Early '60's Fuel Coupes

I'm looking for pics of early '60's fuel coupes.
Need all the info I can get for stats and specs as I'm gathering parts to build one.
r

 

Sit down with a long beer and go through the drag cars in motion thread,there's lots of fun stuff.

 

Maybe you can define "Fuel Coupe" for the uninitiated. Early 60's drag coupe could have been Gassers with fenders and 10% engine set back, Altereds with out fenders and 25% set back or Comp Coupe which were usually slingshots with a Bantam, Fiat or other really small body. I remember the term Fuel Coupe as an alternate definition to F/C ie. Funny Car.

 

Flaming Frank Pedregon

 

wasn't chrismans comet a fuel coupe...? and i want to say the fantasia willys might have been one too.... brandon

 

Well a Gasser could not have been a fueler. Can't be both at the same time. When I was drag racing a Fuel Coup was the same as an Altered Coup, but Altered ran gas. There were Roadsters on gas and otherwise the same as Altereds but no top, and Hot Roadsters. Same car on fuel. Cars like the "Taco Taster" were Comp Coups. All on Fuel there was no gas class for Comp coup. No top? Modified Roadster. Then they put the coups in with the roadsters and started running brackets and I left.

 

I don't know when it came to be but here is a neat one that I'd like some education about.

 

Doesn't a HAMBer own the 15oz Fuel coup? A picture of it is on here somewhere.

 

i went through a six pack -- he he

 

Those last two would have been Comp Coups. The thirty four would have run in Fuel coup.

 

The NHRA Fuel Coupe classes were dropped in 1958 when fuel was banned. The Fuel Coupe classes - A/F, B/F and C/F were full fendered and stock bodied ( a few modifications allowed) coupes or sedans. A few strips continued to run the cars but basically the fuel coupe class died. The Fuel Roadster classes also died. At that time the NHRA had established Altered classes combining the gas roadster and coupe classes. Fenders were not required.
Although there were no NHRA fuel classes in 1959 a few strips continued their Fuel insurance and a few of the fuel roadsters and a couple of fuel coupes started to excite the fans. Some great performances by the roadsters of the Brissette Bros. and Burkhart-Brammer & Burns and the coupe of Gene Mooneyham, plus others, were such crowd pleasers that the fuel roadsters and coupes were reborn in the early 1960s. Only now the new classes used the Altered class designation (like the gas classes) which put roadsters and coupes together in the same classes and used similiar rules as the gas altered classes. The new fuel classes became the Fuel Altered classes - A/FA and B/FA.
So if you are to replicate a Fuel Coupe it should be a basically stock bodied and full fendered coupe. If you want to replicate a Fuel Altered then if would not require fenders. Around 1964 some of the experimental stocks started running fuel. Initially they usually ended up in the Fuel Altered classes. But the fans loved them and very soon the strips started the Funny Car classes. It was a great time. If you want to look at that history my book spells it out in detail and also shows lot of pictures of both the Fuel Coupes and the Fuel Altereds. Don

 

that book is a must have ...along with the gasser book....they are like instructions to building the perfect period car... thanks brandon

 

So how about some history on the above coupe?

 

A HAMBer doesn't own the 15 oz coupe as far as I know. It is always part of the Vipers CC at the March meet, Hot Rod Reunion etc. Mike Demarest tuned it, but passed a couple years back. Chili Phil on here should be able to get you all the info you need on it.

 

Man that's one tough lookin' coupe! Looks like it'd brake ya neck when it hooked up. Talk about set back, it's nearly rear engine.

 

Thanks Rockerhead for defining what I was thinking.
I'll search that book out.
r

 

Re: 15oz Coupe. Les Hawkins still owns the car. Les and Mike Bartlett are the only living guys who were involved in the car when it ruled the old San Gabriel and Irwindale tracks in the 60s. Nowadays, the people who are care taking (and don't we all just act as caretakers of these historic cars?) are Bartlett, Hawkins, Bill Demarest (Groundshakers AA/FD fame), Bill Schultz, and I forget who else... None of these fellas are under 66 years old. Bartlett and Terry Minks are Vipers. So, we help as we can. The 15oz Coupe has made a few test runs lately, we hope to see it make it down the 1320 soon. But money is pretty tight. So, progress is slow.

Stop by the Vipers CC Pit at Bako at the CHRR and say hi. Hopefully, the 15oz will be making an exhibition run or two there. At the very least, it will be fired up at our pit, on the usual Mike Demarest tune up on 98% Nitro. That's is some beautiful music, my friends.

 

I'm probably seriously mistaken but it seems to me that BEEP's Cackler was or is called a Fuel Coupe.

Hey Beep maybe you could clarify this for us.

 

Here's a link to "Rockerhead" Don Montgomery's Hot Rod Books:
http://www.montgomeryhotrodbooks.com/

Don, we love what you've done. Thanks.

Dave
http://www.roadsters.com/

 

I love that first coupe picture from (Yo Baby)
Thats just wicked sick.......
.......

 

Thanx Phil.
Now puhleaseee,tell us a story.........

 

I know this is an older thread but...actually, the driver Lyle Webster is still around also. He actually drives senior clients around for medical rides. He is a hoot! Very fun to listen to him and his wife tell stories of their drag racing days. He was also the driver of the "Bad News Coupe" which was a record holder at over 174mph back in the day.
Lyle's wife told me today that Lyle and his son are going down to Bakersfield to see "The Original 15 oz Coupe" on May 1st, 2010. He's very excited to go!

 

It'll be cool to see Lyle there. They've done a lot to the car to get it to hook. Raised the engine, redid the headers, remounted the rear end, remounted the chute, changed the steering a little. Drag Fest is gonna be fun! Still running Demarest's tune up. Got the big mag and pump. Thing's a total gorilla!

 

Isnt real early but when I was doin gg and down in wentsville Dawson,s Demon was a bad mofo real bad and it was a fuel coupe

 

Chili Phil, do you know Lyle? If so, PM me your name and I'll let him know you'll be there. He said he heard they are trying to get it to hook up and made some changes. I guess they want to put it into the Museum down at Pomona.

 

It would be sad to me to see the 15Oz. Coupe in a museum.
That thing is (In my feeble mind) a "Quintissential Hot Rod",custom made to be "Bad".
That is the kind of car I'd like to have the Catbird seat in.
Every time I look at it,I start thinkin' about doin' that to my 32.
Would it be sacrilage to do that to real Henrys 32 today?
It might be a little sidetrack to the intent of this thread but this is one of my other alltime favorites a Comp Coupe from Merry Old England in the 70's.
It just SCREAMS "I'm Bad".

 

I only met Lyle once. At the 'Patch. I doubt he'd remember me. But the Coupe will be at Dragfest. A lot of the old guys will be there. Are you going to be there too? With Lyle? I think it does these guys a lot of good, to see one another. There'll be cool beverages in the Viper's BBQ. See ya there, I hope.

 

Les Hawkins found the '34 already partly built...it was first a powder blue with an injected Chrysler....Lyle Webster initially drove it, but Mike Barlett came along with a wife (Jim Busby's sister Sue) who hooked them into Ma Zard (Busby's mother), who paid for son-in-law's racing...some pictures show "Speed parts by Ma Zard...that's when Mike Barlett was driving...my old altered partner Don Wilson was also involved...these guys were the heart of classic drag racing...Bartlett drove a cement mixer, Les owned a small construction company....sooner or later the money ran out, but fortunately the 15oz coupe survived...