It’s a condition we’re at a loss to explain but most enthusiasts succumb to at some point: the allure of the oddball car. As much as we all love a classic Deuce roadster or 1955 Chevy sedan, you have to wonder how we can pivot from admiring these preeminent designs and then get hooked on 1941 Willys, Daytona Chargers, and things like this rare fastback Nova. You can see where cars built specifically for competition (like those aforementioned) become objects of our lust by the fact they represent a serious pursuit of speed wrapped in a unique package. But taking a step back, your attraction is still to the design if you think it looks good rather than odd. But odd is defined as “different from what is usual or expected,” and in our world, a 1941 Willys all jacked up or a Plymouth Superbird with its mile-long front end are usual. We’ve witnessed their majesty for decades. So maybe these different designs aren’t so much odd as they are exceptional. But beyond Fiat Topolino Fuel Altereds and altered-wheelbase Coronets, there exists a world way past the odd—of freakish creations we sometimes feature and the stuff you’re more likely to see in Roadkill. These builds are inexplicable from a design standpoint, which is why we like hot rodding so much; it’s that unexpected assault on your eyes and mind that give you another take on how to build your own car.
With the passing of driver Pat Minick of the popular “Chi-Town Hustler” team of Farkonas, Coil, and Minick, we’re reminded of everything that made Funny Cars so exciting wrapped up in one single car. In the 1960s and 1970s, a small crew like Chi-Town could make a living barnstorming from match race to match race with appearance money and winnings from several races a week. The downside was those dragstrips were mostly light years from the conditions found at facilities hosting national events, so crap tracks with dark, short shutdowns, dips, and sketchy surfaces were Chi-Town’s bread and butter. Minick did yeoman’s work by deftly hammering the wild Charger to a 90-percent win rate. The car was built by John Farkonas and featured a unique left-hand seating position, with the engine offset to the right at a time when the prototypical chassis was the Logghe Bros. style of center seat and engine. Austin Coil, the wizard behind John Force’s later Funny Car domination, fine-tuned the Charger to victory. Besides their match-race mastery, there are two hallmarks attributed to the Chi-Town: Minick’s long, smoky, bat-outta-hell burnouts and the now-standard between-rounds engine teardown. The first was for show, while the frantic teardowns were a result of Minick’s pushing the engine to its limits—and sometimes a little more. This shot was taken at Orange County International Raceway in Irvine, California, for their year-end, wildly successful 1969 Manufacturers Funny Car Championships, one of those 64 Funny Car deals that also helped propel the Funny Car onslaught.
In a Rolling Stone article a few years ago, seminal guitar player Jeff Beck said he almost quit playing guitar to go to work building hot rods at Roy Brizio’s South San Francisco shop. There is almost a cult to the building of cars from Roy Brizio Street Rods. Roy’s been one of the most prolific builders of hot rods ever. In the 40 years he has been in the building business, he’s become the king of the 1932 Ford, but he’s built a lot more than just Deuces. His upbringing with father, Andy, a central figure in the Bay Area’s drag-racing culture, gave young Roy ample time and plenty of examples to educate him in the intricacies of building cars from scratch. With Fremont Drag Strip being where nostalgia drag racing came to be in the early 1980s, it was a perfect time to be Roy and to be building cars in close proximity to the action, which accelerated his prominence and building chops. Since then his output of hot rods has increased, no doubt aided from the publicity around building multiple cars for the likes of Eric Clapton and Neil Young, and he’s had the distinction of winning the Grand National Roadster Show twice. We wanted to find out what the magic was and what it takes to build hot rods for so long, for so many, with such a flourish to each one built.
HRM] Did you think you would be building cars this long?
RB] I didn’t think I could last this long. I really thought that since all of my friends were going to college and getting real jobs that if I could just do this for five years, then I’d go get a real job. But I never would have dreamed I’d be doing this when I was 60.
HRM] What’s a real job?
RB] One that normal people have. I’ve never been normal. I grew up in an abnormal family. We didn’t do what other people did—we went on road trips in hot rods and spent weekends at swap meets, car shows, and drag races. It was all good and fun, and I was a lucky kid to get to do that stuff and am happy I was interested in what my dad was doing. My dad never had to make me do this stuff. I enjoyed doing it and enjoyed his friends, and they spoiled me and stuck me in their Top Fuel dragsters. I’d go to car shows and sit in Ed Roth’s hot rods and George Barris’s cars. I guess because I was a kid that liked cars they took a liking to me.
HRM] What did you think you wanted to do for a living as a kid?
RB] I wanted to be a Top Fuel driver. Most of my early childhood was at the drag races because my dad was the starter at Half Moon Bay Dragstrip and he was really good friends with Jim McLennan, who owned Champion Speed Shop. He always had a dragster, and we were always around drag racing. He and Ted Gotelli had a Top Fuel dragster, so on the weekends we always went to the drag races—every Sunday was either Fremont or Half Moon Bay for probably 8 to 10 years of my life. I thought I wanted to be Don Garlits, Prudhomme, Ivo, all of those guys. Then I got older and got a chance to really sit in a nostalgia dragster. When Prufer and Burnett started nostalgia drag racing, we got involved in it and we built the Champion Speed Shop replica dragster, and old friend Louie Poole had an old dragster we ran, and it scared the hell out of me. Once I got strapped in and the engine fired up and I couldn’t see around the blower, I knew right then that it was not for me. I was never going to be a dragster guy, but it sounded cool.
HRM] How many employees do you have now?
RB] We have 10 employees now, and me makes 11. We’ve had as many as 15, but 10 seems to work well for us right now.
HRM] How many cars would you guess have come out of your shop?
RB] We always have at least 20 projects going—always. I’m sure that someday that number will go down, but we’ve had at least 20 for over 20 years.
HRM] How many cars have come out of you shop over the years?
RB] I’d say 300, but I say that every year, so I don’t know. We are averaging 10 cars a year, and we have been doing that for a long time. September 2017 will be my 40th anniversary in business. Those early years we weren’t cranking out as many cars, but the last 20 years we have been on a roll. Over 200 cars in the last 20 years for sure.
HRM] What’s the secret to being in the business of building hot rods for 40 years?
RB] Me loving what I do, but also being blessed with a lot of great people that give me the opportunity to service them. Also a lot of our customers are repeat customers. I’ve done 10 cars for the Edelbrocks, and we’re doing the 11th car for Eric Clapton. We’ve done 10 for John Mumford, too. I always take care of the customers, not because I think they’ll be coming back, but just to make sure they are taken care of for the one I do for them. Our philosophy for building cars has helped—I never want to go too far out. I have a niche market for building the kind of cars these people want. It looks good, sits right, and you can get in it and drive it. For me, this is what works. I didn’t plan on it happening that way, but that’s how it has worked. I’m not the guy to do a Ridler car or go after the Roadster Show every year. We’re the guys you come to if you want a hot rod you can get in and drive and still put on the floor of the Grand National Roadster Show [GNRS] and be proud of. We won the GNRS twice, and the first time was back when I thought it was important for me to do and it was a dream for me to win. We didn’t win the first time. We came to the show and we didn’t deserve to win. We lost in 1986 to Don Thelan. We redid the car and came back in 1987, and I think we deserved to win. We tried a couple more times over the years. These customers wanted to, but I told them I’d do the cars if they promised they wouldn’t have a problem if they lost. If they had a problem with losing, then I was not their guy. We did it for some nice people and didn’t win, but we did win with John Mumford’s track roadster in 2013. That was a lot of fun, and I was really proud of the guys involved in that build. Steve Davis had so much to do with it—that was his project we took over 25 years later and got to finish. I was so happy the car finally got done and that Steve was such a big part of it.
HRM] Why do you attract the Eric Claptons, Jeff Becks, and Neil Youngs?
RB] Well, Jeff has been a family friend for a long time. He came into my dad’s shop and bought a T-bucket chassis in 1972, took it home, and then we lost contact with him. When I opened my shop in 1977, he reappeared again and we became really dear friends and I still do stuff for him. I just built him another 1932 chassis. Eric Clapton came along through Jimmy Vaughn, who I have been a friend with for years, and he was a friend with Eric and so Eric…
HRM] But this is how it happened; I want to know why it happens?
RB] Eric didn’t know who I was. He came to me because he trusted Jimmy.
HRM] But Jimmy has never had you build a car for him.
RB] No, but we’ve been dear friends, and once we started building them for Eric, he felt comfortable with me and so it continues. Now Neil Young, that was different yet. I was always a fan of his, and my sister and I always listened to his music, and she told me some day he was going to come into my shop. I told her he never would because he doesn’t like hot rods. He’s into original cars. Then one day he broke down about two blocks from my shop. He was doing a video just down the street, and when his car broke down they told him there was an old car shop on the corner. He just walked into my shop with his 1957 Cadillac, and that’s how it started. He had no clue who I was. He never heard of me and didn’t know anything about me. That was nine years ago. We service and take care of cars for him and he’s become a good friend, too. When I called my sister and said she wouldn’t believe who walked into my shop, she said, “Neil Young!” Deb said, “I told you he would some day.”
HRM] If you weren’t building cars, what would you be doing?
RB] I’d be begging for a job at HOT ROD Magazine, but I can’t read or write. Honestly, I don’t think I had a chance to do anything other than cars because they were there, so I never thought of doing anything else. I grew up working in a speed shop—Andy’s Instant Ts and then Champion Speed Shop—so when I say I don’t think we were ever normal, we were as normal as you could be if you grew up around a dragstrip and a hot rod shop.
HRM] What’s been the most difficult project to come out of your shop?
RB] We did that 1937 Cord last year that HOT ROD did a story about, and it was probably the most difficult car we’ve done. The owner was a customer of ours; we had built two other cars for him. He asked me to do the car for him. He was adamant about having a front-wheel-drive, independent-suspension 1937 Cord like they all were, but with a late-model drivetrain. It was such a huge project and I was so busy at the time I told him I couldn’t do it. He was OK with that and took it to another shop. There was a problem and it never got finished. We stayed in touch, and when I asked him once how the Cord was going, he told me he stopped the project. Then he asked me if I would again do it for him. I told him I’d get the car back for him and think about it. It sat in my container for a year. Finally, I went to one of my guys and told him it would be overwhelming for me to run the shop and do this car, but if he would head the project we’ll do it. He was excited about it, and the owner was excited, but it was a huge project and it took us over two years to do it.
HRM] How about Neil Young’s electric 1958 Lincoln, the “LinkVolt”?
RB] Yeah, that was big, but we were not involved in the electronics, which was done at AVL in L.A. They do work for the OEs. The electronics were out of our deal, but yes, this was a big project because it’s hard to see the end. When a guy comes in and says he wants a 1932 Ford roadster, I know the end will be a year from now. We schedule it like we do with each car; we do the chassis and it goes off to the body shop, and when it comes back, we reassemble it and then it is off to Sid Chavers for upholstery, and that’s what we do every day. They are all done on a schedule—all scheduled a year in advance. I make all of my upholstery dates with Sid in November for the following year. I know what I’m building this year, and that’s how we get cars done. When somebody asks me how I get these cars done and how I get shops to work for me, I tell them I pay them, I don’t grind, we all work together. I’m fortunate to have some great body and paint guys to work with; I’ve got a great upholsterer that comes through for me all of the time, but we are on a schedule. They know when they are getting a car, and they do them in the time allotted. We’ve got that formula down, and that’s how we get them done.
HRM] What about a car that looks great when you get it and then you strip it and it’s junk?
RB] When we get a car that’s a Brookville body, we know what we are getting, but if it’s a car that we are not sure about, then it’s not on a schedule. As it get’s closer and I can see what it will take to make it right, then I will schedule it and it goes into our normal scheduling procedure. We strip the original cars early enough that we know where we will be, even if they are a lot worse than we expected.
HRM] Who did you learn the most from professionally?
RB] I was a lucky kid growing up in my dad’s shop and picking up stuff from the guys in his shop. Denny Craig taught me how to tig-weld at my dad’s shop. Partly, I was a pain in the ass because I was asking a lot of questions, so they either loved me or hated me, depending if I was a pain in the ass or not. Lil’ John Buttera was a huge influence in later years and Pete Chapouris helped with business stuff when I would call him. We did a lot of stuff with Pete and Jake’s parts, and still do to this day. I’d go to Dick Magoo and Boyd Coddington, and they would tell me anything because we always got along. I think that Magoo built some of the greatest hot rods ever, and now that I look back at all of the cars he built, I don’t know if he always got credit enough for some of the cool stuff he did. He had a great eye. Those Model A roadsters he did that he dropped the hoods on and the first 1932 Ford he built that I really liked, I’d look at it and couldn’t figure out why it looked so good. Then I found he lowered the hood line, and I borrowed that from then on. I learned to detail my cars from him, too. I’d detail my engines with a spray can or brushing them, and then I looked at Magoo’s engines and the detail. He’d paint the fins on the valve covers, and like the oil pressure sensor—he’d detail those things. He detailed cars so nice, and I knew I needed to make my cars look nicer. I’d never steal from them, but I’d ask questions and they would share with me. I used to spend summers at Dan Woods’ shop in Paramount [California] and he taught me how to arc-weld—he didn’t have a tig-welder, that’s all that he had. This is back when Jake Jacobs and Dan were partners. Grinding things and cutting out parts, that’s what I did. I used to sit in Lil’ John’s garage and just watch him work, and I was so proud to show him stuff I had done, and you didn’t get very many “atta-boys” from John. When I wanted him to see my cars he’d ask, “Did you do the best that you can,” and then I would question myself. He’d always say to do the best that you can and keep doing it. He looked at things differently than everybody else, and he took hot rodding to a different level. Whether you went the billet route or not, everybody stepped up their game and made their cars nicer because of him. No more square edges—they rounded edges off and finessed their cars to be nicer. There was more than one guy, but John, Magoo, and Pete Chapouris were probably the three guys I looked at the most. Pete for simplicity for sure, and that’s how I wanted my cars to be so you could work on them if you broke down—not too sophisticated because, to this day, I want my customers to drive their cars. And hopefully if there is a problem they can fix it or at least get it fixed on the road, instead of having to ship it home in a container because it was too exotic for anyone to fix.
HRM] What do you recommend to a young builder thinking about building cars professionally?
RB] If you have your heart set on it and you’re still young enough, then do what makes you feel good. You’re young enough that if it doesn’t work out you can still get a real job. I look at Billy Ganahl, he started at my shop sweeping the floors, and he’s become one of the most talented guys doing this today. He learned from my guys. I used to tell him to pay attention to what we are all doing. You don’t have to agree with what we are doing, but learn from these guys. I told him not to go into it thinking he knew how to do everything. Go in thinking you love what you are doing and you don’t know how to do anything and you want to learn from them, because all of my guys would show him anything he wanted to know, but if you tell them you know it all, they won’t show you shit. So if you’re a young guy, if you show your enthusiasm, you can go to any of the builders today and ask them for advice and they will tell you to call them, email them, or come back tomorrow when the show’s more quiet and I’ll talk with you. I believe all of the builders out there want to see this continue on and want to help young guys. HOT ROD has gone through many things that have kept people interested, and hot rodding will always be hot rodding because it doesn’t matter what you’re hot rodding—if you’re modifying it, you’re hot rodding it. There’s times I’ve looked at a car and thought it wasn’t a hot rod, but if it’s modified, then it’s a hot rod to the guy that built it. If it’s a Toyota and the guy wants to change the wheels and lower it and put a turbo on it, then it’s a hot rod. What they’re doing with fuel injection and electronics today, the cars are going faster than they’ve ever gone. If you’re a hard worker and can show your employer you are, then you’ll always have a job somewhere building cars. Go for it.
Five Things About Roy Brizio
His shop, Roy Brizio Street Rods, is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year.
He’s the only boy in a family of six children.
His father, Andy, was the starter at Half Moon Bay Drag Strip in the 1950s.
The Jeff Beck song “Roy’s Toy” is a tribute to his friend, Roy Brizio.
Roy’s shop has built more than 300 hot rods over the 40 years he’s been in business.
First of all we should state that Freak Show Friday does not ever knowingly use Photoshopped or photo-chopped images. For such serious matters as FSF, we have the highest of integrity. That being said, this appears to be a real photo of an actual mini-1969 Camaro. And if you’re going to try and do a miniature car, a 1969 Camaro should be right at the top of the list. Actually, this is Hebron, Ohio’s Manny Powell 1969 Z/28. Supposedly cut into 29 pieces, Powell meticulously stitched it all back into this “Honey, I Shrunk the Camaro” guise. Taking a nod from the “bigger is better” bunch, he installed a 454ci big block which begs the question; “So Manny, is bigger better or smaller sweeter?” Which is it? We can say definitively that while most of the stuff we come up with on FSF is junk, Manny’s Camaro is a slick piece, and we’d love to see it cruising through HOT ROD’s Power Tour this coming June. How ‘bout it Manny?
Desecrating a shrine is how some view modifying the beloved 1955-57 Chevy. So many are devoted and beholden to GM’s finest that countless thousands have been lovingly restored to within an inch of their showroom lives, and tolerance for any deviation from factory stock amounts to blasphemy. But blasphemy is in the eye of the beholder, and so we present what must be the largest collection—over 150 images, of shortened, lengthened, hacked and whacked Tri-fives courtesy of Jeffrey Bates from Chesnee, South Carolina. We’ve also thrown in a couple of non-Tri-Fives you may also enjoy. Jeffrey says there have been too many hacked up Chevys and his “real concern is that there may be renewed interest in cutting up Tri-Fives so more will be exposed to the same fate.” To show us how prevalent the practice is, for years he’s collected these images culled from swap meets, car shows, online sites and his own travels. We were so impressed with his collection of mangled marvels we present them here with a warning: JEFFREY SAYS PLEASE DON’T DO THIS! You can also check out HOT ROD’s adventure driving a short, Gasser-style 1957 Chevy Delivery 75 miles to make a few blasts at Barona Drag Strip.
And thank you Jeffrey for collecting such a large gallery of that which you can’t stand, for our pleasure.
If Junior Brogdon’s “Phony Pony” Funny Car looks odd in this shot from the NHRA Winternationals in 1968, you should see it from the side. There was a time in the go-go days of Funny Cars when everyone wanted into the act. When you had a dragster, but thought you might like to try a Funny Car, you could always throw a rather long body onto your dragster and call it Phony Pony, which is what Brogdon did. Similar conversions were done to Fuel Altereds and also Gassers. Even more unique about this particular mash up was that Junior ran a myriad of engine combos including sometimes two injected Ford 289ci engines, and sometimes one 289 that could be carbureted, injected, or blown. Neither fish nor fowl, Brogdon had a hard time finding match races, instead running single pass “bye” runs, open events, or the occasional match race. Besides the snub from racers, tracks and fans, the Pony had a habit of breaking more often than not. Running a blown small block Ford engine, his best time was 8.36 at 165mph.
This could be considered a “T-Bucket” and we’ll tell you why. The top of the cowl and windshield are from a 1923 Model T roadster body, and for good measure the grille shell is from a 1929 Model A Ford. Taking inspiration from these early Ford elements, the builder has created his more massive version of a T-Bucket. It’s got a certain stance, with deeper wheels and wider tires in the rear, and a massive outside exhaust that also conveniently incorporates a step to make ingress and egress a pleasure. Maybe the owner just wanted a higher highboy roadster. Or maybe he was high when he put pen to paper and torch to frame and in that haze of smoke and merriment imagined this. We can say it must be a reliable, road-going heap because it has mirrors, headlights, that convenient step, and that just arrived vibe. It’s got chrome, paint, flames, and cool wheels; which is more than we can say for a multitude of half-finished projects languishing in garages and storage facilities around the country. So kudos to the owner and/or builder, and we can’t wait to see what you might conjure up next.
Though Ron Capps is the 2016 NHRA Funny Car champion, we took the opportunity to ask him questions we’ve wanted to ask for years, unrelated to this, about his first championship. So we passed on asking the veteran Top Fuel and Funny Car driver about how it finally feels being champion or things about his numerous bridesmaid seasons. Instead we asked a number of questions where he said, “Gee, I should have an immediate answer, but I don’t,” or, “No one has asked me that before.” We made Capps dig down a bit to find out what it’s really like to drive one of these violent, unpredictable rockets we all love watching.
HR] Is there pressure for wins to keep your seat?
RC] Yeah, and for me I’m in a situation that’s unique because I’ve never had to bring any money for my seat, and that’s going back to Don Prudhomme and then Schumacher with the Napa car. As in every motorsport, especially NASCAR and IndyCar, it’s big, and it’s now happening more in drag racing, where it’s common for someone to bring a million-dollar check and get a ride. I came up as a crewmember wanting to drive, so I came up a little differently, but I wake up every single morning whether there’s a race or not with that fear, so that drives me and keeps me successful and doing what I’ve been doing. I have to feel that way, and every time I stage and look over in the other lane, I have to look at it like they’re trying to take money out of my pocket, so that’s always in the back of my head.
HR] Has it happened to you?
RC] I know there have been people that have tried to acquire my ride, but the cool thing is that Don Schumacher has been very vocal to me about that. You see I still drive like I did with Roger Primm in my rookie year and he ran that out of his pocket and was looking for a sponsor. I knew we had the best parts in the business, but we didn’t have very many of them. I learned to manage the equipment and know when to shut the car off, and I still drive that way. Both Don Schumacher and Don Prudhomme have told me point blank that they would rather pay the extra money knowing I’m in the seat than to take in a million dollars for someone that can’t drive, and I had a lot of drivers try to get my seat, especially when I drove for Prudhomme. Plus, you also have to represent the sponsors and the owners themselves. The greatest compliment I’ve ever gotten is that the owners never have to worry representing them whether I’m at some function or dinner giving a speech. It’s a huge relief for an owner and sponsor. The sponsors for both Schumacher and Prudhomme have it written in their contracts that I be in the seat, which is good for both ends. Anyone that has the guts or is brave enough can drive one of these things, but the good drivers know when to shut it off, and that’s what owners look at.
HR] You’re 51. When will it be time to quit racing?
RC] John Force. Every Friday before qualifying he comes up on his scooter and finds me and says, “Capsi, ain’t this great driving a Funny Car,” and we have this conversation and it’s like he’s 21 years old and it’s his first year driving. He’s got more enthusiasm than any driver I see. There are rookie drivers that don’t have the enthusiasm he has or the appreciation for what we get to do, and I have it—I don’t have to worry about that, but he’s a reminder every weekend and he’s 67. He’s one of the toughest guys I race and he just beat me on a holeshot. I work out and am in good shape and feel like I’m 25. I can’t believe I’m 51, but my reaction times are good. I would say Don Prudhomme knew when to get out and he never thought about getting back in. He told me once when you don’t feel like getting into one of these things, then it’s time to get out. I don’t know how to answer that other than what I’ve said.
HR] You’ve driven both Top Fuel and Funny Cars. Which do you prefer to drive?
RC] Without a doubt, the Funny Car—it’s more exciting to drive. The Top Fuel car kicks you in the butt, has more g-forces, moves harder, and accelerates much quicker earlier in the run, but the Funny Car is the most unnerving. I’ve driven dirt and NASCAR, Sprint Cars, and road-raced just a lot of cool cars like Formula cars, but there’s nothing on the planet like a fuel Funny Car; it’s unnerving, unpredictable—when you step on the pedal of a Funny Car, you don’t know where it’s going to go. It’s evil-handling, they’re not made to handle good, and yet we get to go 0 to 3.8 seconds at 330 mph and you can’t see very well locked up in this body. So without a doubt, I think that FC is much more exciting to drive.
HR] Will the car telegraph to you before getting out of shape or are you reacting?
RC] You’re reacting mostly. We have swept-back headers now that really make the front end light and put it in the driver’s hands more than ever. They were difficult to drive before, and now it’s even so much more exciting after a run that it’s hard to explain. I’ve driven a lot of nostalgia cars recently like Del Worsham’s Blue Max and LA Hooker, and those cars lack the downforce we have now, and the front ends are light and you shift them like you did in the 1970s, and that’s how our cars are now. They don’t give you a lot of warning and things happen fast, so if you wait too long to do something it can hurt a lot of people. You know when you sit on a barstool and you lean back a little and you think you’re going to fall, but you catch yourself and for that split second your stomach goes into your throat? That’s the feeling it is for 3.8 seconds. You don’t know what’s going to happen and you’re on the edge.
HR] Are you chasing that feeling?
RC] You do not enjoy the runs—not any of the 3.8 seconds. You’ve got sponsor pressures and the owner standing behind you and everyone that has worked on this thing for the last few hours and days, and it’s your car not to mess up. You don’t enjoy the run, but when the chutes pop and you know they’re out, then you reflect on that run and think it’s awesome—or that was crazy, or what did I just do? You enjoy it in that shutdown area. You fight for your life to keep the car straight and do everything right in a split second.
HR] How different is it from driving a Top Fuel dragster?
RC] When you’re in a Top Fuel car, you feel with your butt and it’s trying to drive right up your ass and catapult you, basically. But like in the old days with the Top Fuel cars, you sat over the rear end, you can feel it, and that’s why the drivers were so good. Recently, I went back into Tony Schumacher’s dragster because he couldn’t test that day and I wanted to re-up my license in Top Fuel anyway, and I made a run that was right at the record, but I hadn’t been in a dragster in a while and was used to the Funny Car. I was all over the track and they could read “Army” painted on each side of the dragster all the way down. I was being pushed from behind and so far ahead that it freaked me out. I was just trying to point the car, but in the Funny Car you’re over the rear end and it’s like a Sprint Car on dirt—you drive with the throttle to steer.
HR] Every driver has a regimen or routine they follow for every run. What’s yours?
RC] You have the tow vehicle in the staging lanes and I get dressed the same way every time outside the tow vehicle, and they put on the neck and head device. Then I walk around the car and come in the left side, but I check my parachute cables and check the spoiler. Then I get in and ease into it, and getting into a Funny Car isn’t easy. Two guys buckle me into the car and then gloves, left hand first, that they put on me after I get buckled in. It’s not any luck thing that I do, it’s routine. Once I’m all in, I can hear three or four cars paired ahead of us, but it’s quiet and I think about anything and everything that could go wrong because I’ve been through about anything that can go wrong in the past. So I think about what I’ll do if it does go wrong—what I’ll shut off first and the order that I was taught. Then I start thinking about the positive things, that it’s going to make a record run and that I’ll be the number one qualifier tonight. Then how good it’s going to run, and I do that every run because it’s so split-second that you have to have it ready to go in your brain. That’s my ritual. I have a checklist. I took my 20-year-old daughter up to Fontana to get her Super Comp license about a month ago and I told her, “Look, I’ve been driving 20 years and I do the same checklist in my car before every run—how we start the car, the procedure for turning the fuel pump on, exactly how I do the burnout, flipping the oxygen air into my helmet, then checking the reverse lever, checking the fuel lever, then checking the air over and over—I probably do it 20 times,” so that’s what I told her. It’s not because you don’t know if you’re going to be good enough, it’s because you have to do everything in an order exactly the same. If something is not right and Rahn Tobler, my crew chief, starts it and does something different it throws everybody off. It’s funny how everything flows together.
HR] In 2014 you were involved in a massive explosion where something from the car hit you during the explosion. Do you feel safe in a Funny Car?
RC] I feel safer. Right after that, Rahn Tobler and Don Schumacher went to work with our fab shop and had them build a cover in front of me—it used to just cover my hands in case of fire, but now that cover is almost eye level. That helmet is in my son’s room; something came back and knocked me out, and thankfully [we had] all of the safety implementations they put in a few years ago, so now if the body blows off it automatically pops both chutes and shuts the fuel off. There’s a beam in the shutdown area that does that. So it did that, otherwise I would have been at a high rate of speed and been off into the sand trap and net and probably been hurt or killed. I don’t know whether it was a piece of the body or maybe the supercharger came back and hit me, but now with the cover up, it will deflect whatever is coming back at me, so it’s much better.
HR] Is there something you’d like to see changed to improve handling or safety?
RC] I wish there could be less downforce on these cars and give more control back to the driver. I love driving Funny Cars in nostalgia drag racing because it’s two-speed, old-school bodies, no side windows and no rear spoilers per se, no long nose, no ground effects, and they drive that way—and I love driving them. You have to listen to the car, there’s no computer in a lot of them. I have to tell the crew chief how it felt and then they have to make a decision based on that. Nowadays they don’t talk to a lot of the drivers because they have computers. I got into a little bit of heat last year because I was asked the same question, and I said I wish they would do a couple of races where they took the computers off and then we’d see who’s the best crew chief—drivers would have to give feedback. There’s a lot of crew chiefs that wouldn’t know what to do now because they only look at the readouts, so that’s why I’ve been lucky to drive for the Ace, Tim Richards, Roland Leong. Roland was my first crew chief—he’s old school, he’d look at the plugs and bearings. Nostalgia Funny Cars are so much fun because they move all over and have no downforce; you have to drive them and then you have to shift them. I miss super-long burnouts, too; I’m not even allowed to do a long burnout now because we’ll get the tires hot. We have infrared to tell us how hot the tire is after a burnout, so the super-long burnouts are gone. The fans love them and we like to do them, but you don’t do them anymore. The mayhem and shifting—it’s so much fun. If you take the rear spoilers off and get rid of the downforce, we won’t run as fast, but it would look more like the car that you go to the dealer and buy. See, it got out of control all of these years because guys like Dale Armstrong would test something, go into the wind tunnel, and come out with something that wasn’t in the rulebook. So they started making rules around the crew chiefs that were really like mad scientists—they were unbelievable. That’s why I love it so much. NHRA didn’t let it get this way, they were just trying to keep up and corral it as it was happening. But before you knew it, you had these cars with great, big spoilers and swoopy designs.
HR] And no limits to equipment?
RC] If they put a limit on superchargers and on cubic inches, all that will do is—with the bodies we have now—they just become slot cars; they’ll be so predictable to drive that almost anyone will be able to drive them. Right now they are at the edge of out of control, and that’s why they’re awesome. Slowing them down mechanically by compression or supercharger or nitro limits with the bodies we have now, the cars will just go right down the track. Be nice when you write this—help me out a little bit.
Ron Capps
HR] Are these multi-car teams, one of which you drive for, really good for the future of professional drag racing?
RC] They’re not healthy for the sport, and now we see short fields. You see flashes of brilliance with guys like Tim Wilkerson, and I love that guy, and if we don’t win I love seeing him win because he’s a throwback and a single-car team. With that said, it’s tough because I was that kid in the stands that rooted for the little guy over the big sponsored teams, and now I’m that big sponsored car, so I understand that from a fan’s point. But when the potential sponsors come around and they’re walked around by the NHRA or an agent, and they come to teams that might need a sponsor and they’ll introduce them and then show them how they can be a good representative of their brand and be the best car for that sponsor, at the end of the day there’s a reason that Don, Kalitta, or Force have these sponsors. I’m not saying this to rip on the single-car teams, but there’s a lot that comes with sponsoring a big team, and it just builds, and then you have these other great sponsors that can join. The toughest cars I race are my teammates because I know their cars will be the same or better than my own car because technology is shared and they are very similar. Peter Clifford is trying to get the costs down by putting moratoriums on the superchargers—we can’t have the cylinder head or supercharger of the week like we used to, where there was a wazoo supercharger and then everybody had to go out and buy one, then there was a new one a month later, so it became out of control and only the big sponsored teams could afford it. Wilkerson or Cruz can run as good or better than we can, and we’ve seen them run better than us sometimes. They have to be able to afford to keep doing what they are doing. If they put a moratorium on spending, it will help these teams.
HR] What was your most important win to you and why?
RC] My rookie year in Roger Primm’s car in Seattle was probably my most important. I wore a firesuit with patches my mom sewed on and we had no sponsor, and we beat every big dog: Bernstein and then Don’s car in the final. We shouldn’t have won the race, but we ran as good or better than everyone else and we won, and then on top of that I was a rookie and that never happens.
Quick Facts
The Much-Deserved Victor
– Ron’s brother, Jon Capps, is a part-time Funny Car driver.
– Ron has been a Funny Car bridesmaid in 1998, 2000, 2005, and 2012.
– Ron’s best elapsed time is 3.885 seconds at Pomona in 2015.
– Ron says his first race was from inside his mother’s belly before he was born.
– Ron’s first Top Fuel ride was in Roger Primm’s dragster in 1995, winning the Atlanta race in his rookie season.
You hardly ever get an opportunity to see the origins of a hot rod trend or whole category of hot rod, but in this image from April 1957 you can see the two cars that started the T-bucket craze. In the foreground is Norm Grabowski in the first T-bucket, which had evolved from its original genesis to this later version used for the TV series Sunset Strip. In the far lane is the Tommy Ivo T-bucket—Ivo’s take on Grabowski’s T. This would become the archetype for most T-buckets to come, and there were many a comin’. Around this time, Grabowski built a T-touring that would be used in movies, becoming a star unto itself in the mid-1960s TV show My Mother the Car, while Ivo plucked the nailhead Buick from his T to launch a career in drag racing. Ivo had been a movie and TV star, walking away from the stardom to follow his love of drag racing, while Grabowski was launching an acting career getting bit roles that lead to a string of acting jobs in the movies. So while their pursuits were going in opposite directions, their ideas for stripped-down fun buggies helped catapult the culture of hot rodding—and a thousand fad Ts.
I loved Ed Roth, especially as a child. If Roth had been a traveling circus, I would have left home to join. As it was, I got a chance to work with him in the 1980s and 1990s on some cars and art. I came up with this contemporary-for-the-times Mysterion II design cribbed from his original Mysterion of 1963. I swooped up his original, and thinking it might actually get built, I wanted it powered by something equally as mind-blowing as the twin-Ford FE power of the original, but less literal and more driveable, so I drew an LT5 Corvette engine.
I showed it to him at the 1990 SEMA Show, where we had dinner one night at the huge Circus Circus buffet—Ed loved those big, cheap, Vegas-y, all-you-can-eat buffets. He liked my drawings, but was not interested. I was hoping if he didn’t get geeked about it someone else might, so with his permission, it was mine to foist on whoever might build it. It ran in an issue of Rod & Custom and got some bites, but it’s one of many designs that collect dust in the backroads of my portfolio. However, it did spark something in Ed, and soon he was building a contemporary-for-the-times Beatnik Bandit. Since my Mysterion II was the inspiration for him doing a new Beat, he asked me to do the Rat Fink graphics on the side of it—something very graphic and not like any RF depiction, per Ed’s instructions.
Needless to say, that became the least-liked part of the Beatnik Bandit II from many comments I’ve read and heard over the years. Besides rejection, you have to let evil comments roll off your back if you intend to hang your designs out there for all to see.
One of the things we’ve always liked about this alternative shot from the Invader feature from HRM’s July 1967 issue is that in spite of this being a twin-Pontiac engine, twin-Hydro transmission, twin-Jaguar rear, custom-bodied show car, it was built to be driven. And in that context, it’s so exotic and a striking shortcut to top-down sublimity as anything plying the highways of our hot rod hearts. Yeah, it’s kooky from our 2017 perspective, yet 50 years after its creation, it offers up a challenge to stretch your imagination and definition of what a hot rod is and can be. Bob Reisner’s aluminum roadster is also one of those unicorns winning the America’s Most Beautiful Roadster title twice, in the days before the rules mandated you make major changes to your winning roadster to be judged for a second title. Yes, a lot has changed in 50 years, but the image of a wild roadster cruising through town still holds the same fascination and pleasure now as it did then.
Here’s a rare opportunity to see the transformation of a long running, iconic Gasser. Virtually every year Ohio George Montgomery ran his 1933 Willys Gasser from its humble beginnings in 1959 to the last race it ran in 1967, before George switched to his new Mustang, is accounted for. Most racecars got replaced, or worse, met their end in on-track or trailer mishaps. George built a finely crafted machine, which only needed safety and certain mechanical updates to stay competitive. With pending sponsorship from Ford, he switched to their 1967 Mustang body, which ironically initiated the beginning of the end of the Gasser classes. With the proliferation of Mustang Funny Cars, and on the threshold of Ford’s Cobra Jet Mustangs in 1968, yet another class with Mustang-bodied cars diluted the Gassers’ unique place in drag racing. Conversely, his winning ways behind the wheel of the Willys helped popularize these rather rare cars, as did the Stone, Woods, and Cook Gassers did for the 1941 Willys. George refined his coupe with suspension tweaks, and replaced the Olds engine with the Ford SOHC Cammer engine in 1966. Running cement in the spare tire for a time to help increase traction, he also trimmed his tilt front end a bit too much. Obviously NHRA frowned on the modification, and so you can see how he fashioned aluminum pieces to restore what was once removed, saving him the cost of replacement. A shot of his Willys-replacement Mustang closes out our rare look at function and form combined in the Gasser class.
Last week we presented a yellow T-bucket-type of Freak Show, and we thought it would be fun to follow that with another yellow T-bucket-inspired creation that is at the opposite end of last week’s fine freak. Probably based off of an old Harley trike, it’s also another FSF vehicle that is actually finished, as was last week’s. You know, with actual paint, chrome, interior, and even the nicely done wood bed and, maybe a tool box, or beer cooler? The antique brass taillights are a nice touch, and the running boards are a deluxe feature for sure. In reality, the more you look at it the more fun it seems like it would be. Maybe this will start a whole new trend to get some use out of those old T-bucket fiberglass molds sitting around forlorn.
Not all freaks are good, and not all are bad. But good or bad, if you’ve got something like a 1937 Plymouth sedan body, and you know it will take lot’s of cash to make it complete before you begin modifying it, why not try something like this instead? Repurposing, recycling, ingenuity, rat rod—call it what you want but if you’ve got a good eye and are a bit crafty, turning old junk into cool cars is the hot rod way. Turning old into new. Think about it.
Chris McGaha doesn’t hold anything back. He speaks from the heart and tells it like it is, so when we delved into the intricacies of Pro Stock racing in 2016 for the first year of fuel injection, we got much more than we asked for. Chris has been racing in Pro Stock for four years, having come from a Competition Eliminator background with his dad’s car in the 1980s. As he says, “When I was nine, I thought everybody had a C/Econo dragster with a 750 on it.” Amazingly, in this age of super-sponsors, his family business pays for the majority of the racing expenses. Why? Because they’ve always wanted to be competitive in Pro Stock—and they are. For 2016, Chris and his Harlow Sammons Racing Camaro was seventh in NHRA Pro Stock points in a season completely dominated by Jason Line and Greg Anderson. He does all of his engine development and also builds engines for Mopar’s Deric Kramer, who came in 13th in 2016, so he’s deep into both GM and Dodge engine platforms. As a privateer, he wound up ahead of the entire Dodge-sponsored operation. He knows stuff and is willing to share just enough of his knowledge to make you understand that Pro Stock is an arcane, difficult pursuit. Says Chris, “Some of the things you do to chase one-one-hundredth of a second, you’ll go out on a limb and suffer a lot of defeat for that.” So we were curious. There are so many rumors and misunderstandings about the secret world of Pro Stock that we asked what we could, and Chris answered almost all of the questions posed to him. Almost.
If you don’t cheat, you have to learn to think like some people that cheat so you can at least call them out on it” — Chris McGaha
HRM] Have you been able to get past the firewall on the Holley ECU?
CM] [Sighs.] I know one team has the ability to do it because they have the guy that is the grandfather behind all of this; he wrote the book on aftermarket EFI, but most teams have too much to lose if they get caught.
HRM] Would you like to see the 10,500-rpm mandated cap raised?
CM] 10-5 was the number they got after all of the software and firmware was lined up, but it’s more realistically at 10,580 rpm. I’ve seen some 10,620 rpm myself, but I’ve also seen that with the same computer on the same weekend, it was at [10]590. Then on the next run, it jumps to [10]620. Sometimes you press it to see, and it will take it, and then the next time it won’t. I have the two-step turned off up there [in the high rpm ranges].
HRM] It seems some drivers hit the rev limiter before the lights. Is this some sort of strategy or advantage?
CM] The reason you do it is because of the gearing. You don’t make power at 11-3 or 11-4. It goes back to your fallback—what do you fall back on for a gear change? So you try to control that and hit as high an rpm as you can. That’s why the rpm got higher overall. The Dodges had to do that. They set the pace because they didn’t make the torque, yet 400 to 500 rpm above a Chevy they start to make the same power. So when you’ve done everything you can, do you go out on a limb? You have a gear in the back and it’s crossing at 10,520 rpm, but putting in a different ratio gear, you might cross at 10,620 rpm. Putting different tires on you see if it crosses 75 rpm higher. Change our transmission and then from the start to the eighth-mile it changes our splits and the fallback, so by half-track we get enough to pick the car up. Then at the lights, you’ll hear us on the chip. When we didn’t have the limiter, we knew we had enough room—we didn’t care if it crossed 100 rpm higher. It might hurt a couple of valvesprings, but it’s what you did to go an extra hundredth of a second faster. We were pressing the envelope, but nobody knew that because we would move the chip up.
HRM] The DRCE2 block used for more than a decade in Pro Stock seems to be the most popular basis for engines, but there’s an “improved” DRCE3 and now a 4. What’s your combo and why aren’t more teams running the 3s and 4s?
CM] Same bore and stroke combos, and for my program I’ve got 4.700 to 4.750 bores. They raised the camshaft on the 3, and that’s what got everybody flustered.
HRM] Isn’t raising the cam better due to shorter pushrods and increased cam bearings for more stability at high rpm?
CM] That’s what it seems like it would be, but in this game, it looks better on paper. In reality, it isn’t always true. When you build it and then run it, a lot of times it’s a different story.
HRM] So the 3 architecture is not conducive to power?
CM] They flipped the head patterns, too, so they traded some places with the lifters. You used to use an offset rocker and offset lifter to clear the port wall, and as time went on there was no more offset for the rocker arms. They traded places with the exhaust side so a straight lifter is used. It looks beautiful, but we just can’t make it run.
HRM] So you stopped developing your 3 program?
CM] We haven’t started a 3 program, and I’ve owned my 3 for three years. [Aaron] Stanfield and others use a 2 block with a 3 head with some success. I’ve always liked the 3 head. On carburetors, the 2 had the advantage because Elite, other teams, and myself were outrunning KB. Most of us that had 2 programs were doing better than the KB 3s until this year. They were always 0.0100th to 0.0200th back, or sometimes just even, but they overcame on FI. Is it because it’s the 3 platform? Don’t know.
HRM] So you’re sticking with the 2?
CM] No, I have two 4 blocks now. In 2015 before the FI switch, that was going to be my top priority. My 4 was going to be a clone of my 2 stuff. I was going to use a 2 top end on top of the 4 block; with the cam being higher on a 3 than a 2, but lower on a 4 than a 3, that allows us to use 2 heads. There’s an extra bolt on top of the lifter valley that doesn’t allow you to use 2 heads on a 3, so you would need all-new heads. But the 4 block was made to use a 2, 3, or 4 head.
HRM] You run 4s in competition?
CM] I was, and got the block about 70-percent machined and we progressed from our carbureted 2s. We’ve been doing so much FI development that it got pushed to the side of the shop. My goal for 2017 is to do a 3 head on our 2 block, and if Pro Stock continues on its current path, then we’d like to do a 3 head on a 4 block.
HRM] Did you start with a carburetor baseline fuel map when first developing your FI program?
CM] Yes. Typically, we have a set of dyno carbs and a set of race carbs, and the same with manifolds. You have one to race and one to dyno. So with that at the shop, if we were 2,000 miles away, we could still beat on stuff at the shop on Mondays through Wednesdays before a race, looking for things without having anything out of our trailer. We started with a manifold we dyno’d that had a little more torque, but didn’t run as well on the shorter stuff needing a higher rpm. Talk about a crude part—my first intake was crude. I heard that KB tested 30 intakes before the 2016 season started. I’ve built or modified 10 to 15 intakes, and within those, I’ve done other things like move the injector to different spots. If I did a new manifold for every mod I’ve made, I’d be up to 35 at this point. Since coming home from the 2016 Finals[December 2, 2016], we’re on our third new intake. We’ve changed the shape of the plenum, the size, length of runners, how much taper it has—everything we did for carbs, except now you add an injector location and everybody is hog-tied. Well, you’re only as hog-tied as much as your imagination.
We did some math, calculated, and found some nozzles we could use to make a controlled fuel leak inside of our manifold that was worth 3 to 5 hp” — Chris McGaha
HRM] So where is the optimal location for a Pro Stock FI injector?
CM] I can tell you it needs to be as close to the plenum as it can, but not be in the plenum, or it won’t even do a dyno pull.
HRM] How about the combined lack of inlet charge cooling you’ve lost that carburetors provided, and the air inlet being so close to the hot track?
CM] Where you lose from carbs to FI is the cooling effect. That’s where the biggest difference is between the two. You’re trying to rebalance that to make the engine feel like it has the carbs on it now with FI, and trying to do what Mother Nature used to do for you.
HRM] Is there a way to cool the intake or charge?
CM] For 2017, there was a rule amendment stating all fuel must pass through the Holley injectors. See, we knew we lost the cooling effect and I’ve messed with stocker stuff, and what you do to keep the intake cool, guys use bags of ice on the intake and stuff like that. You’ve lost the fuel spraying in the cylinders cooling the air. I told my guys the fix is to have a spray bar inside of your intake manifold, then come out from that with a fuel line going to your regulator. The problem is that it’s so big it can’t idle with the spray bar spraying, so you need a way to activate it. You use those regulators made for guys who use Prochargers and turbos. If you shoot manifold pressure into them, it raises fuel pressure. You put a check valve in and use an outside source like CO2—which we all have in our cars—or something else, and you shoot to that regulator when you go to WOT. It shoots pressure, opening the check valve, and the spray bar turns on.
HRM] So are you or other teams doing this?
CM] I don’t know if that’s what guys are doing, but that’s one way it can be done. Did I do it personally? No, because I thought it was too gray of an area. Did I pay the price for not running it? I think I did, that’s why I ended up in Seventh Place. Who in front of me has it? I don’t really know. I know of some that didn’t have it, but nobody in front of me is admitting having it. Look, I’m sure there’s somebody in front of me that had it.
HRM] Could you spray ambient nitrous into the engine compartment, like some teams from the 1980s have been accused of?
CM] It’s been talked about for years, and I’m sure it’s been done. I know there are teams that have too much to lose, but I also think there are some that wouldn’t bat an eye about doing it. This comes from the street and the drag-radial world—over there, we call it “water meth.” You spray window-washer fluid and it cools the intake down to make more power. That’s where it’s from. You have to be creative in Pro Stock. If you don’t cheat, you have to learn to think like some people that cheat so you can at least call them out on it.
HRM] If it’s not in the rulebook, then it’s legal?
CM] An injector to me is a solenoid, so the way you make the spray bar work is with a solenoid hooked to your CO2, and that shoots air to your regulator and that raises your fuel pressure, so it’s too gray an area. We were so desperate at the end of the year that between Vegas and Pomona we were ready to rig the system up, but we didn’t use a solenoid at all.
HRM] So how was it going to work?
CM] We did some math, calculated, and found some nozzles we could use to make a controlled fuel leak inside of our manifold that was worth 3 to 5 hp. So the idea exists, and I wasn’t talking about it, but when we showed up at Pomona, everyone knew about it. I had Comp Eliminator guys come over to me to tell me about it. I wondered who kicked over the bucket! Then on Sunday morning, we’re handed the 2017 rule amendment and it’s in dark, bold, blue letters saying, “All fuel must pass through the approved injectors.” Well, that solved that problem.
HRM] Do you ever remove the ends of the injectors?
CM] We have—we’ve built tips, tried different tips, then no tips, and other company’s injectors that are supposedly better. If you get the hole too small and can’t get enough fuel through it, then it won’t run. I’ve gotten the same power with both the ones we use and other aftermarket ones supposedly better. If you ask one aftermarket guy about the injector we use, he’ll say it’s junk, but if you ask another, then he’ll say the other is junk. So which one is it, guys?
HRM] Why do you think the Mopars are consistently behind the GM Pro Stock cars?
CM] The Hemi has issues, and I know that because I ran it in 2012. I’ve worked on the Hemi and run the Hemi. Those engines at 9,000 rpm are 30 hp back on their best day from a Chevrolet. I’ve done everything under the moon, and I know what’s wrong with it. We dusted off our flow bench that we never use anymore, and I showed my guys what’s wrong with the architecture of the Hemi: they can’t make the torque a Chevrolet does—in fact, they don’t even get close. When they lowered the rpm in Pro Stock, it was instant death to Dodge. I even talked to Elite about this when they were thinking of going over to Dodge. I said, “Have fun going straight to the bottom.” They thought with this new head that is not a mirror design it would fix the problem, but the problem is the intake-port location. If you take the same intake port and just go down the head with it, that’s not going to fix it. It’s where the intake valve is positioned in the cylinder head. Even though the port is short, you used to make it up on the manifold because Dodge intakes were always 3/8- to 1/2-inch longer than Chevrolet. When I was doing the engine for Kramer last year, I tried to make it as much like a Chevrolet as possible. To judge on the dyno, you have specific dyno carbs that you never mess with—you never change jets, you never do anything to them, you just make sure they don’t leak fuel. But you measure how much fuel is going through them, and that’s how you can tell if you’re improving anything—by measuring fuel flow. I was able to get the Dodge to make the same fuel flow as the Chevrolet, but the Chevy on my dyno will make 1,500 peak hp. Now the Dodge could make about 1,470 hp, but that was at 9,000 rpm. It was a night-and-day difference. You had the same fuel flow, but the Dodge could not make the power at those fuel points. Others may want to differ, but I have tested them and have the facts to back up what I’m saying.
HRM] Where’s the most room for improvement in Pro Stock engines today?
CM] Right now, the most room for development is in the intake manifolds, and there’s some room left with [valve]springs. We’re just trying to get back to how it was with carburetors [in 2015] because we felt we had a good package. Maybe the whole motor needs to change because it’s on FI now. No one can say for sure that this is what it is. Like with an LS1, you put a carb on it and it will make more power than with fuel injection, but that motor was designed to be fuel injected.
Freakishness need not be limited to cars, nor should it scare you. Though a little offbeat from our normal Freak Show Friday–– what is normal for a post called Freak Show Friday? Right? What appears to be something from a Jetsons cartoon was a real deal known as the RotorWay Javelin prototype, from 1964. Designed by RotorWay founder B.J. Schramm, it developed to become the Scorpion, which was RotorWay’s first kit helicopter. RotorWay is the largest manufacturer of helicopter kits, and is still building and designing helicopters today in Chandler, Arizona. So while this might look retro-future sci-fi, it was real and sure looks like something every HOT ROD reader would love to have in his or her garage, or heliport.
When you have a Mustang but really want a Ferrari, you either trade up or start fabricating. This example is the latter, and has all of the identification we know and love from various Ferraris of recent past. The egg crate grille is classic Ferrari, and those finny things on the quarters are Testarossa-ish. It’s also got the requisite wings, flairs, hood scoops and vents—all indicators of something much more than a mere Mustang, right? And the piece-de-resistance is the Ferrari red paint—you don’t have a Ferrari unless it’s painted Ferrari Red. Taken all together you have a yeoman’s effort of blending Ferrari with Mustang to confound friends and fakers alike. Do this to your Mustang and you are guaranteed to be the center of attention at the local Cars and Coffee for you imagination, craftsmanship, and guts to show up with your “Ferrastang.”
We like truckin’ down to Del Mar for the Goodguys Meguiars Nationals because it has traditionally been a pre-1948 show, but also because it’s so big it brings out a good amount of post-1948 street machines and customs. It makes for a good range of years and makes, and when you factor in the slalom and front-engine dragsters cackling, there’s a lot to see. We’ve broken down our galleries into pre- and post-war cars from Friday, the first day. We also did some Facebook Live interviews so check them out on HOT ROD’s Facebook page.
Lots of Street Machines, Low Riders, and Trucks Roamin’ the Fairgrounds.
We like truckin’ down to Del Mar for the Goodguys Meguiars Nationals because it has traditionally been a pre-1948 show, but also because it’s so big it brings out a good amount of post-1948 street machines and customs. It makes for a good range of years and makes, and when you factor in the slalom and front-engine dragsters cackling, there’s a lot to see. We’ve broken down our galleries into pre- and post-war cars from Friday, the first day. We also did some Facebook Live interviews so check them out on HOT ROD’s Facebook page.
Russia was discovered to have hacked Chevrolet’s vast computer system, stealing intellectual property and advanced design programming for future Chevy models. Of interest to HOT ROD readers is their blatant rip-off of the iconic Camaro, seen here in early prototype testing. Yes, Chevy is mad and yes, they are suing the Russian government for copying one of their most cherished properties. Russia denies any similarity to the Camaro and also hacking into Chevy’s computer system, noting Russians invented the computer, and also their design and manufacturing capabilities are far superior to their Western counterparts. Says Russia in an official statement, “Just looking at the prototype of our new ‘Khamaroski’ proves our design and engineering capabilities are vastly beyond those of our Western comrades. Even its name is uniquely Russian.”
Should America be mad? No! Let Russia have their crude Camaro while we get on with producing the most technologically advanced cars in the world.
