A ’54 Ford Victoria gasser is cool enough, but then builder Jim Lyons took it right over the top by splicing on a fiberglass nose intended for a ’55 Chevy. For a time, the chopped ’41 with the killer stance was the fastest normally aspirated gas coupe in the country. The Grist brothers of California were among the early adopters of the light, compact Willys body in the gas coupe classes, and their unique interpretation included an MEL-type Lincoln V8 bored and stroked to 502 CID and coupled to a General Motors four-speed Hydra-Matic transmission. Nationals at Indy, the scene for many of the gasser’s successes. Larry Teter of Algonquin, IL would later be recognized as a top builder of racing engines (Teterbuilt ICE), but in the early ’60s he was known for this beautiful and fast ’32 Ford Victoria. Take note of the stock Anglia front wheels and brakes. This one, hailing from the racing hotbed of Edmonton, Alberta, sports a small-block Chevy V8 with a healthy setback for improved weight distribution, Hilborn fuel injection, and homemade shorty headers. The track appears to be Six Flags in Texas.Īnglias, the fleaweight sedans from Ford of England, were more plentiful in Canada. The Hilborn two-pot fuel injector setup poking through the hood suggests a GMC supercharger underneath it. We don’t know much about this ’55 Chevy Bel Air with radiused wheel openings and whitewall slicks, but we like it. We believe the photo credit for this shot goes to the late Wayne Arteaga-gasser racer, Willys authority, good guy. Tasca Ford in Rhode Island was known mainly for its string of winning Super Stock and Factory Experimental cars, but check this out: a ’57 Tudor set up for B/Gas, and sharing the 777 number with Zimmy, the dealer’s Fairlane Thunderbolt racer.Īl Pfeiffer campaigned a succession of WIllys gassers, including this pretty ’41 coupe with full Moon discs and a big Caddy V8. Ray’s Haulin’ Henry, a ’55 Ford hardtop powered by a 390 CID FE-style Ford V8, terrorized drag strips around Northwest Ohio and Southeast Michigan, including Milan Dragway, shown here. Not all ’55 gassers were Chevrolets, no sir. The eye-popping coupe next turned up on eBay in early 2014 with a six-figure asking price. Built by/for an Arizona racer, reportedly it was run only a few times before it was parked-too fast and scary, the story goes. This gorgeous ’33 Willys gasser was a high-end hot rod in the ’60s, with loads of chrome, top-dollar components, and a fuel-injected 427 SOHC Ford for power. As always, if you have any info to contribute about these photos or the cars, people, and events featured in them, please let us know. Here we’re going to feature some lesser-known racers, because they’re every bit as interesting and worthy. Most gearheads in America are familiar with the better-known racers in the gas coupe categories, including Ohio George Montgomery, Big John Mazmanian, and Stone, Woods, and Cook. To this day, these were some of the most unusual and creative race cars ever built. Beyond that, the competition was essentially wide open, and the cars showed it. per cubic inch, with only two key restrictions: bodies were supposed to remain sorta, kinda stock in appearance, more or less and the fuel was limited to gasoline. The principle is pretty simple: start with a basic production car with a coupe or sedan body, and then build in almost every sort of engine and chassis modification imaginable.Ĭlasses were broken down into weight/displacement brackets in lbs. In the drag racing rule books of the era, the formal title was the Gas Coupe and Sedan category, but everyone called them gassers. In the 1960s, the gas coupe and sedan categories featured some of the coolest and most colorful race cars ever seen on a drag strip.
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