Technical Cars built with creative engineering

I'm not talking about the kind of creative engineering guys like Smokey Yunick and Holman and Moody used to skirt the NASCAR rule book I'm talking about cars that were built for drag racing or Bonneville useing World War two surplus aircraft engines and such that didn't necessarily work well or even look safe but were built back when guys built and tried stuff to see if it worked. I think i did a thread like this before but it didn't really go anywhere.

 

EJ Potter

 

I've been very intrigued by the old-timers trying some interesting things....such as Parry Thomas at Brooklands in 1926....trying to set a world speed record with a chain sprocket to the rear wheels

 

Chain drive was pretty much the standard approach for race cars at Brooklands.

 

cool stuff so far

 

And cars built with photoshop....

 

Some of the multi engine cars are pegging my bullshit-o-meter.

 

These ones, I only realized after posting they yanked my chain as well.

 

That Alsetta is like a comp coupe in reverse, driver out in the breeze & body draped over the engine.

 

^I'll take two, thank you.

 

As far as military surplus you can't leave out the belly tanks.

 

New story, but I think it's pretty ingenious. This family owns a junkyard in CO, they installed a radial engine from an old Cessna and fabbed drivetrain for their '39 Plymouth truck. It's on the road. No reality TV BS here, real deal. Story is in the latest issue of one of the rags, forgot which one.

 

Nice thread...Can't remember how many times I missed the call to the build up area to run my Ford, busy crawling under some 'multi-mill' conglomeration of Hot Rod engineering in the flesh!
Nothing like seeing it live...
The 'Bustle Bomb' (Cad & Olds combo, Olds in front engine dragster, with Cad added on in back, for traction & added torque) seemed to confuse onlookers, rather than impress. It impressed me at the time...
Standing there looking, I got a quick 'education' about the masses attending these events. Listen:

Questions among the observing 'experts': "Won't the two different make engines fight each other?"
Some actually said that. ...And, "If they spent that much money, why didn't they just buy another Olds engine?"
My observation then: 'Hell, now they just let anybody in!'

 

Most of those fantastic race cars were a direct result of NHRA's nitro ban in the late 50s, early 60s. Guys made up for the lack of fuel with more cubic inches.

On a much tamer front but with some drag racing heritage, here are a couple pictures of a couple tricks we did with a '42 Willys pickup. We wanted a one piece tilt 'glass front end but didn't want the typical notches in the fender tails that are usually required to clear the door hinges. Our solution was to have the hood slide forward about 6" before tilting. We built sides for the front from square tubing and plow steel arms on roller bearings that have the tit hinges on their front tips. At the rear we installed another couple roller bearings on a little stand that drop into a track welded into the stock cowl that guide the hood forward and backward when deploying.

We also needed under-dash A/C for the 110F Bakersfield summers but also waned a full set of gauges, all the while keeping a sort-of stock dash look. We solved that problem with the pop-out gauge cluster welded to the stock Willys dash center panel in the bottom tow photos.

 

6.34 @ 215MPH TURBONIQUE POWERED


STEAM POWERED!!!

 

A close up of above earlier post

 

Seems to have worked quite well on a zillion motorcycles over the last 100++ years too.

 

Hot Rod , Cover car ( Truck )