Hello, Reading an old Drag News, I came across this photo of a Flathead powered Willys from So Cal. The Drag News was dated: March 8, 1958. The old guys that raced at San Fernando would recognize this racer. Looks like a daily driver car used at the strip for racing. The A/Gas coupe times were similar to the A/Stock car classes during 1958. (the stock car classes having larger/more HP motors) Jnaki
Not only one of the first Willys drag cars,but possibly one of if not the first twin turbocharged willys was the '40 Willys of Pat O'Brien and John Holthaus. Hot Rod Aug. '59
Nice posts everyone, I haven't been able to find anymore history on the 33 that Jnaki posted but did find this picture of the O'Brian and Holthaus car posted above. According to a book that I have it ran as fast as 121 mph in 1959
Here is a very early one that I found in the background of a magazine picture. The caption says May of 1956 at the newly opened San Gabriel Dragstrip It's at the top of the right page
Although she never won an NHRA national event eliminator title, Barbara Hamilton surely belongs on anyone's list. She was the first woman to receive a license to drive a supercharged car in NHRA competition, beginning in 1964 and running through 1971 with a supercharged '37 Willys coupe. She was inducted into the International Drag Racing Hall of Fame in 1992 and earlier this year was named the inaugural winner of the Pat Garlits Memorial Award, presented to female Sportsman racers whose passion for drag racing "embodies the spirit of Pat Garlits," the late wife of "Big Daddy" Don Garlits.
I found a little more information on Paladin Special, this one was from Tulare California and was the first dragracing Willys Coupe that Joe Airoso of the Airoso Brothers ever saw. The book said that the 1935 Willys coupe owned by Bruce Kaiser was powered by a Chrysler and ran over 120 mph in 1959. Here is a picture of it but I am not sure where and when it was taken but this car didn't race too long.
Here are a few screen shots i took from my Minnesota Dragways documentry to get this thread started again. Some think the black one is Elveren Pfeifer from Kenosha Wis.
I ran across another picture of the number 7 Willys Coupe. I still can't make out what the lettering on it says. It would be cool to know who this one belonged to.
Here is part of the entry list for the 1958 Nationals which include a few Willys Cars and Glen Ward is one of them.
Here is some more information on the number 7 Willys thanks to 296ardun. This came from April 13, 1956 Drag News.
My intentions with this thread is to keep the posts limited to cars built in 1962 or earlier without the high gasser stance or cars built with that early look. Thanks for the help
A picture from 1955 Drag News "One of the first competition Willys, Sparks & Bonny, ScoT blown flathead, later went into Tony Nancy's roadster". Thanks 296ardun
OK while surfing the net for photos came across some info on the Ollie Olsen’s A/Gas Willys And SOME of what happened to it but the ending is still a mystery story. So grab a cold one set back and enjoy a history story. The car in question as seen in this and other threads Ollie Olsen’s A/Gas Willys prepares for a run in 1962. Olsen leans in the door, giving last minute advice to driver Bob “Rapid” Dwyer. Car retains stock Willys front end and trim with unique black-copper-black paint scheme. For more than 40 years one of drag racing’s most famous 1940 Willys Gassers has been missing, its whereabouts unknown. The black-over-copper, ’40 Willys once an iconic 60’s A/Gasser built and campaigned by Ollie Olsen has since become a ghost ship. Ollie Olsen owned an auto service and engine building shop in West Palm Beach, Florida. Ollie’s place produced several of the Southeast’s fastest and quickest drag cars, and later, offshore racing boats. Foremost was Ollie’s own “Will-A-Meaner”, ’40 Willys coupe, an A/Gas racer built and maintained by Ollie. The pristine Willys would achieve a cult-like following among Gasser fans beginning in late 1960 and ending sometime in the mid 1970’s, when ET Bracket racing shoved aside class competition. In its last racing form, Ollie’s ’40 Willys ran in B/Altered class, and Competition Eliminator. As a B/Altered the Willys was capable of high eight’s at 150 mph, using a 426 Hemi with Hilborn fuel injection and a high-stall, TorqueFlite. In the 50’s and 60’s drag racers often added a catchy name to their cars. Many became iconic brands, such as Bill Jenkins’ “Grumpy’s Toy”. “Will-A-Meaner” actually followed his previous A/Gasser, a Chevy powered Henry-J he named “Henrietta”, also well known as an A/Gas terror. Ollie sold Henrietta and was soon at work on the new 1940 Willys coupe he planned for A/Gas racing. It too was built around a Chevy 283-based engine. Bored to 4.00”, its 283 block carried a journal-welded, 3.50” stroke crankshaft, for a total of 352 CID. This popular engine displacement required a carefully selected 283 Chevy block, with no casting core-shift, allowing a .125” overbore to bring the standard 283’s 3.875” bore to 4.00”. 283 cranks were made from forged steel, and a crankshaft specialty shop, with careful arc welding and offset grinding, could extend the journal throw distance from 3.00” to 3.50”. Ollie’s new Willys was ready for racing in late 1960, and it housed the 352 CID Chevy out of Henrietta. Olsen’s choice of induction systems was the proven Hilborn mechanical, port-injection offered by Indy racing’s famous fuel systems guru, Stuart Hilborn. This was fed by a high-speed Hilborn pump and injector nozzles and topped with bell-mouthed 6” injector velocity stacks. A Vertex magneto ignition fired the Autolite spark plugs. Ollie Olsen’s A/G Willys at speed. Note very clean profile, narrowed rear axle kept rear slicks tucked in and out of the wind. Olsen and driver Bob Dwyer won A/G class at the ’61 NHRA Nationals. Ollie was a friend and customer of Harvey Crane. Harvey provided Ollie with a roller camshaft and complete valve train, and a set of fully ported heads. The headers were homebuilt items with a large collector. A modified Borg-Warner T-10 four-speed manual transmission kept engine speed in the desired torque band. The close-ratio T-10, carried a 2.20:1 first gear. Ollie was largely self-taught, but his intuitive curiosity and strong knowledge of engine dynamics and physics left him with a keen sense of what was required to create maximum power from a small-block Chevy. Ollie’s latest Chevy for the Willys was engineered and assembled to showcase all that knowledge. The car itself was another example of just how talented and advanced Olsen was. Ollie’s Henry-J served as a test bed for all the things he wanted to experiment with. The Willys incorporated all those improvements and a bagful of other tricks. In the early 60’s drag tire technology was largely an untapped resource. Many drag racers still relied on recapped slicks. Ollie’s Willys would have a rear suspension engineered to be adjustable for widely variable track surfaces. The rear suspension used adjustable links to preload the rear tires. Ollie was aero-conscious at a time when terms such as “frontal area”, “drag coefficient” and “downforce” were unknown to most drag racers. Early 60’s Gassers were struggling with rear-wheel traction issues. That led to the “High & Mighty” stance, with the front end and often the entire car raised, to increase weight transfer but creating a very unstable race car, especially at 100+ mph. Olsen’s Willys was low, but especially in the front-end. He wanted it aerodynamically clean, with minimum drag and top-end stability for targeted 130+ mph speeds. The Chevy rear axle housing was narrowed, tucking the rear slicks inside the rear fenders, cleanly out of the wind. Ollie Olsen (left) and driver Bob Dwyer share trophy for Little Eliminator after 1963 win at Florida State Championships. The duo won many Southeast events and A/G class at 1961 Nationals. The hood scoop allowed sufficient incoming air with minimum drag. It was skillfully blended into the Willys hood, matching the factory sheetmetal and complimenting the factory steel front cap. For the front Olsen used chromed steel factory wheels. Out back he chose American magnesium five-spoke wheels mounting the latest compound M&H Racemaster tires. The interior was sparse. A steel tube roll bar offered safety along with a pair of lightweight bucket seats and sheet aluminum interior. A Sun tachometer and Stewart-Warner gauges, water temp, and oil pressure were necessary. In keeping with class rules, the stock Willys headlights and taillights were retained, and operative. A single, minimally small windshield wiper remained on the driver’s side, in keeping with the absurdity of “street-legal equipment” Gas class rules. Hand formed aluminum front-end allowed more weight on rear wheels. Twin scoops fed Hilborn injected, 352 CID small-block Chevy. This is Valkaria Dragway, near Melbourne, Florida. Ollie’s new Willys was not lacking in aesthetics. The car was finished in a unique, two-tone paint scheme, black over copper over black lacquer, a classic touch usually seen on Auburn and Duesenberg 1930’s autos. The car was an exercise in understatement, a show-quality sleeper. The new car’s first race outing would be at the airfield turned drag strip known as Amelia Earhart Field, on Lejune Road, in Hialeah. This was the 1920’s site of the first commercial airport in Miami, preceding MIA. Amelia Earhart Field’s use as a drag strip was the work of Ernie Schorb, 2005 East Coast Drag Times Hall of Fame member and the South Florida Timing Association. After an easy check-out run Ollie returned and began the car’s first full pass. At half-track the car got loose, then swerved and rolled over. Olsen was shaken but unharmed. The fresh, new Will-A-Meaner was scuffed, bruised and dented, but its sturdy construction saved it from terminal damage. It was repairable, and would be refurbished and returned in a few weeks. A short time later he designated Bob “Rapid” Dwyer as his driver and over the next several years the Olsen-Dwyer team racked up an impressive record in A/Gas and Little Eliminator racing. After a successful 1961 NHRA Division II season Olsen filed his entry for the 1961 NHRA Nationals, at the brand new Indianapolis Raceway Park, just west of the Indy 500 track. Ollie’s Willys turned heads by capturing the Nationals A/Gas class trophy over Kuhl & Heine’s ’37 Willys coupe, from Berkeley, MO. The winning run was clocked at 11.68 seconds, 116.27 mph in a shut-off. Not surprisingly, Will-A-Meaner was the fastest and quickest A/Gasser in the field. Ollie’s ’60 Chevy El-Camino was push car, painted like the Willys, in black-copper-black lacquer. After custom built aluminum front-end was installed it was painted and 60’s popular racing stripes added. By the mid 1960’s the winds of change were blowing hard. Small-block Chevy power had been challenged by the mega-powerful new ’64 Chrysler 426 Race Hemi. The tide was rising and the only way to combat the Hemi was to get one. Ollie’s 426 Hemi complimented its 10% engine set-back, helpful with the increased weight of the Hemi. A fiberglass front-end replaced the stock steel and a TorqueFlite automatic transmission replaced the trusty T-10 four-speed. Although cloaked in a 1940 Willys body, Olsen’s car was more like a contemporary A/Factory Experimental. The FX technology was wisely applied and the Willys was again the terror of A/Gas. By “Hemi Time”, driver Bob Dwyer had moved on, and “Nick the Greek” Zapetis took over. Still running in A/Gas, the now 426 Hemi powered Will-A-Meaner leaves hard at Miami Dragway, 1966. A/FX style injection velcoity stacks protrude from hood area. Ever resourceful, Ollie updated the Willys to keep pace. The Chevy rear axle was replaced by a much stronger Franklin quick-change. A sleek, hand crafted, aluminum one-piece front end incorporated a pair of hood scoops mounted on the Willys-shaped hood side panels. The stylish one-piece front-end frequently ran afoul of NHRA’s tech inspectors, so Ollie decided to jump to B/Altered and run in Comp Eliminator. Except for the disputed front-end the car remained a legal A/Gasser. The rumor that Olsen also concealed a small nitrous-oxide system in the swoopy hood has persisted to this day. The reality is that his clever engine building and tuning plus personal pride and ego would never allow it. As a B/Altered, Ollie’s Willys often ended up running in a combined Comp Eliminator/Street Eliminator when there weren’t enough cars to stage both separately. It was capable of running several tenths under the NHRA B/A National Record, which was used for handicapping elimination rounds. By the early 1970’s most South Florida tracks had abandoned class racing for ET Brackets. Class racers could either convert to bracket racing, or go home. Olsen chose the latter, and the Willys was parked. Ollie gained a new following among offshore boat racers and his engines powered many race winners in Florida and the Caribbean. Ollie Olsen passed away several years later. Nearly four decades have passed, leaving the fate of the Will-A-Meaner obscured by the years. The car has never resurfaced, although a “near-miss” occurred in the early 1980’s. A pair of brothers visiting the Palm Beach area from Iowa, brought with them their ’40 Willys coupe. They planned to go racing while they worked construction in the booming building industry. They turned up at a Super Chevy Sunday event in the early 80’s, running ET Brackets at Palm Beach International Raceway, by then renamed Moroso Motorsports Park. Ironically, their car was painted in almost the identically unique copper and black scheme as Olsen’s Willys. A fiberglass front cap and big-block Chevy were there instead of the aluminum front-end and Hemi. After questioning, it was discovered their car had been built by them, entirely in Iowa. The paint colors and design came after a suggestion of an Iowa local. Had he at one time seen Ollie’s Willys and remembered its unique design? That was never determined. The brothers later returned to Iowa, taking their “Ollie-Clone” Willys. To this day Ollie Olsen’s 1940 Willys remains mysteriously missing. All trails and leads to the famous car have been a dead-end. Does the Will-A-Meaner remain in South Florida, quietly lurking as the ultimate “garage find”? Classic Gasser match-up between Ron Hassel’s B/G Chevy powered Anglia (left) and Nick Zapetis, in Ollie Olsen’s 426 Hemi Willys A/Gasser. Both Hassel and Olsen were former class winners at the NHRA Nationals. Hassel 1964 and 1966, Olsen in 1961.
40 Willys primered black Moon Discs who is it in front of the Grist Bros? Hello, Here is another mystery Willys from 1960. This action does not happen often, but who is in front of the A/Gas Grist Bros Willys at Lions? It is a rare sight to see someone getting that much of a jump at the start in the A/Gas ranks, especially against the A/Gas record holder in the West. The norm is that the Grist Bros. would be the ones doing the hole-shot. It looks like a HOWARD CAM sticker on the rear panel of this mystery Willys. But the name of the driver and owner is still a question mark. Jnaki
If you scroll all of the way to the bottom of the draglist there are some Early Willys cars listed with owners name and speed. Unfortunately there aren't any pictures http://www.draglist.com/lists/GAS-ET.TXT
An original Ohio GAsser legend was Cleveland’s Ron Hassel. Ron gained fame first with his ’56 Chevy sedan, then in the Hassel & Vogelsong ’40 Willys B and C/Gasser. Here Hassel leaves the line during B/Gas class runs at The Nationals, 1963.
Jnaki, I can't solve the mystery but the pages from the entry list that I posted might provide a clue. It's about the same time frame and there are some Willys entry's from California. If your hunch is right about him getting out on the Grist Brothers because the car was a strong runner then he might have gone to the Nationals.
Joplin, Missouri’s Harley Estes was a traditional Gasser racer for many years. Harley’s 394 Oldsmobile V-8 powered ’40 Willys had the classic Gasser up-front stance and factory steel wheels all around. Olds engines were favored by many early Gasser racers, including the famed Stone-Woods-Cook team and Gene Adams, both from California. Here Joplin, Missouri’s Harley Estes blasts off running A/Gas. The popular “Willy Charger”, Austin, Texas based, four-door Willys was anything but a family sedan! A 426 Max Wedge “B” V-8 provided plenty of power for A/Gas combat across the Southwest. Painted steel wheels and homebuilt suspension are evident along with M&H “pie crust” slicks.
Hey BCB, (bringing up an old thread question) It is my information that Bones Balogh had this motor in the Willys. This motor looks exactly like the one we built for our 40 Willys to use in C/Gas. (ours...292 SBC, etc.) But, looking at the date on the photo, it is not our motor. (Oct 60) By then, our motor was out of the car and in our backyard garage under covers. Our wrecked Willys was in a scrap yard in Wilmington, near Lions. We built ours from April to July 1960 and ran it July to August 13. We did not know anyone else that had a 671 on a SBC. At Lions, we were the only ones with it in the Gasser ranks. We could not afford the two hole Hilborn injectors, although in August, they were on order. Bones Balogh had this motor in his own Gasser sedan and set records in the gas classes. If you look closely, the lettering says "glorified" flathead. As a play on words, maybe he had this motor with Hilborns, in it. At this time, 1962, in the gas class, 671 with Hilborns were just not on flatheads, let alone with a C&O Hydro. In 1960-61. We had a C&O Hydro installed in our 58 Impala. It was one of the first ones from them. Back then, you had to have a used hydramatic transmission to trade in upon purchase of a new one. They were as good as B&M, but much less expensive. Jnaki
It was cool seeing the article on Ollie Olsen's Willys. Having seen it run many times at Miami- Hollywood both with the front end on and off.
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