corvette LT1 350 V8 with 275 hp. The HiPo Z/28 option included a four-speed automatic or six-speed manual transmission. The 3800 V6 was added in 1994 and, by 1995, was the only V6 available. In 1996, an SS version once again became available with 17-inch wheels and horsepower increased to 305 as highlights for this option. In 1998, the LS1 became available, and on the outside, a new fascia replaced the original face. Other than color, wheels, and other minor changes, the Camaro continued pretty much unchanged to its eventual final year in 2002. The Camaro model would be off of dealers’ books for eight long years.
The eight model years without a Camaro were hard for everyone, except the Mustang folks. That made 2009 an especially good vintage, as it was the year the first fifth-gen (marked as a 2010 model) rolled off the assembly line.
Fifth-Gen
Based on production figures for the Mustang over the eight years the Camaro was not manufactured, combined with the reception to the stunning Camaro showcar that was based on a contemporary version of the 1969 Camaro, Chevy needed little prodding to get back into Camaro manufacturing. For years after, they outsold the venerable Mustang, proving enthusiasts missed the Camaro. Available as V6- or LS-equipped versions with both six-speed automatics and manual transmissions, the RS package added 20-inch wheels, a rear spoiler, and HID headlights among other appearance items. The SS version packs a 6.2L L99 V8 with an automatic or LS3 V8 with a six-speed manual and Brembo disc brakes. In 2012, the ZL1 Camaro got the supercharged LSA V8 with 580 hp and 556 lb-ft of torque. The COPO drag-racing version of the Camaro also became available with engine options of a 550- or 500hp supercharged 5.3 LSX, or naturally aspirated 7.0L LS7 with 425 hp. For 2013, nothing changed, but COPOs received new engines with the NA 325hp 350, 375hp 396, or a 427 making 425 hp. The Z/28 made its return in 2014 with the Corvette Z06’s 505hp LS7. There were no changes for the final year of production in 2015.
Fifty years and six generations of Bow Tie evolution have lead Camaro design to this: the sixth-gen. The car is sleeker and lighter than the outgoing model and, as expected, more powerful. Only time will tell what the next iteration of the iconic breed has in store.
Sixth-Gen
2016 debuted the new Camaro. Smaller, lighter, and with much more body sculpturing, it is based off GM’s Alpha platform. It is a livelier update of the previous fifth-gen. It also shares only 30 percent of its components with other GM cars, making for a very unique Chevy. Engine options run the gamut, starting with a 275hp, turbocharged four-cylinder; 335hp, 3.6 V6; 455hp, 6.2 LT1; or the supercharged, 640hp LT4 that will be offered in the 2017 ZL1. All of which share either six-speed manual or eight-speed automatic transmissions, except for the ZL1, which will have the option of a 10-speed automatic, a first for Chevrolet. So the sixth-gen is starting to become the most varied and able to be personalized for the most discerning enthusiast.
If you’re wondering why HOT ROD is featuring a boat, here’s two reasons for starters: 1) It’s powered by a 1600 lb-ft of torque 12-cylinder Allison monster, and 2) HOT ROD Magazine sponsored this for four years when it competed in 1960s marathon racing.
Now that we’ve got your attention, we’ll let Cream Puff owner and restorer John Fell, from Yorba Linda, California, start this off, “I raced crackerboxes for 10 years and said I’d never build another dang boat, and then I thought, ‘Wait, nobody is driving an Allison-engine boat down the river, and there I was into another boat project.” This was back in the early 1990s. If that sounds cockeyed, understand that John’s body and brains have been pounded from racing boats a bit too much. Or maybe it’s just boat-owner logic. “My buddy Mike Leach was looking for the Super Cinders marathon boat, and that triggered me to look for Cream Puff from the early 1960s period of California marathon boats because it had a lot more press, won a lot more races, and had this Allison for power.”
Allison. As in 1710 ci Allison-powered World War II P-38, P-40, and early P-51 Mustang fighter planes. They used to dump these war surplus 12-cylinder monsters in boats, drag cars, and land speed racers in the 1950s because they were cheap, exotic, powerful, intimidating, and aircraft mechanics were still around who knew how to make them run. And when you look at that gleaming hunk of metal and aluminum—don’t you also want one for your next project?
Cream Puff was built in 1961 for the unlimited class of inland lakes marathon racing, which was so popular in California in the 1950s and 1960s, happening at Salton Sea, Parker Dam in Arizona, Clear Lake above Santa Rosa, California, and Lake Berryessa located between Santa Rosa and Sacramento in northern California.
The Salton City 500 was billed as the Indianapolis 500 of endurance boat racing, and it was a sledgehammer on boats. Says John, “Can you imagine trying to drive one of these things for 500 miles—you’d be peeing blood for a week!” Then he adds, “It was the 1960s, people were nuts back then.” 189 boats entered the race in 1964, but incredibly only seven finished after over seven hours of running the four-mile course. Blown engines, damaged hulls, fried V-drives, and an infinite amount of mishaps were common. It attracted all the speed crazies, as well as an estimated 50,000 spectators. Names like Mickey Thompson, Parnelli Jones, AJ Foyt, drag racer Tommy Ivo, and other Indycar drivers got seat time in these floating, flying missiles. Even astronauts Gordon Cooper and Gus Grissom, and actor Lon Chaney Jr. piloted them.
Rudy Ramos was the “son” part of Rayson-Craft, along with his father Raymond. They owned an aluminum casting plant in Gardena, California, and in the back of the shop Rudy built Rayson-Craft pleasure boats and an occasional race boat. At its peak in the 1960s Rayson-Craft cranked out over 250 boats per year. But Rudy’s pleasure was racing in marathon boat races, and after winning the 1961 Salton City 500 with an 18-foot Rayson-Craft flat bottom powered by a Keith Black 392ci Chrysler Hemi, with co-driver and money buddy Ed Olson, he knew bigger was better when it came to marathons. Boat racers ran Allison engines in unlimited hydroplane divisions successfully in the 1950s, so it was a natural place to seek more torque and horsepower.
Ramos created this 20-foot V-bottom to handle both an Allison and the Salton Sea, and fashioned his V-drive with the help of Casale Engineering’s Ernie Casale, the innovator of V-drives then and even today. Casale fashioned this massive 300-pound, 18-degree split-case gearbox. The V-drive plate it attaches to is ¾-inch thick steel. The propshaft is a stout 1-1/4-inches, and the whole assembly is water jacketed for cooling, utilizing a separate dry-sump oiling system.
HOT ROD Magazine sponsored it, featured it in our February 1965 issue, and ran a monthly boat racing column fueled by staffer Eric Rickman’s interest in all things boat-related.
Problems plagued Cream Puff during its early gestation through 1963, because of its habit of wandering on the water. Hull and boat racing technology was in its infancy, and even today boat racers continually tweak and modify their boats as evolution continues. With traditional V-bottom boats the hull is V’d, incorporating lifting strafes that channel water back against the water’s surface, lifting the boat. Less hull in the water means less drag, so you go faster. Additionally, fins located toward the back help to keep the boat straight. Since the 1050-pound craft had none of these advances, the hull skidded on the water, unable to go straight. It was essentially uncontrollable.
Over two years Ramos experimented to find fixes. First skin fins, or skags were attached toward the cavitation plates that settle the boat and help it point straight. Then he ran one-inch square aluminum stringers along the chine, stabilizing the boat, with the added benefit of keeping water out of the interior as water was pushed away rather than its earlier tendency of curling water up into the boat at speed.
Once Ramos worked out the demons Cream Puff dominated the water, easily winning the 1964 Lake Berryessa Six-Hour marathon in April, running 10mph faster than the competition, and at half-throttle.
“Can you imagine trying to drive one of these things for 500 miles—you’d be peeing blood for a week!”-John Fell
When the Salton City 500 with its $6600 first-place purse came around Veterans Day weekend 1964, Ramos was 20mph faster than the competition and finished 1-1/2-hours ahead of the second-place finisher. The longer hull and Allison engine combo pushed the art of marathon racing beyond everyone’s expectations. For good measure in 1965 Ramos and Olson repeated the win in Cream Puff, but soon after the American Power Boat Association outlawed anything Allison, necessitating Ramos’ switch to twin, front-to-back 427 Ford FE engines for the next couple of years.
By then hull designs were changing and engine performance was ratcheting upward with big block Chevys and 426 Hemis appearing when there hadn’t been any, and so Cream Puff eventually got dumped behind a trade school in Gardena, forgotten for 25 years until John dragged it home in 1991. Says John, “Rudy knew I was looking for it and had the gearbox, or V-drive, which was the key to doing this. I paid Rudy a few grand for the V-drive and got the boat for free. He also had a few other bits and pieces so that was a good start.”
What kind of shape was it in? Says John, “When I found it, it was lying on the ground painted powder blue with a rattle can, with swarms of mosquitos flying around from standing water inside. It was horrific. When I brought it home my wife screamed, ‘You have STUPID stamped on your forehead!’”
But there were silver linings. Though the hull is wood constructed, a four-ounce fiberglass skin protected it. And the mahogany wood deck was buried in fiberglass too. Says John, “It was in remarkable condition. All we did was sand the fiberglass then lay down another thin fiberglass matte.” It was also built like Noah’s Ark. The bottom keel is two-inches thick, with four full-length stringers supporting a 5/8-inch thick floor. It would have had to sink, been cut up with a chainsaw, or buried to destroy it. Besides critters there were some steering bits and motor plates for the FE’s remaining. And, of course John had that V-drive, and so all that was left to do was round up an Allison aircraft engine, convert it to Weber carbs, restore the hull, and it would be rooster tails and Margaritas frolicking on the gleaming mahogany deck at the river, right?
John contacted HOT ROD staffer Gray Baskerville, who kindly sought out photos of Cream Puff for reference from the HOT ROD archives. Then he started scrounging for parts and the elusive Allison engine. Says John, “I didn’t have any money, so I was trading and gathering for over five years before I started restoring it. I was buying junk Webers from VW guys and trading aluminum castings for parts.”
By the early 1990s the likelihood of finding one of these WWII artifacts was like finding the lost city of Atlantis. Continues John, “I didn’t know anything about Allison engines, but an engine is an engine, right? I tracked down the original from Cream Puff, but it was tied up in some probate deal in Seattle—Seattle was a major center for these unlimited boat racers. Eventually I found two engines in Mesa, Arizona, from a guy restoring P-51’s, so I bought those two for $3000. I tore one down and thought, ‘Man, I’m in way over my head. There were a bunch of special tools I would need that only the WWII mechanics had—they don’t remake old aircraft tools.”
Allison engines are in some ways like motorcycle engines—just a whole lot larger. These single-overhead behemoths have a crankcase that splits lengthwise down the crankshaft. The cylinders are in a cylinder block with six cylinders each that’s close to five-feet long, with six-inch bore spacing and 5-1/2-inch bores. The fork and blade connecting rods are over 16-inches long, and travel in six-inch strokes. There are four canted, sodium-filled valves per cylinder, and the cast rocker arms have huge rollers that are a work of art. The cam, heads, and cylinders are one unit like an Offenhauser Indycar engine. And there’s dual everything—ignition, magneto, batteries and distributor. The dry-sump lubricating system alone incorporates an 18-gallon tank. They were made to stay in the air and not kill our boys while being shot at.
Says John, “To load that up you’ve got the pistons on the crank, and you drop that into the case upside down, then you roll the whole thing over. Now you’ve got to get the block over the pistons, and they are all at different heights, and you’ve got to compress the rings, too. Basically everything is screwed up about assembling them.”
He says the weak link for these monsters is the electronics, “The plug gap is only .019 because if it gets any bigger it won’t spark.”
Among John’s many Allison discoveries was where and how the components were made. For the war effort all civilian manufacturing ceased, and different companies were tasked with producing components, or assembling whole planes, tanks, and more. General Motor’s assembly plant in Indianapolis assembled the engines. Castings with the Maytag washing machine logo were made for the intake and exhaust manifold plumbing. The cranks, cast with Cadillac script, worked like a centrifuge, with cups containing traps in the throws to collect metallic parts. So all of the oil is filtered through a centrifuge at all times, in addition to in-line filters. Amazing, and it gives a glimpse as to how these planes stayed in the air, even after catastrophic damage in some cases.
There was a time when Allisons were virtually worthless. In the 1960s McBride Scrap Metal in Long Beach, California, had over 600 engines. Japanese metal brokers would purchase them, load them onto boats, and while heading back to Japan would tear them apart for their silver bearings. During the war copper and brass was needed for artillery shell casings, so things like wiring and bearings were made from silver. Once the silver had been scavenged the scrappers would toss the rest overboard. Yikes!
Soon John got lucky with his engine-building dilemma, because he found Bob Patterson. Patterson was in his 70s at the time, and is still alive and kicking. And he knows Allisons, having built possibly hundreds of them for his offshore racing addiction. Why so many? He’s getting twice as much horsepower out of these old engines than they were designed for, and so they tend to break. Frequently. He even has a dyno at his Van Nuys shop set up for these monsters. Says John, “I gave him $10,000 to build the engine, and it was a Hell of a deal.”
A deal? Just consider dialing-in the six 48mm Webers. Says John, “I’ll bet we did over 30 dyno pulls to synch them with all the jets, emulsifiers, chokes and air bleeds—it took four or five weeks. Once they’re dialed-in they’re great, but it was challenging, especially when it’s something no one has ever done—there was no baseline. It was a lot of guessing and trial and error.”
So how does the engine perform? Says John, “It should make 1200 hp at 13000 feet—that’s how they rated them. My engine only makes 850 hp, but it makes 1600 ft lb of torque at 2500 rpm. To make that work you need to spin the prop at 7000-8000 rpm. The gear ratio is 2.76:1—basically almost a 3:1 prop shaft ratio. The gearbox has it’s own dry sump oiling system and spray bars on the gears, and with water-jacketed cooling it’s a pretty sophisticated gear box for the day—especially for a boat.”
Among the few new parts needed were forged pistons Arias Pistons made to increase compression. He also needed a new crank, which he found new-old-stock for $900. “No one could make that for under 20-grand today,” he says. The exhaust is from a P-38 Lightening because all of the other Allison aircraft applications had exhaust similar to zoomies. Because Lightenings were turbocharged, feeding to the supercharger, their exhausts ran down and back, which was perfect for Ramos’ needs.
A front-mounted centrifugal supercharger originally fed a huge Stromberg carb, but racing rules only allowed naturally aspirated engines, so Patterson plated off the supercharger opening. Now John needed an intake manifold for six Webers to feed 95- gallons of fuel an hour. Where do you find one of those? He says, “I just happen to have a foundry, so I made them.”
That’s another thing about John. His grandfather started Buddy Bar Casting in South Gate, California. Buddy Bar does aluminum sand casting, and for decades did all of the Ford Cobra aluminum castings as well as Edelbrock’s before they went in-house in the late-1980s. So the unobtanium intake manifold was no problem. He says, “That’s how Rudy made them, because at one time his father and my grandfather were sort of in competition.” The intake is actually 12 individual castings arranged on the heads for the slight off-center port arrangement. “At one point Ramos made an intake for four 4-bbl carbs to run on this thing. It didn’t perform well so they decided to run Webers, and it performed better.” That’s how it raced.
Though John only had to clean up the V-drive, the limitation for its new life as a ski boat was no in-and-out box arrangement—it was either in Drive or you turned the engine off. So he had Tom Bentley in Auburn, California, fashion a “whirlaway” ratcheting system at the snout of the drive acting as a prop release.
“When I brought it home my wife screamed, ‘You have STUPID stamped on your forehead!’”-John Fell
John was cutting and grinding parts he made by hand because he couldn’t afford a mill, making new engine mounting plates, mounting brackets on the stringers, and the shaft log. He moved the V-drive rearward, and slightly shimmed the engine to improve the drive angle, but other than those two deviations and the whirlaway, Cream Puff is identical to its 1964 configuration.
With the fabrication and major mechanical components completed, Swede in Orange, California, performed the bodywork, paint and lettering. It’s been so long that John can’t remember who did the upholstery. Cream Puff finally hit the water in 1999.
The sweet spot for the boat is around 80-85mph. While it’s capable of more, once past 90mph it wants to launch out of the water and start porpoising from the 18-degree drive angle. As the boat thrusts up the prop does too, lessening forward drive, slowing the boat until the prop settles down into the water again and drives forward, repeating the process over and over until speed is reduced. Back in the day racers experimented with drive angles before concluding that outdrives parallel to the water surface were the best.
Since its completion the Fell family; John, wife Carrie, son Jake, and daughter Molly, enjoy the boat for skiing and cruising at their 2nd home at Lake Nacimiento, California. But now John has some other boats he’s playing with, so Cream Puff may be looking for a new home. It seems that after all of this time John just can’t control the need for another boat project. Maybe Carrie Fell was right?
The cockpit is faithfully restored with switches to the left of the steering wheel for turning on the magnetos and the starter, while the knobs you see on the right of the wheel are for turning on the fuel pump, and the large one for turning on the bilge pump which was usually open for the duration of racing.A smiling Miss Salton Sea is flanked by the 1964 Salton City 500 winners trophy with winners Ed Olson on left, who supported the racing effort and co-drove with Rudy Ramos on the right, who owned Rayson-Craft and built the 20-foot V-bottom winner.Cream Puff at speed during the running of the 1964 Salton City 500, a 500-mile race fashioned by the Holly Development company developing property around the lake to draw attention and prestige to the largest lake in California. The first Salton City 500 race was held in 1961, and the last in 1966.From February 1964 a rare shot showing the early four-carb setup that was abandoned for the six-Weber configuration ultimately found to work better. Ramos’ boats were christened “Phfft” while co-driver Ed Olson’s were named “Cream Puff” to tie into his Orange County bakery.Ramos before the 1964 Salton City 500 race started. Note the crowded shoreline, with upwards of 50,000 spectators enjoying the mid-70s temperatures of November. Also note the carb shield that helps keeping water out of the Webers.Everything is massive including the drive shaft under the chrome shield that came out of a semi-truck. The entire restoration took eight years of nights and occasional weekends.The exhaust utilizes slip joints with flairs that once heated up expand and seal quite well. The manifolds came from WWII P-38 Lightenings because they were the only application of the Allison in aircraft that used twin turbochargers, which these originally tied into. All other applications used straight pipes like zoomies.The original Casale V-drive was the key for owner John Fell restoring Cream Puff, because it’s a complicated piece and would be too costly to reproduce factoring in the other aspects of restoring the boat. John Fell’s deal with the original builder Rudy Ramos was to purchase the V-drive, which then included the location of the derelict remains of Cream Puff available for the taking.Flanking each side of the engine are 60-gallon fuel tanks John had Imco Products in Chandler, Arizona, make the aluminum tanks that replicate the originals. Photographer Alex Wong captured the contemporary images of Cream Puff at its home on Lake Nacimiento, California.
No, this is not about why Funny Cars should look like their real-life counterparts, though that’s a common discussion around HOT ROD and drag-racing circles, in general. Instead, this is about proportion and stance. You might hear these terms come up from time to time dealing with the overall appeal of a particular car design, but it’s a bit fuzzy on what it refers to and how important it really is. Our example is the Rambler (soon to be AMC) Rebel from 1967 and its fantastic Grant Rambler Funny Car replicate of “Banzai Bill” Hayes from that epoch when Funny Cars were just morphing from real car body shells to fiberglass flip-top facsimiles.
Race Car Specialties’ Frank Huszar and Roy Steen built a chassis about 10 inches longer than a stock Rebel, which the Grant Industries–made body was lengthened ahead of the cowl to accommodate. Those few inches changed the proportions of the car from being truncated up front to giving the overall design a more natural proportion. Then with the big slicks in back and front-runners up front, the body lower in relation to the ground, and, of course, wheels and tires, the stance changed from looking like a cat with its back arched walking on its toes, to lower and more aggressive. Were the front of the car to be higher than the rear, the stance or rake would be off, unless we’re looking at Gassers.
Then, the higher the front, the cooler and more insane the overall proportions become, throwing all stance and proportion norms out the window. So whether you’re going for the cartoony craziness of Gassers or the low-down goodness of Funny Cars or Pro Stockers, think about this little primer when dreaming about your next project and make it look like a wolf on wheels instead of a wandering warthog.
In September 1967, American Motors Corporation (AMC) had no performance parts, no performance engineering group, no racing group, no engine-development program, and absolutely no plan for what it was about to embark on. With only months left before the introduction of the company’s AMX and Javelin ponycars, AMC decided the best way to market them was to enter into Trans-Am road racing and NASCAR and Pro Stock drag racing.
Let’s just say it was highly optimistic AMC believed it could dive into any form of racing, as it was the manufacturer of sensible, compact cars and a few other things like Marlins. Look it up if you don’t know about Marlins. They were the little Wisconsin car company that could, as long as it didn’t involve speed, racing, performance, or impressing your friends at the local Psycho Taco.
Chrysler, Ford, and GM were all heavily involved in different facets of racing for years to help market their cars. Their participation in Trans-Am—a production-based, road-racing series based on intermediates powered by small-blocks less than 305 ci—was a given, as it had quickly ramped up in popularity. But AMC appeared to be delusional; the company had nothing to prepare it for a head-on assault in any racing against its domestic rivals.
Jim Jeffords was contracted by AMC to prepare two Javelins for the 1968 Trans-Am series. Jeffords came up through primarily racing Corvettes—having started Nickey Chevrolet’s racing efforts—then after retiring from driving in 1960, transitioned to become Elkart Lake, Wisconsin’s Road America director. Jeffords wanted Ronnie Kaplan to do the heavy lifting. As CEO of Ronnie Kaplan Engineering (RKE) in Elk Grove, Illinois, Kaplan both drove and then developed race cars ranging from NASCAR to the Mexican Road Races and Sebring Corvette SCCA winners in 1961 and 1963. Accessing AMC’s lack of everything, he wisely said no.
He was then pursued by AMC for weeks in countless meetings and phone calls before receiving free reign to, among other things, use aftermarket parts; the only AMC performance parts that existed, which AMC would assign production part numbers to; and offer an assist from AMC engineering when needed. This was important because Trans-Am was based on production cars and parts, which meant there couldn’t be aftermarket performance components, to a certain extent. Anything developed for the racing enterprise would need factory part numbers, with all the complication and red tape this added, as this was a giant company making lots of parts. Kaplan signed a one-year contract and soon got the good news that AMC had already hired drivers Peter Revson and George Follmer, two talented, versatile racing champions.
RKE’s first step after delivery of three Javelins was stiffening the unibody by welding all of the sheetmetal panels, as they came from the factory spot-welded. Then Kaplan added stiffeners and the SCCA-approved rollcage that even tied into the top, as operating doors was a Trans-Am requirement. Stock suspensions were allowed only minimal changes, resulting in the “dealer-installed” Javelin Handling Package of heavier springs, a sway bar, a track bar, and heavy-duty shocks that were traded for Koni adjustable coilovers for racing.
With a 305ci engine-displacement cap, Kaplan was stuck with AMC’s Gen II 290ci small-block as the only eligible engine. Rules wrangling soon allowed over-boring cylinders, achieving close to maximum allowable displacement. With no time to develop an engine program, RKE contracted Traco Engineering in Culver City, California, to build two 304.6ci, single-four-barrel engines. Dyno’d at 380 hp, they were down 100 hp from the competition. Transmissions were standard Borg-Warner wide-ratio T10 four-speeds. Close-ratio gears were preferred, so transmission cases were machined to accept T10-M close-ratio gears.
This is a nice pit shot of Peter Revson in the No. 9 backup car at Riverside in 1970. Revson DNF’d with Donohue coming in third. He was never happy about being the backup car, which meant if Donohue blew an engine, he would take over for Revson at the next pit stop.
Testing commenced at Riverside Raceway in February 1968 to prepare for the Sebring 12-Hour Race in March. AMC couldn’t make the first race in the series, the 24 Hours of Daytona. At Sebring, the two Javelins qualified at 3.07.2 and 3.04.4, quicker than the previous year’s top qualifying time of 3.10. Follmer fell out after 6 hours with a broken valve, but Revson placed 12th. A new rule allowed dual carbs right before the race, which handicapped the AMC single-carb effort since they couldn’t fashion an intake manifold in that short amount of time, but by the following race in May at New Mannford, Oklahoma, a 2×4-barrel cross-ram intake had been developed at Edelbrock.
Here Follmer’s bold red, white, and blue Javelin came in second and Revson’s placement was reduced to fourth after a protest. Still, the Javelin Racing Team was in the hunt with just a few months worth of development time—an amazing feat.
At Mid-Ohio, the Javelins placed one/two on the pole, with testdriver John Martin filling in for Follmer, who was testing Can-Am cars. Revson came in third, with Martin exiting early with a blown engine. By the finish of the July 21 Les Trois Heures Du Circuit in Quebec, Canada, AMC was ahead of Ford in the manufacturers’ points race: 40 points to 37 points.
Strange “dealer-installed” parts were being assigned AMC part numbers as racing continued. One was a front-suspension crossmember that allowed for bolting on a Ford Mustang suspension, which featured the antidive characteristics that Javelin suspensions lacked. Also, a front spindle became available that accepted Lincoln disc brakes, which Ford was using in Trans-Am for their superior cooling properties.
In analyzing the 290ci engines, Kaplan wanted a bit more stroke, but the blocks didn’t allow for any more throw. Working with the AMC foundry, retired 290-engine designer Dave Potter came up with a plan. First, 11/16 inch was added to the decks, requiring spacers for the intake manifolds. Then the foundry devised a way to cast the bottom end of the 390ci block, which used four-bolt mains, to the top of the 290, which only had room for two-bolt mains. The two combined changes allowed the use of longer, standard Chevy connecting rods.
By the last race of the season in October in Kent, Washington, the Javelin team was the only factory-sponsored team to finish all 12 of the SCCA races, never winning a race, but placing second six times and third and fourth twice each.
However, Mark Donohue and the Chevy Camaro were dominant, winning 10 of the 12 races, leaving AMC’s tremendous efforts in the shadows. Manufacturer points were 90 points (Chevy), 59 points (Ford), and 51 points (AMC). When you factor in that AMC was only organizing its Trans-Am plans one year earlier and had kept the purse strings drawn tight, this was a major accomplishment that gave AMC management a reason to continue funding the fairy-tale outcome. Things would be much different for the new season.
For 1969 the Javelin bodies were shipped to RKE with reinforcements and other extraneous bits already omitted at the factory. The bodies were sent to Chem-Tech in California for acid dipping, even though this was not allowed by the SCCA. It seems they didn’t enforce this rule much.
Ron Grable leading the pack in his 1969 Kaplan-prepped Javelin at Riverside in October 1969. Immediately after this race, Kaplan was out at AMC as they got friendlier with Penske.
But things were about to get difficult. Tensions between Jeffords and Kaplan were heating up, and both Revson and Follmer were gone—Revson being fired by Jeffords before the end of the 1968 season and Follmer having been wooed away by Ford. Kaplan went to AMC management and gave them a Jeffords-or-me ultimatum. Jeffords was soon out.
Then a driver shuffle disrupted the season, with testdriver John Martin taking one of the seats, then Lothar Motschenbacher and Trans-Am veterans Bob Tullius and Ron Grable in the second car for part of the season. In later races, Jerry Grant replaced Martin, but none of these changes could stop the dark cloud following the Javelin Racing Team.
One of the bright spots in the early stages of the 1969 racing program was a new block that promised to help road-racing applications. It started with changing the engine cores to now reduce deck height. Then forged cranks, rods, and pistons were sent raw to Kaplan, where they machined them to their own specs. This new engine’s specs were sent to AMC for homologation, per SCCA rules. Also a new Edelbrock cross-ram manifold accepting two Holley Dominator carbs topped off the effort. Then it was off to the Michigan International Speedway season opener.
Arriving a day late with three entries, things already started badly and got worse. During the race, Martin’s car blew an engine and Grable’s dropped a driveshaft. Tullius finished the race in back of the pack. Then the SCCA discovered the new engine had not been homologated—it was a lapse at the AMC mothership. Team Javelin would have to revert to the previous year’s engines for the rest of the season, with the SCCA keeping a close eye on them for any further cheating.
Even with the SCCA dogging them, Team Javelin tried using fiberglass quarters in an illegal attempt to lighten the car. When the SCCA guys strolled into the pits with a magnet, steel quarters were quickly fastened to the chassis.
The best the team could muster for the entire 1969 season was a Fourth Place finish at the opener at Michigan, another Fourth Place at Quebec, and a Fifth Place at Mid-Ohio. Donohue again won the season for Chevy with six victories, with the manufacturers’ points standings being 78 points (Chevy), 64 points (Ford), 32 points (Pontiac), and 14 points (AMC). At that final race at Riverside, Kaplan was let go. AMC grimly assessed their future racing ambitions.
Mark Donohue at speed at Laguna Seca for the opening of the 1970 Trans-Am season. Parnelli Jones in his Mustang won this race.
Penske and Donohue Take Over
Chevrolet and Roger Penske Racing with driver Mark Donohue had won back-to-back Trans-Am championships, so you would think things between them would be lollipops and rainbows, but such was not the case. In Donohue’s book “The Unfair Advantage,” it was revealed that Chevrolet Racing’s Vince Piggins and Penske didn’t get along and also that Chevy was being stingy with development money and invoking a mess of red tape for much of what Penske needed. In addition, Ford’s racing manager, Homer Perry, had insulted Penske during a protest meeting, saying if it weren’t for Chevy building the cars, Penske would be a loser. Penske was greatly offended because he and Donohue felt their own hard work, testing, developing, and spending lots of Penske’s own money, created a championship racing team for himself and Chevrolet. He didn’t realize some perceived him as a rich kid using Chevy’s resources to make himself look good.
It was obvious that AMC would drop Kaplan, and it appears Penske initiated talks with AMC before the end of the season. He owned quite a few Chevy dealerships, so it was a bit dicey to be considering jumping manufacturers, but that’s what happened. With AMC offering Penske $2-million for the season, a deal was struck and the Trans-Am championship team two years running was now racing Nashes!
Penske was so determined to win that there was no Second Place finish bonus in the contract with AMC. When the news was announced at a press conference, Penske predicted the Javelin team would win at least 7 of the 12 races—a risky thing to be offering up having not so much as touched a Javelin race car. Penske was establishing how deep his determination was to win, even bringing back Peter Revson to race the second Javelin behind Donohue.
Selling off virtually all of the AMC equipment, cars, and backup parts as unusable, Penske wanted to start fresh. He kept one car for testing to determine a baseline. They found that, among other unspecified problems, there was virtually no suspension travel; the cars raced practically 100 percent on the bumpstops. Don Cox came with Penske from Chevy and immediately started on a new suspension. Retired AMC engineer Don Porter was retained, this time by Penske to help in developing special AMC engine components. Traco was contracted to build all of the engines for the 1970 season. Donohue said, “We saw the Javelin project as the ultimate challenge.”
Cox designed the entire rear end, which included the housing, axles, full-floating hubs, spool, linkage to locate the rear, and the brakes. But he added a twist: he “gronked” the rear end. Gronking is adding camber in the rear wheels by bending the housing; in this case, by adding 1 degree of camber, with the wheel bearings pressed into the housing crooked. Unfortunately, in testing the bent rear tore up axle splines, so back to the drawing board Cox went, adding Olds Toronado front-wheel-drive U-joints. In testing at Sebring, they determined with either the gronked or conventional rear it made no difference in lap times, so the gronking experiment was abandoned.
Peter Revson in the backup car ahead of Sam Posey in the 1970 Challenger at Laguna Seca. As a side note, the reason the Challenger’s top is black is that after an initial SCCA inspection found the top had been acid dipped, Dodge gave Posey’s team permission to cut the top off of a new Challenger sitting at a local Monterey dealership in order to race.
One happy outcome during development was using Girling disc brakes with Lincoln rotors. Cox devised a simple system for removing the rotors as quickly and easily as the brake pads. This played hell with the competition because they would watch the Javelin team change out rotors extremely fast, while it took away costly time in the pits for them to do the same. They never did figure out what Penske had done. Comprehensive aerodynamics testing was conducted, which not only aided the 1970 cars but also the heavily face-lifted 1971 models still being finalized for production.
Many improvements befell the 1970 AMC line, with one being the Gen III improvements of increased deck height for all three engines made. The 290 increased displacement to 304, the 343 increased to 360 using the 304’s stroked crank, and the 390 increased to 401 ci. They also “dog-legged” all heads, which aided in better exhaust flow. The intake bolt pattern was altered, which helps in identifying Gen III intake manifolds today.
What Traco did with this improved line of engines was to destroke a Gen III 360, making comparable power to a then-current 305 Chevy at 430 hp. But engine failures plagued early testing and right into the season’s first race. Testing on the dynos yielded no problems, but without warning, engines would fail on the track. Oil starvation was the culprit, but the team could not pin down the cause. Team Javelin DNF’d the first race at Laguna Seca, then the second race was canceled. For the third race at Lime Rock, both cars DNF’d again, and the jeers from Parnelli Jones and Ford about “winning seven races” became louder.
What was discovered through testing was the combo of hard breaking going into corners starved the oil pump immediately, stacking oil into the valve cover. Extensive testing at Elkhart Lake involved numerous engine builders creating myriad oil pans with trick baffles, swinging oil pumps, and trap doors hinged on bearings. From these tests, external drain backs were found to be a marginal improvement.
A quick fuel stop at the 1970 race at Laguna Seca. Donohue was on Parnelli’s heels throughout the entire race, even leading at one point, but ultimately came in second to Parnelli. Still, it showed that Penske’s Javelins were going to be in the hunt—or so everyone thought.
Then it was discovered Ford actually used external oil pumps in addition to the stock pump. Since there were no rules forbidding this, Team Javelin started using a dual-pickup pump with the secondary pickup scavenging oil from the uphill side of the pan. In all, the team lost 23 engines. There were no further problems, and at Bryar in New Hampshire, they finished in Second and Third Place.
At Bridgehampton, AMC scheduled a meeting with Penske after the race. Donohue won that race under rainy conditions. At the meeting, AMC management said they were there to cancel the contract with Penske, but since they won the race, they decided to wait and see. What a close call.
Going from hero to zero, one of the Javelins lunched an engine during practice at Donnybrooke, and Donohue blew the other one 20 laps into the race. This time it was found that the strain of the dual-pickup pump was wearing out the drive gears on the cam, affecting the distributor running off of the same gears, which was throwing off timing. As the cars got further into a race, the ignition would start to retard, sometimes leading to backfiring and a definite lack of power. The answer was drilling new oil passages to feed oil to the gears.
In the end, Team Javelin would win three races—not seven. But AMC was in for 1971, so two of the three Javelins were sold to Roy Woods’ team, and Penske started to work on the newly re-skinned 1971 Javelins.
Testing at Elkhart Lake in July 1971 after winning the race there the previous week.
Over the winter, they did development work on the front suspension, brakes, as well as trying to squeeze more power from the engines at Traco. Then Donohue said, “We went back to the shop, started with a new bare chassis tub, and built a new car as perfectly as we knew how.”
One welcome Trans-Am rule change, initiated by Penske, was to allow dry-sump oil systems. Any lingering problems from oil gremlins would forever be a thing of the past for Team Javelin.
Donohue won the first race at Laguna, then lost the next two to Follmer. Donohue went on to win the next six races in a row, clinching the Trans-Am championship. But there was a difference in the 1971 season. The other manufacturers decided the incessant rule changes doubled the price to play each year, and it became too costly for the marketing shine. AMC was in it alone, and their backing and Penske’s knowledge for what it took to win gave Team Javelin a commanding edge, but the dynamics of previous years were gone.
The hollow victory in 1971 was the end of AMC’s Trans-Am assault, but Team Penske and AMC were not done racing. In 1972, AMC contracted Penske to compete in NASCAR, but that’s another story for another time.
One of the best things about hot rodding is that you can take the road less traveled. If you’re crafty, with a good imagination, you can combine that with a car considered less desirable and end up with something more appealing than your typical Mustang/Camaro/’Cuda build, just because it’s not “typical.” While we love all the ponycars and they are the most popular platform to build your dream on, they’re abundant at places like Power Tour all the way to the local cruise-in.
To be fair, the 1966 and 1967 Fairlanes are not a bad start at all. We often wonder why certain great project candidates like the ’Lane aren’t more popular. But you have to go well beyond the effort you’d put into a popular pony to get the same rubbernecking recognition. Combined with the excellent execution of every last design detail by Steve Strope’s Pure Vision shop in Simi Valley, California, this uncommon project was predestined to be something special.
“This was as much an art project with a neat-o factor as it is a contemporary build.” — Steve Strope
Strope created a scenario for what Ford engineers might have built to test various speed parts and combinations that may or may not have been legal in either NASCAR or NHRA racing venues. Imagine this engineering group was called the “Black Ops” at Ford’s racing skunkworks in 1967; this is Strope’s modern interpretation of that storyline. These imagined scripts help Strope keep within a certain theme and context.
The Fairlane started as a nice stock specimen two years ago when Ed Chalupa from Plano, Texas, first brought it into Pure Vision (PV). Ed knew he wanted a single overhead cam (SOHC) 427 Ford engine and Top Loader combo, and it just so happens that Ed Pink Racing Engines, which helped Ford work out the gremlins in Ford’s SOHC drag-racing program back in the day, is not too far away in Van Nuys, California. So that became an easy-to-acquire—if not somewhat costly—engine choice.
To cram the wide SOHC “Cammer” into the relatively narrow confines of most intermediate Fords of the 1960s and 1970s means dealing with those intrusive shock towers. That, and you’re also faced with a unibody and subframe arrangement that begs for something stronger once you put 482 ci of SOHC into the ’Lane.
The 1966–1967 Ford Fairlanes have been somewhat overlooked as fodder for hot rod projects, and as a result, they are still easy to slide into—well, at least they were before everyone got their first look at Ed Chalupa’s 1967 “Black Ops.”
First, PV reworked the towers outward, giving them the appearance of stock sheetmetal, yet gaining vital space for the wider-than-most SOHC. Using a new Dynacorn reproduction 1967 Mustang floorpan to piece into the existing sheetmetal, a new trans tunnel and portions of the firewall were created—again, to give the appearance of being stock Fairlane (or at least stock Ford). These mods offered much-needed clearance for the mechanicals. An example of the sleight of hand is the location and surrounding sheetmetal of the fruit jar master cylinder for the hydraulic clutch, which has been relocated inward, but looks like it’s factory stock.
Rear framerails were fabbed to gain tire clearance and were tied into 4×6-inch rails structurally tied into the rockers, which capture the front subframe, essentially forming a full-frame Fairlane.
With a strong foundation, PV went with a torsion bar front and rear suspension, harkening back to the NASCAR days of yore. Schroeder Racing torsion bars were hidden in torsion tubes within the framerails up front. They spring Global West tubular A-arms with adjustable strut rods, custom antidive JRI shocks, and 2-inch-drop Fatman Mustang spindles.
Out back, a triangulated four-link was fabbed using Heidts components. A Speedway Engineering Championship quick-change rear-end was chosen, utilizing JRI shocks with Schroeder Racing torsion bars suspended from the rollbar tubing, with links passing through the framerails.
At the ends are late-1960s Lincoln disc brakes in front and Mustang disc brakes out back—a combo used in Trans-Am racing in the 1969–1970 period. The 15-inch Evod wheels, which copy Lamborghini Miura knock-off wheels, display a Dow-7-like gold finish, similar to what Halibrand mags came with new, wrapped with Goodyear G7 6.0×15-inch fronts and 8.0×15-inch rears.
If you’re building a Ford of this era, there is nothing more impressive or significant than the storied 427 SOHC—as rare as you can get. Luckily, reproduction parts are readily available. Frank Housowitch at Ed Pink Racing Engines masterfully built this all-aluminum Robert Pond reproduction block and heads utilizing PV’s custom intake that looks very much like the Chrysler Hemi NASCAR bathtub intake, with four Holley two-barrels that feature LeMans float bowls. Topping the carbs are PV-hewn air cleaners that are similar to the oval big-block units. A Joe Hunt magneto handles spark, and Aaron Cranford built the headers that look a lot like the 4-in-1 Holman-Moody headers of NASCAR days.
Bore and stroke are 4.20 inches. A Scat crank spins Carrillo rods and CP pistons. Compression is a mild 9.7:1 to handle pump gas. Up top, the ports were massaged by Frank before a Comp cam, T&D rockers, and Ferrea valve trio finish off the heads.
The 427 spins a 1960s-vintage Top Loader wide-ratio four-speed, a big-spline unit, to handle lots of torque. It’s mounted in what looks like a stock saddle, which was grafted into the ’Lane’s trans tunnel from the Dynacorn Mustang floor. C&R Radiator built the radiator, with a PV flat-panel shroud that helps pull in air. The exhaust was also created by Cranford but is not typical round tubing. It looks like bent flat-oval tubing, but is actually bent tubing split in half with flat stock welded to the top and bottom, creating the oval look. A subtle look that is not so simple to make.
The crown jewel of the project is the Ed Pink Racing Engines 482ci Ford SOHC featuring the one-off, NASCAR-type “bath tub” intake holding four Holley two-barrel carbs with LeMans float bowls. Though the unusual intake reduces output, it definitely has the late-1960s NASCAR vibe.What passes for stock ’Lane is actually custom sheetmetal-fabbed shock towers that needed to be seriously cut back to make room for the wide SOHC. Typical of all big-cube engine installs in Fords of this era, Ford did a similar mod itself for Boss 429 Mustangs.
All of the bodywork and paint was handled by Mick’s Paint in Pomona, California. The rear wheel openings were raised 2 inches and slightly narrowed, while the fronts were slightly reworked for tire clearance. Shaved door handles now feature NASCAR-like door releases, and the bumpers were slightly narrowed and tucked in. Chrysler “Surf Blue” covers the inside and outside, with a period-NASCAR Fairlane stripe flowing from the hood to the deck. The Nissan “Orange Alloy” gold rockers and interior accents match the wheels.
What appears to be a flat spoiler is actually a working air brake. Note the arm that is actuated by compressed air when activated. A bit of overkill, but fun nonetheless.Simple fabbed aluminum spoiler and Nissan “Alloy Orange” gold accents combined with the blue-scream 1960s NASCAR, but with a twist. With the right tweaks, creativity, and craftsmanship, you can too.The Evod-made wheels mimic Lamborghini Miura wheels, yet look like they could have been period Halibrand road wheels. The color is similar to the Dow-7 finish Halibrands came with new and is a recent Nissan color.
Inside, PV built the rollbar and reworked the dash and gauge inserts following the NASCAR theme. A stock 1967 Fairlane steering wheel tops the ididit steering column. The seat frames are from GTS-Classics in Texas, wrapped in black leather by Eric Thorsen Upholstery in Agoura Hills, California. Belts are from Fred Crow with tags removed. The flooring is called Dyna Deck, which is a foam-backed black rubber. Thorsen beveled the edges and then sewed it all together just like you would a regular woven carpet. The gauges are a collaboration of PV, Redline Gauge Works, Speed Hut, and Reactor Watches.
The trunk is smoothed off in the same finish as the body, featuring the Schroeder torsion bar arrangement, battery, and custom Fuel Safe fuel cell.
There’s a lot going on here. The Schroeder torsion bars and links are attached to the rollbar structure, which is tied to the Pure Vision fabbed rear frame. The fuel cell is from Fuel Safe. Tucked under the package shelf is the battery. Everything is finished off in Chrysler Surf Blue.The GTS-Classics seat frames and door panels are covered in black leather by Eric Thorsen. The stock Fairlane steering wheel tops an ididit column. The gauges are Speed Hut guts, font and pointer design are by Redline Gauge Works, which also assembled the final products. Reactor Watch applied the illuminescent “Weatherdark” material that glows in the dark. Blue LEDs add atmosphere, while the foam-backed rubber flooring is Dyna Deck material.The early Shelby Cobra badge helps to carry the 1960s Ford Racing theme throughout the Fairlane.This is the air cylinder for the air brake under the smoothly finished Chrysler Surf Blue finish.
With so many period-correct nods to Ford’s 1960s racing heritage, this is truly the car that could have been—but wasn’t. Until now, of course.
Behold the best great attempt at what has become the archetype for Top Fuel dragsters: the rear-engine race car. HOT ROD related Tom McEwen’s catastrophic Lions crash in a rear-engine Barracuda a few years back; it flew, you know, like an airplane. But that didn’t stop racers from continuing to tickle the rear-engine Funny Car paradigm. “Big” Jim Dunn and Joe Reath had Woody Gilmore construct this ’Cuda Funny Car in late-1971. Dunn was well aware of the idiosyncrasies, shall we say, of rear-engine floppers having crewed on Doug Thorley’s Javelin I, witnessing driver Bob Hightower flip over backward launching at Irwindale in 1969. Gilmore built that car, too, so everyone involved knew the spookiness factor to what they were doing. Still, it met with great success in Top Fuel, while keeping the driver out of harms way to boot. So why shouldn’t it work in Funny Car?
Over the course of its two-year run, the ’Cuda sported different-length spoilers both front and rear, as well as several air-intake methods, including different roof-mounted scoops and later through both sides of the windshield. Gilmore and Dunn also experimented with adding weight to the front to keep it from experiencing the same fate as Thorley’s Javelin. At Lions Drag Strip’s Grand Premiere in 1972, it won best engineered, but almost flipped over in the lights. A couple of runner-up wins at regional tracks and an NHRA Division 7 win at Bonneville Raceway led to its triumphant Funny Car win at Ontario’s 1972 NHRA SuperNationals. Running a 392 Hemi, Dunn switched between a direct-drive with a reverser and a two-speed, due more to the match-race need for a reverser versus the performance of direct-drive. Its best time was a 6.44 e.t. It would go on to win a number of races in 1973, before Dunn reverted back to a conventional Funny Car layout for 1974.
Speaking about the car to National Dragster’s Phil Burgess, he said, “You had to be a real chicken. The car would go straight as an arrow four runs in a row, and then on the fifth run, that son of a bitch would turn left—four runs, and it would turn right. It was like a go-kart; my feet were on the front axle. It was scary. It did things for no reason with no warning.”
Featured prominently in the movie Funny Car Summer, there has never been another rear-engine Funny Car national event winner before or since.
With the historic running of Danny Thompson’s Challenger 2.5, we are posting this article by Thom Taylor that originally ran in the Sept. 2014 issue of HOT ROD. It gives some of the background behind the car and why it was and still is such a compelling pursuit.
The Challenger II streamliner was the brainchild of the hyper-prolific and ingenious Mickey Thompson. First constructed in 1968, it was noteworthy for its unprecedented who’s-who of talent. With drag-racing fabricator and driver Pat Foster overseeing the build, Thompson hired Quin Epperly (famous IndyCar builder and fabricator) for chassis construction, Tom Jobe (from “Surfers” Top Fuel fame), and Nye Frank (the proverbial Zelig of automobile racing endeavors) handling the many aluminum panels necessary to sheath the race car, with assistance from Lil’ John Buttera. Ford supplied money and engineering talent, with some fab help from Kar Kraft in Detroit. Though Thompson would pilot the machine, his backup driver was the talented Danny Ongais, just to complete the assemblage of the all-star aspect of this racecar development.
We should also add that this car was being constructed while Thompson was in the middle of building his Bonneville Mustang and three Mustang Funny Cars, one of which was the experimental “monocoque” car. Like we said, Thompson was nothing if not prolific.
The newly dubbed “Mickey Thompson Autolite Special” did well on initial Bonneville tests, but time, weather, and other pursuits mothballed the project until 1988. Pulling the wraps off of the then-20-year-old racecar, Mickey put together the first part of the funding to upgrade the Challenger II with son Danny planned to be at the wheel. Three weeks later, Mickey and his second wife Trudy were gunned down in their driveway.
Put back under wraps for another 20 years, Danny decided to take the wraps off of the old streamliner, access its ability to compete, and then begin the process of putting together both a car and team in the tradition of his late father. Danny and friends upgraded the car with still more tricks and improvements from its original 1968 incarnation to chase the dream of both he and his father to have the fastest time for a piston-driven land vehicle. Ever.
Then the rains came. As you now know, Speed Weeks 2014 and 2015 were washed out by a combination of too much rain and not enough salt depth to make a safe surface to race on. Over this period, Danny moved his family and shop to Colorado and then waited anxiously to see what the Race Gods had in store for 2016.
Danny sought many changes from Challenger II’s 1968 configuration. Gone are the two Ford SOHC engines originally powering the all-wheel-drive Streamliner, supplanted by two Brad Anderson 500ci A/Fuel-type engines. Richard Catton of RC Performance built the bottom ends with Bill Miller rods and pistons and Velasco cranks. Jerry Darien was responsible for the top end and figuring out the combo. The two engines are synced by an external driveshaft-like arrangement attached by Gilmer belts to the snout of each crank. The give of the belts will help to take up any deviation in engine speed, syncing the two in harmony. Initial tests will be with a blend of 50 percent nitro. That mix could change if additional power is needed, but Thompson wants to see how much of the power can be effectively put to the salt first.
The B&J three-speed transmissions are attached to synchronized air shifters for precise, instantaneous shifts. The huge magnesium quick-change axles are from the original build—a combined endeavor between Thompson and Ermie Immerso—as are the massive Kar Kraft radius rods. The only change will be with the steering arrangement.
The Challenger II was originally designed with stagecoach steering actuated by a 1968 Camaro steering box. The unusual solution was due to the limited amount of space available to keep the nose as small as possible. Danny Thompson has completely redesigned the front end to eliminate this unusual and outlawed feature, going with compact and complicated solidly mounted spindles—a study in fab porn. Positive offset wheels made by SK Specialties help keep this new arrangement neatly tucked inside the original nose, maintaining the small frontal area. The compact arrangement also meant creating stout, new shorty drive axles.
Out back the tail has been extended from the original design, and the body aft of the rear end was also lengthened and angled upward. A splitter will be attached to the underside to help stabilize the dirty air spilling off of the rear. Danny says the tail extension was more for cleaning up the air than stability, though that may be an added bonus—it’s hard to say at this stage. Tim Gibson was instrumental in determining the aero mods like the tail and air inlets, which were beautifully created within the original aluminum skins by Terry Hegman in Fountain Valley, California.
At 5,200 pounds, the rechristened Challenger 2.5 is plenty heavy, and Thompson is adamant that no additional ballast will be added. Many Bonneville racecars ply the salt loaded with weight to help keep them planted. Thompson has a problem with the idea of pushing and then stopping the extra mass. If there is need for additional downforce, he has aero pieces that can be added to the front and a tray for the rear. He feels that one of his advantages over the competition is the car’s four-wheel-drive system. “But that also means that we’ll need to make hay in the bottom end,” Thompson says. He also likes that the small frontal area will help his chances.
When the beginning car builder looks at a build such as this, the intimidation is 11 on a scale of 10. But all hot rodders can benefit from eyeballing this massive undertaking. One of the main takeaway points is that each system or function has to be designed one step at a time while keeping in mind how it will integrate into the car’s overall construction. In a build like this, packaging each system for minimum space and maximum function is important.
Taken in total, it is an unimaginable undertaking, but that’s not how to approach a build. Focus on each system separately—one at a time—and as you complete it, go on to the next system. Before you know it, you’ll have a partially completed car and be on your way to finishing what you have wrought.
Back in 2014, Tom Jobe stopped by Thompson’s Huntington Beach, California, shop and commented on the differences between how they built race cars in 1968 and how builders tackle projects like this today, lamenting that back in the day they used existing components and built a car around those pieces. Today, with the abundance of talented shops and equipment—not to mention huge budgets—they make all of the components to meet their own criteria.
Still, when you look at the car as it sits now—panels off and its complexity exposed—you’re struck by how contemporary it seems. The experienced minds and fabricators are evident in every square inch of Thompson’s Challenger 2.5. Today Danny’s challenge is to seamlessly blend the talents and dreams of a legendary father and his collaborators with his own determination to see those dreams realized 50 years later.
A minimal amount of changes to the Challenger II’s aluminum panels were necessary, but when they were, Terry Hegman was tasked with making the mods like this aero bubble. The original zoomie headers were changed in favor of these. With an estimated 200 pounds of thrust, Thompson wanted to utilize that force in his favor. This is the rear engine sitting behind the driver, who would be positioned to the left of this image. The frame is wider at this point relative to the engine than the front engine as the frame tapers as it goes forward.This is the front-positioned Brad Anderson A/Fuel-type Hemi. A low intake manifold was fabricated to position the Accufab throttle-bodies forward of the engine to conform to the existing frame and bodywork, which tapers in as it goes forward. Thompson feels one of the advantages he has over the competition is the small frontal area.A Gilmer beltdrive on the front engine spins a driveshaft that runs along the outside of the frame to a similar setup tied to the rear engine. The twin Ford SOHC motors were only connected by the salt.Fabricated knuckles and massive U-joints replace the stagecoach-steering. The original 1968 Camaro box from Lee MFG was retained.The oversized quick-change centersections are cast magnesium, a joint effort in 1968 between Mickey and the late Ermie Immerso. Six were cast, two of which are used on Challenger II. The massive trailing arm is one-off Kar Kraft’s original components from 1968. Kar Kraft was contracted as Ford’s racing arm to assist in developing certain portions of the Challenger II project. You may know Kar Kraft for helping to develop Ford’s Trans-Am Mustangs, the Boss 429 builds, and much more in that period.This is the new tail section with the two parachute canisters. Since FIA records require a quick backup run for setting records, canisters containing pre-loaded ’chutes will be on hand to lessen return prep time. In addition, air jacks are on board, which will be activated for a Lazy Susan–type platform that, when positioned under the car, can rotate the streamliner within minutes for return runs. How cool is that?These inlets were deemed a necessary modification from the original NACA ducts. Terry Hegman in Fountain Valley, California, beautifully executed them. Notice how the aluminum pulls out and then fades in as they transition back to the original Jobe and Frank-built panel.The sinister-looking canopy awaiting new glass and fitting to the frame. This is the almost 50-year-old combined efforts of Tom Jobe and the late Nye Frank.Another new packaging consideration that needed to be incorporated into the original car is the fire system positioned behind the driver’s cockpit.A close-up shot of the fabbed intake for the forward-facing Accufab throttle-bodies.Stored around the shop are stacks of aluminum skins for the Challenger 2.5. This is just one area of several storing the original old panels.Looking past the massive Kar Kraft trailing arms, you can see the forged-aluminum housing of the B&J (BandJtransmission.com) Big Boy three-speed transmission, the air-shifting lines that control it, and short driveshaft that connects it to the quick-change centersection. Originally the Challenger II was built with a pair of 500hp Ford SOHC engines backed by Chrysler TorqueFlite 727 three-speed automatics. The new Brad Anderson Hemis promise to quadruple the power the SOHCs made, and could prove to test the strength of the Ermie Immerso quick-change front and rear axles. Sharp-eyed readers will note the evolution in fasteners used on the Challenger II—the original build featured six-point headed bolts and lots of safety wire. The new components have been installed with a mixture of Allen-head and 12-point fasteners. Lock nuts have replaced the safety wire.Cooling lines are new and snake throughout the frame. Again, changes required modifications that can be seen in bare metal. The chassis will be disassembled and painted and detailed before being reassembled.The nose was modified to accept an air inlet that is ducted back to the front-engine throttle-bodies with a series of segmented aluminum ducts. This new ducting had to fit within the confines of the original aluminum skin.
The Birthplace
The Challenger II was originally built in a shop at 1655 Cota Ave., Long Beach, California—Google Map it.
These Eric Rickman shots are almost 50 years old, yet are a testament to the timelessness of the Challenger’s design.The poet Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “In skating over thin ice, our safety is in our speed.” That may have been Thompson’s motto, for he seemed to be seeking ever faster speeds, with the confidence that no matter how fast he went his safety was assured by his velocity.Besides the electronics upgrades, Anderson engines, and front-end changes, the Challenger 2.5 was extended at the rear with the bottom angled for better air management behind the body. In these shots, you can see how the tail was originally configured. Also, without the ability to get current shots of the overall Streamliner in the Thompson shop, these black and whites give a better indication of the size and proportions of the Challenger.And finally, the expression of Mickey Thompson in the cockpit of the Challenger II project the confidence and satisfaction Thompson had for his latest fast foray. Danny says his father was constantly thinking up new ideas and challenges to conquer. He never slept more than two or three hours a night because his mind wouldn’t let him.
So right up front, honestly, this was as crazy as you can image. Blocking off the infamous Woodward Avenue—one of America’s street-race capitols, and then actually conducting street racing? Roadkill and Dodge did it, and all one can say is that it was really wild in the streets. And the crowds? The city of Pontiac was estimating maybe 40,000, but that number seems tame when you looked at the packed stands set up along Woodward for the racing action, and then see more humanity frugin’ to the live band, and all of those getting a ride in a Dodge Hellcat drifting course, plus the car show. You could say Roadkill Nights was a value added venue, which the M1 Concourse facility in Pontiac accommodated with open arms. How does one top an insane gathering of all of the car crazies Detroit is known for? We can’t even imagine, but if you missed Roadkill Nights in Pontiac, you may have missed a once-in-a-lifetime event that can’t be duplicated. So to give you an idea of the energy, mayhem, and gonzo goodness going on in the Motor City, we’ve got over 100 images of both the day and night action that only Roadkill and Dodge could offer up on a silver platter.
Though it’s nearly impossible to convey the bonkers assemblage of cars and car crazies from the home of the car; Detroit, we humbly present some random shots from in and around 13 Mile and Woodward during the heart of the 2016 Dream Cruise. Though you would expect virtually anything ever made in the D to be present and accounted for—and even more, like weird prototypes and concept cars, there’s also an interesting mix of imported stuff, which seems odd. Nonetheless, the joy of hitting Woodward is that you’re apt to see anything.
Then there are the side streets that corral pockets of car shows ranging from congregations of same-makes to cackle-fests of vintage drag machines with their engines in front, gulping nitro by the pound. Some lament the commercial aspect that has crept into the Cruise over the years, but to be honest why shouldn’t the manufacturers not share in the party? There are multiple, elaborate displays of Big 3 manufacturers as well as some of their performance and racing divisions to behold while traversing the miles of Woodward. To wit, for Chevy’s celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Camaro they displayed the first one ever produced, sealed in a glass box. There’s also the myriad of vendors hawking all kinds of good, average, and cheap stuff; mostly consisting of souvenir T-shirts, signs, and posters commemorating the Cruise. It’s a party/carnival/show and more you’ll be dreaming about until the next Woodward Dream Cruise explodes every third Saturday in August, come rain or shine.
