19 replies to this topic

[Dave Crevie]

What a great time when funny cars still kinda, sorta looked like the cars they were supposed to represent. If you guys are looking for paint ideas for your slot drag cars, here's plenty of inspiration.

 

[Vay Jonynas]

Beautiful cars! I really like the Funny Cars from the 1960's and 1970's!

 

 

Correspondingly I hate how they've evolved and what they've become these days.

 

[Dave Crevie]

Me, too!

[Bill from NH]

Nice collection of paint schemes Dave. Thanks for sharing them, I haven't been to a drag race in ages, The last funny car I saw run live was Tommy Ivo's pink & black Dodge. The last drag race I was at was the jei-powered Peterbilt's at night.

 

Today's fenny cars look more like wing cars than something from a dealership. But they are a lot faster.

[Eddie Fleming]

Lots of Jungle Jim in that. Not that that is a bad thing. 

 

I liked the old days too, but that day is gone. 

[Dave Crevie]

Well, there are the nostalgia drags. but they are not the same as balls to the wall racing. The vintage sportscar guys do a better job of that. The larger percentage of vintage/historic racers are really racing. I know, I have been out there.  A subject the Vintage Motorsport Association has been trying to deal with for a long time. But how do you put a racer in a car and tell him "go slow".

[Vay Jonynas]

But how do you put a racer in a car and tell him "go slow".

 

You don't of course. But you set the rules and allow the racers to go as fast as they're able under those rules. And of course if they don't like the rules, they're in no way forced to participate in the race.

 

[Vay Jonynas]

Lots of Jungle Jim in that. Not that that is a bad thing. 

 

Jungle Jim's livery was among the wildest!

 

 

The last funny car I saw run live was Tommy Ivo's pink & black Dodge. 

 

I can't find a pink and black Dodge Tommy Ivo Funny Car. His Rod Shop "Dodge" was red, white and blue:

 

 

Although the above Funny Car actually has a Plymouth Duster's front grille not a Dodge Demon's!

 

Do you mean this black and red/orange "Plymouth Arrow" which he raced after his Rod Shop days?

 

 

[Eddie Fleming]

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[Half Fast]

Lots of Jungle Jim in that. Not that that is a bad thing.

Jungle Pam was not a bad thing either!
 
Cheers,

[Tim Neja]

Actually I much prefer BEFORE they became "floppers"!!  The middle 60's with the all steel bodies and altered wheelbases -- injector stacks our of the hood were my absolute FAVORITE A/FX cars of the day!! Nothing was cooler at LIon's -- OCIR and Irwindale in SoCal!!  Great times with much fun!!  The car in my avatar is a  JR Stocker from 1970 Winternationals-- Sr year of High School and I won my class at that race!! Great times to race and very inexpensive to build.  A bygone Era for sure!

[Dave Crevie]

Was to Lions back then. The gasser weekends were an experience. But the altered wheelbase funny cars were a very close second. If you haven't been to the Lions museum, you might consider going. It is an amalgamation of one man's, Rick Lorenzen, recollections of the heyday of drag racing in So-Cal. I agree with his vision.

 

https://lionsautomobilia.org/

[Dave Crevie]

Oh. And if you west coasters think you had a corner on the funny car market...

 

https://competitionp...unny-car-heaven

 

It's a long read, but full of nostalgic lore.

[Dave Crevie]

There's one advantage to being housebound. Time to surf the web looking for photos of the drag cars of the 1960s. Funny cars are cool, but let's not forget the gassers. Here's some inspiration for slot drag racers;
 
https://www.oldcusto...om/blog/gassers
 
And a few(?) more;
 
http://georgeklass.net/gassers.html
 
Any motivation out there?

[Vay Jonynas]

Jungle Pam was not a bad thing either!

 

Indeed!

 

 

[Dave Crevie]

A lot of race fans say Linda Vaughn is hotter, but my vote goes with Pam.

 

 

Had a pretty hot girlfriend when I was a street racer. She would dress like Daisy Duke, and do pretty much the same thing as Pam Hardy at our outlaw drag gatherings. This was before the Pam/Jim Liberman days. She ditched me to work at the Playboy Club in Chicago. I have a picture of her I cut out of the magazine. Don't think I can post it here. 

[Bill from NH]

Some well-placed masking tape ought to make that photo post able here.    If I were in your shoes, I wouldn't post it either.

[Vay Jonynas]

The 1970's years were definitely my personal Golden Age for Funny Cars. Here are more of my favourite floppers:

 

Ed "The Ace" McCulloch's Revellution!

 

 

Gene Snow

 

 

Tom "Mongoose" McEwen

 

 

Don "The Snake" Prudhomme

 

 

 

It was of course in his Army sponsored floppers that Don Prudhomme won four straight NHRA Funny Car championships in 1975-78:

 

 

Speaking of Don Prudhomme though, I was driving westward in my red 1973 Dodge Charger along Highway 401 through the northern part of Toronto in the summer of 1979(?) when I noticed that the trailer I was passing was emblazoned with the livery of Don "The Snake" Prudhomme's Funny Car team. "Hmmmmm. They must be heading to Detroit from Montréal where the Grandnational was just held" I thought. When I then looked up at the cab of the truck, Don Prudhomme himself was behind the wheel! "Rad!" I thought. "I just blew by the Snake's Funny Car in my Charger and Don himself was driving! I can brag about that for the rest of my life now."

 

Raymond Beadle's Blue Max

 

 

Chi-Town Hustler

 

 

Frank Hawley from my hometown of London, Ontario piloted this later version of the Chi-Town Hustler to NHRA Funny Car championships in 1982 and 1983:

 

 

[Dave Crevie]

Many of those flopper drivers came out of the A/FX class. Just a quick cursory search found this shot;

 

[Vay Jonynas]

Being Canadian I shouldn't neglect to mention Gordie Bonin's Bubble Up sponsored FC with which he won the I.S. Nationals in 1979: