[Pony]

Love the Shake Rattle and Run. I had a 57- 210 with a full race 409 in it and ran C/G in Va and MD in 1967. It was named "The Tinker Tank" I'd almost build an nostalgia car but I remember how scary it was to drive.

[Igosplut]

Straight axle cars are where its at... This is with a Iron block/aluminum head 427 in it........ Still a little high in front....

[Pony]

I had a stripe of white tape at 12 o'clock on the steering wheel and a corresponding stripe on the dash so that I could find my front wheels off the line and at times on the top end at the strip. When my buddy Earnie and I went street racing with it we loaded it up on Sunacco 280 and ourselves on Bali-Hi wine and kipper snacks for courage. 3T could really be a hand full at times but it was a blast for a 19 year old.

[willys36@aol.com]

The main cause of crashes in Willys Gassers with parallel semi elliptic springs and straight axles was at the top end when the drag chute hit. The front end nosed over so violently that if the driver didn't instantly correct, the car bump steered right into the guard rail or wall. '33s - '36s bumped to the left and '37s-42s bumped right 'cause the former has rear shackles and the latter have front shackles. K.S Pittman nuked his '33 Willys that way and Ohio George Montgomery, though he never crashed, says he should have bought the farm many times. In the latter years before the front ends started falling due to hugely improved tires/traction, they finally got wise and got the height by using riser blocks rather than re-arching springs, or better yet, replaced the parallel semi elliptics with a single Ford type buggy spring and wish-bones.

[tm454]

Thanks for the history lesson guys. I remember watching those cars run at the tracks way back then.


Tazz


rat Rods Rule!

[Sandflea427SS]

Well, I've been biting my lip since this thread started, but since Willys mentioned good ole Ohio George I'll speak what is on my mind. Some bean counter at Ford mentioned to George that since he was running a SOHC motor that maybe he should switch to a car that people could associate with Ford. George (as dominant as he was) switches to a Mustang body and cleans house even more. That dominance forces others to follow suit and after a few years the Gassers resemble Funny Cars enough that NHRA drops the Gasser class! I was no where near old enough to see Gassers anyway, but I sure could use a few more years of history and pictures of the cool Gassers. Some days I spend countless hours on the Internet just checking out AA/FA, Gassers and late 60s early 70s Funny Cars!

[willys36@aol.com]

Get the Jackson Bro's Gasser Chronicle tapes. Not great production quality but super vintage Gasser racing footage.

[Stitch]

You'd be forgiven for thinking that this pic is 35 years old.........



In fact this 57 was built last year by a couple of guys here in the UK , red Lexan windows ,vintage Halibrands , altered wheelbase , fenderwell headers,prisma tape lettering , Moon tank et al correct to the last detail..........and it runs 9's , sure wish I owned it

[willys36@aol.com]

Absolutely beautiful.

[RaggMopp]

Yep, and wheelie bars are the next logical addition. hehe

I remember .... Stone-Woods-Cook ran a supercharged Oldsmobile engine in the beginning. Ran very well with it, but switched to a Hemi finally.
Didn't "Ohio" George run a s/c small block Chevy?? Whupped-up on some butt with that little '33 Willys. I think he was running B or C/GS at the time.
And after he switched to a Mustang body, he started playing with Turbochargers .... Yikes!

Ahhh, the olden days ... gone forever.

And NO! ... I am not OLD!! ..... dang whippersnappers ....

[willys36@aol.com]

Actually Ohio George started out running a Caddy, then the SBC and finally the cammer. I think he always ran A/GS.

[Jag Daddy]

So would Tom Daniels' BADMAN II be considered a gasser? What ever happened to all those old cars anyway?

Regards
Mark

[willys36@aol.com]

Don't know about Bad Man II. Can't find it on http://gassermadness.com/

A lot of them crashed or were trashed out decades ago but a lot of the cars are being restored/reproduced. Stone/ Woods/Cook Swindler, Ohio George's Willys, Big John Mazmanian, K.S. Pittman's '42 Willys are all redone and looking great. In progress are Jack Merkle's last '33, Chuck Finders is almost done with SWC's "Black Horse" '33 Willys. There are several lesser known gassers in the repro works as we speak.

You can buy Big John Mazmanian's Austin AA/GS body right now @ http://gassermadness.com/.

[Stitch]

Tom Daniels was a designer who worked for Monogram , as far as I know Badman II was a kit of a ficticious car .

[willys36@aol.com]

That does ring a bell. I don't remember a real car of that name.