The Allure of the Wheelstand

You’re going to get scoffed at every time you even think about saying “too much horsepower�? around any sort of red-blooded hot rodder. Those three words just don’t make sense in that order (actually, don’t try them in any other order either, or else you’ll end up assembling some kind of strange phrase that’ll make you sound even crazier). So if too much horsepower isn’t in the cards—what about too much traction?

Traction is a tough topic. There was a time where the top dogs would use the lack of grip to their advantage, ultimately creating a system between their violently spinning slicks and the asphalt to shoot their machines down the 1320. When traction was low, front ends went high to transfer the bulk of weight to the rear tires on Gassers, Altereds and Stockers alike. And when that redistributed weight coupled with horsepower and torque under the right conditions, the car hooked up and launched hard. Sometimes there was breakage; sometimes there were wheelstands.

Wheelies. Whelstands. Standing up. Scraping the bumper. To a 10 year old kid, lifting the front wheels was an almost magical act that I wanted to believe. I printed a picture of Jack Merkel pulling a savage wheelstand in his C/Gas ’40 Willys and taped it into an old wooden frame. I borrowed my neighbor’s “Little Red Wagon�? model kit and built it for him.

Growing up, one of our family friends messed around with street/strip cars for a little while. They weren’t like Merkel’s coupe or Golden’s Dodge, but they were still hard runners. One time I finally worked up the courage to ask him if he’d ever done a wheelie in his car (I battled back and forth whether to say wheelie or wheelstand) and to my surprise, he said yes. He became an instant hero.

More often than not, the car that stands up is going to lose the race. Although it’s usually bad for the driver and worse for the car, there’s no denying the spectacular nature of the wheelstand. The combination of power and might colliding with other forces to yank two (or more) wheels off the ground has unmistakable gut-level appeal.

The staff at Popular Hot Rodding agreed, and in July 1963 they put together a two-page article filled with cars charging hard off the line with their wheels in the air. Some of these cars are easily identifiable, while others have been lost to time. Either way, they all pull off the wheelstand in excellent early-’60s fashion.

—Joey Ukrop

Photos by Jim Kelly, PHR, July 1963