The hot rodding scene of the 1960s was wild, but there was nothing wilder than Jim Lytle’s astounding machines, all of them powered by giant Allison aircraft engines.

Blessed with a wide-open imagination and wrenching skills to match, Jim Lytle (1937-2011) was one of the original free spirits of hot rodding. Initially from Michigan, he migrated  to San Antonio, Texas and then to Southern California, continually advancing  his car-building skills. While he was still living in Texas, his Chrysler Hemi-powered ’32 Ford Coupe was featured in the May 1961 issue of Hot Rod magazine. The article states that Lytle, then 24, had aleady owned 26 cars. Then he headed west to join the California hot rod scene.

The West Coast hot rodding movement was fueled in part by an extensive military surplus industry, which provided an endless supply of performance parts for pennies on the dollar. When Lytle discovered the World War II-era Allison V12 aircraft engine (read about the Allison here) it lit a fuse. His first Allison-powered hot rod, which he initially constructed in Texas, was a 1934 Ford Tudor in which the mammoth aircraft engine took up most of the cockpit. He christened it Big Al.

Big Al was a sensation at the Lions Drag Strip in Long Beach, where the machine was so powerful and fast that the original ’34 Ford body panels tended to fly off at speed. So in 1964, using his original body as a plug, Lytle molded a one-piece replacement shell in fiberglass. It was the first such body in the sport and foreshadowed the funny car trend, historians say. (The body resides today in the Don Garlits museum in Florida.) In this form, which Lytle called Big Al II, the car ran 9.31 at 163 mph at Long Beach and was later purchased and raced by Ray Alley of Engine Masters, who renamed it the P-51.

From there, Lytle created a whole series of crazy Allison-powered machines, including Big Al III, a White 3000 cabover truck that could do 144 mph, and an Allison-powered trike that Lytle called the Psycho Cycle. Above is his Alsetta, which was essentially a ’57-’59 BMW Isetta 600 with a V-1710 just barely crammed inside. Note how the Allison’s Bendix carburetor pokes through the front door. Lytle’s work received generous coverage in the old Rod & Custom magazine, where the Alsetta was featured in April 1967, and where we borrowed this photo.

Of course, Lytle’s most famous creation is Quad Al, below: a Fiat Topolino-bodied dragster with four Allison engines and four-wheel drive. In truth, Quad Al was a mocked-up show car with no drive system or other necessities, and it was incapable of moving under its own power. Nevertheless, it made a statement. Lytle was a fabricator on the crew that built the STP Turbine Indy car, then moved to Hawaii where he operated an auto repair shop for many years before he passed away in 2011. Quad Al is still in existence and belongs to Indiana collector Mike Guffey.