Wood Ya Like To Drag?

Some of the best styles are created when cultures clash. That applies to music, fashion, design and, of course, hot rodding. Today, we’re going to take a look at a machine born at the intersection of two popular post-war pastimes: hot rodding and surfing. I’m going to wager many of you haven’t seen this one before. I know I hadn’t.

Let’s back up a little bit. Ever since I was a kid, I’ve been drawn to Woody wagons. Longroofs in general are interesting, but there’s something undeniably appealing about combining wood with early American iron. They made for some of the fastest Hot Wheels and Johnny Lighting kitchen floor racers, and they weren’t too shabby in 1:25^th-scale styrene either.

The World’s Fastest Woody in its 1969 iteration

Longtime readers will recall my fascination with Jeff Courtie’s “Nitro Woody,” a blown Hemi-powered ’48 Oldsmobile that he campaigned in the Fuel Altered ranks for sport in the late-’60s. There were plenty of reasons to dig that car, from its aggressive stance and massive slicks to its giant parachute pack mounted on the tailgate. I knew the car well, and even wrote about it here in 2013. One thing was for sure: there was nothing out there like it—or so I thought.

The match race in question

Then, last year, I came upon the picture you see above. At first glance, I thought “Oh, that’s a shot of Courtie’s car that I’ve never seen,” saved it and moved on. I recently revisited it and it became immediately obvious that we were dealing with a completely different beast. Rather than an Olds, this one is a ’39 Ford Woody.

So what’s happening here? It appears as if it’s some sort of staged “match race” against Don Kirby’s freshly constructed ’Vette Funny Car. It’s at Irwindale, (note the historic snack bar in the background) and things aren’t going very well for the Ford. Sure, it may be losing, but that’s not important.

Much like Courtie’s creation, the ’39 is like a full-size Roth-studios illustration. It has a nose-up stance, white tube headers, American five-spokes up front and—best of all—full street equipment. What was it doing out on the track with a fuel-buring flopper?

A reverse Google Image search turned up nothing. Then, just for fun, I searched for Don Kirby’s Corvette Funny Car. Bingo. The showdown shot is the un-cropped version of the photo used in the July 1967 feature in Car Craft.

Judging by the title, you can’t help but wonder if the full image was supposed to run but didn’t make the cut? I don’t have a copy of this issue on hand. Instead, I’ll ask you this: do you know the story of this Woody or this race? I’d love to hear.

—Joey Ukrop

Photos from Rod & Custom, November 1969, Jim Kelly & Bob Swaim