I thought I’d write a little about the altered wheel base
cars that came about in the mid-sixties because of a few discussions I was
involved in at a model car show the other day.
Let me start by saying that this is by no means a complete history of
these cars because I’m sure the whole story is lost to time, things were
changing rapidly during this era and several ideas came about in different
places at about the same time. It would
be hard to say exactly who had what idea first so I’m going with the general
consensus. The story of drag racing in
the early sixties is secondary to NASCAR because NASCAR sold cars, you could
see your car on the track beating other cars and then go buy one the next
day. Drag racing was still a bunch of
hoodlum teenagers making racket. In the late sixties that began to change as
drag racing began to mature and gain a following, partly because of the stock
and super stock classes that looked like the cars you could buy at the dealer,
but mostly because of the show that the “funny cars” put on around the
country. Altered wheelbase cars are the
embryo that grew to the fire breathing, tire smoking, flip tops that ruled the
early seventies. So let’s start at the beginning.
In the beginning there were two classes of cars; stockers
and dragsters. Stockers had fenders and
doors, dragsters were all motor and frame and were specially constructed to
race. Then guys began to modify their
stockers a little while still staying within the rules, so to even things up a
new class emerged: Super Stock. Which
was like stock with a few modifications.
This class started in about 1957 and opened the door to the idea of
power to weight to set the classes. 1960
allowed any engine from that manufacturer in a car, any “non-visible” changes,
and the next size larger tires. 1961 allowed floor shift conversions, ignition
upgrades, and open headers. 1962 introduced the FX classes and allowed any size
tire that would fit in the wheel well.
1963 set the cubic inch limit at 427.2, 1964 saw rules to keep the
current model cars competing against themselves and older models in their own
class, and 1965 saw the 2% wheelbase rule come about and some relaxing of the
camshaft rules. All of these changes led
to some pretty wild cars by 1965, so let’s look at the effect of these rules.
In 1957, Chevy and Ford were battling on the big ovals of
NASCAR with their latest hot rods: the 57 Chevy “Black Widow” with the 283 fuel
injected V-8 and Ford’s 57 Supercharged 312 “Thunderbird” V-8. Somebody figured out pretty quickly that if
they were fast on the ovals, they would be pretty quick at the drags. Then came
the dreaded AMA (Automobile Manufacturers Association) ban, no more hot rods
were to be built by the big three. That
lasted about 15 minutes. Every manufacturer broke it repeatedly, even Chevrolet
who still tries to maintain the higher moral ground. Anyhow, in 1960 the horsepower game starts in
earnest with Pontiac’s 389 Super Duty winning at Daytona and an all Pontiac
final at the NHRA Nationals at Detroit.
The NHRA relocated their national event from Kansas to Detroit and the
Big 3 saw an opportunity.
Since a big drag race was right in their backyard, all the
manufacturers got involved. With its
Super Duty program Pontiac also offered special lightweight aluminum bumpers,
Chrysler stuck its 350 cid SonoRamic Commando motor with its long tube intake
manifolds in Plymouths, Chevy stuffs its 348 cid truck engine into its
passenger cars, Ford steps up its 352 cid “Police Interceptor” motor for more
power. 1961 and ‘62 see improvements in power and cars begin to lose weight,
but something interesting happens in 1962.
The big hulking Pontiacs shrunk to Tempest size. They stuffed a 421 cid
Super Duty motor in a tiny little Tempest and ran A F/X class. Mopar switched from full frame cars to
unibody construction to save weight and began the “Max Wedge” engines that were
predecessors to the Hemi. Chevy’s 409
motor is the one to beat for a while.
Next time we'll discuss more of the evolution of drag racing and altered wheel base cars, until then keep modeling!
"Rat Fink" Ron
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