Do we need to mention again that we love this stuff? Here are five more lesser-known but totally awesome cars from drag racing’s glory days.
We know a little about some of the cars featured here, and nothing at all about some others. As always, if you can supply more info about a car, its owner, or the photograph itself, please drop us a line. We’d love to know more about these fantastic race cars and their builders, and their stories definitely deserve to be recorded for posterity.
It’s true: The Buick Nailhead V8 was once a favorite among drag racers. While the valves and ports were as small as the nickname implies, the engine offered generous displacement potential and a stout bottom end. Buick stalwarts included TV Tommy Ivo of California, Ron Pellegrini of Chicago, and Ohio’s Frye Brothers with their twin Nailhead rail job, shown here circa 1963-64. The tandem Buick V8s with their 16 vertical intake stacks and horizontal exhaust pipes create a neat visual.
Presenting more proof that not all gassers in the golden age were ’55 Chevrolets: Here’s a ’55 Mercury hardtop pounding out of the gate at venerable Great Lakes Dragaway near Union Grove, Wisconsin, which we believe is now the oldest continuously operating dragstrip in America. We don’t know anything about the car, really, but we like the fenderwell headers and the girder-style ladder bars underneath.
In the early ’60s, cars in the Competition Coupe and Modified Roadster categories were essentially all-out dragsters with radically cut-down bodies draped over the rear of their chassis. Here’s a picture-perfect example of the breed with a fuel-injected Chrysler hemi V8 and Austin/Bantam coupe bodywork. We know you’re also checking out the Cadillac ambulance and the ’56 Chevy 150 two-door in the background.
The late Wayne Arteaga of St. Louis, Missouri was a drag racing pioneer, it would be fair to say. His 1951 Henry J, first raced in 1958-59, sported a 1957 Olds J-2 engine mounted where the front seat once resided, augmented by a crank-driven GMC 6-71 blower. A few years later, Wayne campaigned a well-known Willys gasser around the Midwest.
Southern California hot rodder and race car fabricator Jim Lytle earned plenty of ink in Rod & Custom magazine with a series of drag cars and show rods powered by Allison V-1710 aircraft engines, each one more outlandish than the last. Here’s the car that started it all: an alarmingly stock-appearing 1934 Ford Tudor with a big Allison V12 taking up a major portion of the cabin volume. Known as Big Al, the Tudor would later feature a lift-off fiberglass body.
I remember seeing “Big Al” run at San Fernando. Sounded like a B-29 on the runway.
I never got to hear an Allison-powered dragster, but I enjoyed hearing the unlimited hydroplanes with them. The name thunderboat was appropriate.
Regarding the Bantam Competition Coupe above… it’s cousin was the Modified Roadster class not the Roadster class. In the Golden Days Altered and Roadster classes were cousins too. Eventually both the roadster and full bodied (altered) cars were morphed into simply ‘Altered’ because both classes had essentially the same rules and restrictions. The Competition/Coupe-Sedan and Modified Roadster classes were eventually dropped all together.
More Old B.S. Later
Badco
I’d love to see some of these cars for sale in orange county ! I miss the old roadster classic days. I suppose there are still a few good reputable brands still out there!
Your postings are always enjoyable! Thanks for your diligence!
(That “57” behind the ambulance is a ’56) …but it’s ok; you didn’t lose points!
Where on earth did he sit in that 34?
Oh and the Mercury appears to be racing a Chev.
I now have the 55 mercury shown here! It’s in the process of being restored to the condition shown in the picture. I will get back on here in a few days with details.
The picture of the Henry J was taken at Alton in 59.
Anyone have photos of just how Lytle connected the Allison to the driveline? Doubt a trans would be a lot of help, but it would need a clutch and maybe an in/out box. Insane car from a very creative time. BTW, for as tiny as the Nailhead’s valves were (hence, the nickname) the pushrods were fairly short, the rockers were shaft mounted before Jesel thought of it (grin) and the parts were fairly light. Buick engineering was rumored to be supporting some racers with parts wayyyyyyyyyyyyy under the radar, including Ivo, Balchowsky and one or two NASCAR teams. Fireball Roberts, before he connected with Ford actually won the beach race at Daytona in ’55, but as would become their custom, reversed the decision after Keikhafer’s Mercury Marine Chrysler team protested the car and NASCAR found a few thou missing from a pushrod or something trivial.
Four-disc clutch built out of HD truck pieces, no transmission, 14-inch-steel torque tube. Lytle was a fair draftsman and his drawing of it was published in Hot Rod a few years back and is on the web.
The Buick Nailhead is a rather misunderstood engine — there was a strategy behind the valve area and layout. Look for a story here soon.
Thanks for your interest!