Technical Question for the elders, those who were there.

Going back to the original question----"back in the day" They were referred to as "belly tanks" not tankers and sure as hell not lakesters. On the OTHER HAND you can get into REGINAL definintions. Such as "dizzys", in the Chicago part of the midwest----never heard the term in the "old days", they were allways called distributors. Not to say in Ohio or Massachusetts, they weren't different. Bill Rinaldi

 

Down here in Aus, Oz? Dizzy's, Carby's, Donk's, Diff's, Boot's n Bonnet's, Spats, Ute's have all been around a long time!
Although some of these have changed with the advent of the HAMB & more American Hot Rodding influences.

 

They ran in the "Lakester" class then as now in SCTA events. As such I am pretty sure some people called them "Lakesters".

 

I always called the drop tanks. Or wing tip tanks, if that was what they were.

 

I am not as old as some and most of my memory stems from the grown ups I was around in the late 50s and early '60s in the Bay Area. I remember them being called a Belly Tank with one exception. A guy that had one in the old man's shop called it a Drop Tank. in my little kids mind a Stevedore or Longshoreman must have dropped it.

 

You guys are killing me!
I just call them kool (cool?, let's not start on this one)
And photograph them as much as possible, my first experience was with the Redi-Strip Special of Frank Oddo, you remember him right? And he said Tank.

 

Always knew them as "belly tanks" here on the East Coast (NC).

 

Who decided that " Gow Jobs" should be changed to "Hot Rods" and when ? Actually what does it matter? Its colloquial , and colloquial language changes over time, that is why the dictionary publishers add ( and remove) words every year .
However if one didn't know what someone else meant when they said tanker, you wouldn't have to complain, because one wouldn't know that they had bastardised the word which was so close to ones ever so sensitive heart!

Actually a belly tank is one the names for an auxiliary fuel tank used by aircraft to extend range...sometimes dropped when they are emptied.
Some people picked up a belly tank after WW11 and made a car body for a land speed race car with it....so in fact it was no longer a belly tank.

But as long as I have been around Hot Rodding and Land speed racing the cars made using a belly tank for a body have been called "Belly Tanks"

Urban dictionary defines tanker as a massive shit
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=tanker

 

That would be a bowl winder.

 

I did the headers on Frank Oddo's belly tank and he did indeed refer to it as his 'Tank. I have to admit it took me a second or two to realize what he was talking about was his race car and not some old Cadillac or something.
I still have my Tanker jacket, more than 30 years old and still in fine condition.
It seems we occasionally pick up words from other countries, not sure why. Maybe the user is trying to show how well traveled he is. I tend to use the word I grew up with or was taught in school. The whole thing is a wheel, the rim is a rim. I'm guessing "Pie Crust" was used to help differentiate between smooth-sided later slicks and earlier versions when the old ones came back in style. Back then they were just slicks (mine were Inglewood - now there's a pie crust)
But why in the hell do we call small sales booths - Kiosks? or the line in front of it a Que?

 

On the Voodoos I flew, the tanks were mounted on the belly. On the Tbird, CF104, and CF5, we called them tip tanks. "tip", was just another place to access fuel.
Unfortunately, I never got to go to Bonneville. I have a couple of my old hotrod books from the mid fifties, and the only expression I found in these books, was drop tank.
I never heard using the word dizzie for distributor before becoming a member of the HAMB.
Bob

 

Patina is RUST, and stance is UNKNOWN......

 

When I was younger they were called Belly Tanks!

Of course at that time Jetson type homes were called modern... Not Mid Century Modern or worse yet... MCM...!

 

Lakester is a class for SCTA events. It's a Streamliner with exposed wheels. A belly tank would always be a Lakester but a Lakester doesn't have to be a belly tank.

 

"Colonic anaconda".

 

We started building one in 2021. And we've been appreciated for calling the build a "bellytankracer".
The reader of my post back then said, at least you didn't call it a bellytanker ...
I agree with the terms "belly tank" and "lakester" and presume that the less appreciated word is a mixture of these two...
I also understand and appreciate that older generations need to wind themselves up about the use of lesser terminology by younger generations...
It is a history that will repeat itself, and I think that's a beautiful thing

I for one am glad when I see people younger or older than me use any words to describe a hobby that concernes hot-rodding or any type of mechanical tinkering that produces a means of going faster then last time

 

Maybe someone already said it, but my understanding (from back in the early 60's) was they were actually auxiliary fuel tanks that were mounted on the belly (or wing tips) of WWII aircraft.

They were everywhere after the war, and used for any purpose, and developed into race car stuff

 

I started getting that..."funny-feel'in" in the mid 50's reading Hot Rod and other car mags.
ALWAYS called belly tankers !
6sally6
(still wonder just how-in-the-heck do guys get in 'em...I KNOW HOW...just think they're crazy etc)

 

Kind of like before the fast and the furious bullshit we called it Nitrous, short for Nitrous Oxide. After those movies everyone started calling it NOS. lol NOS stands for Nitrous Oxide Systems the company that developed the use of Nitrous as a high-performance fuel injection system. Just like the term Gasser started out as a nick name for the gas classes in the late 50's. You had the fuel classes for Nito and alcohol and the gasser classes for gasoline power cars and trucks. Definitions get lost over time.

 

Over the years i have heard them called Tankers/Belly Tankers a lot but never liked mine being called it, but as it was used very often in the 40's and 50's etc i have come to appreciate both Tanker and Belly Tank or Belly Tanker. I have some old books on LSR cars and there is a mix of the three i mentioned and i hope that what they were called doesn't get lost in the modernization of terms that is happening now.
Mine is a Tanker, Belly Tanker, Belly Tank or a Drop Tank, although the larger 315 gallon P-38 Tank was actually a Ferry Tank. JW

 

I too have heard and used the term "drop tanks."