Big Al's Allison Powered 34?

[Locomotive Breath]

Do anyone know where pictures, or info. can be found on the Allison powered car Big Al ran in the late fifties or early sixties. I think it was a 34 Ford body, but I've only seen a couple of pics. over the years.

[The37Kid]

Originally Posted by Locomotive Breath

Do anyone know where pictures, or info. can be found on the Allison powered car Big Al ran in the late fifties or early sixties. I think it was a 34 Ford body, but I've only seen a couple of pics. over the years.

It's in Ocala Florida in The Don Garlits Museum of Drag Racing.

[Locomotive Breath]

Thanks, sounds like a good summer road trip.

[Yo Baby]

Here's a pic.
I have an article somewhere that covers most of his creations not sure where right now.

[Rootie Kazoootie]

Couple more:

[gowjobs]

Originally Posted by Locomotive Breath

Do anyone know where pictures, or info. can be found on the Allison powered car Big Al ran in the late fifties or early sixties. I think it was a 34 Ford body, but I've only seen a couple of pics. over the years.

"Big Al" is the name of the car, not the name of the builder. The biggest one Jim Lytle ever built (not my pic - sent to me by a fellow HAMBer):

[Dirk35]

Originally Posted by Locomotive Breath

Do anyone know where pictures, or info. can be found on the Allison powered car Big Al ran in the late fifties or early sixties. I think it was a 34 Ford body, but I've only seen a couple of pics. over the years.

Here is a couple of pics off of the Carnut site!

http://www.carnut.com/cgi-bin/05/ima...rr/nhrr065.jpg

http://www.carnut.com/cgi-bin/05/ima...rr/nhrr066.jpg

[Homespun91]

I've got that same poster (the picture is only a small part), signed by Jim Lytle. Very cool- it shows several other Lytle Allison powered vehicles including a White cabover, a tricycle, a proposed VW bus, & so on.

[Harms Way]

Couple shots you might like,........( some pretty famous stuff here)

[Mojo]

It just occured to me that the name "Big Al" was probably in reference to the Allison engines... lol. Question about the rear wheels: They have that odd ridge in them.. is it two rims joined together?

[Junkyard Jan]

Originally Posted by The37Kid

It's in Ocala Florida in The Don Garlits Museum of Drag Racing.

But I' fairly certain that that's just Big Al's Tudor body with a different chassis and a Hemi. There was a great article in R&C back in '90 interviewing Jim Lytle (?) and the entire Big Al story. The last that I read, Jim was in Maui,Hawaii considering building an Allison powered Isetta....

Jan

[50Fraud]

There were two versions of Big Al. The original was a chopped '34 steel Tudor body, with windows high enough to see out of. Then he rebodied it with a fiberglass repop, with the super-radical chop shown in the pictures. That's the body that's in Garlits' museum now.

Jim Lytle does (or did) live in Hawaii, and he did build a sort of Isetta that was Allison powered. It wasn't the familiar, super-short Isetta, but a BMW 600 -- a longer car with a full-width rear end, still with the Isetta front-opening door.

He did race Big Al. I saw it run at Irwindale, probably around 1969. I think that the other stuff (the trike, Fiat, BMW and White) were more show cars, and I don't know how many of them actually ran.

I read something that Jim wrote -- maybe here on the HAMB -- in which he said that he could no longer afford to buy Allison engines to build more of this stuff. I guess that 40 or 50 years ago, you could buy one for a few hundred bucks or so.

[Omega]

I herd the same story about the allisons. Basicly that quad al, never got to actually make a run. So i herd.

[Locomotive Breath]

Yeah, I soon as I got a good look at car I snapped to the fact Big Al was short for Big Allison. Does anyone know what kinda times the 34 ran? I know Arfons ran some pretty good numbers for time with his Allison powered rail.
That 4 engined car is awesome, I've never seen that before. The good old days of $200 Allisons are long gone. They go for $20,000+ now days, but there are still a few around.

[Yo Baby]

As I recall some of the stories I read are that he built the quad car in his moms garage and didn't have a trailer tough enough to haul the weight and sold it right away and never raced it.
Also that the first pass in the 34 the car shook so bad that he couldn't see so went back to the drawing board and built a driveline tube that tied everything together from the motor to the rear and cured the shakes.
The next lap netted a nice and smooth 150mph.
Then the next pass or so the air daming up under the body approaching 150 mph blew one of the doors off and that's when he went home and built the one piece glass body and added a belly pan.
I think after that it was developing clutch problems and he went and developed either the first or one of the first multi disc clutch assy's.
Aieee Kamikazeee!!!!!!!

[Locomotive Breath]

Remember the good old days when sex was safe, and hot rods were dangerous.

[the-rodster]

I snapped these pics at the 05 BG HRR.

[Locomotive Breath]

Boy, that takes setting close to an engine to a whole new level.

[Rocknrod]

Wow...

Exhaust stubs on a drag rail!

Big Al down in the museum throws you for a loop when you walk up to it. Takes a second to figure that the driver doesnt look through the window...

[kornbinder]

From the 05 CHHR