Hello, In 1964, at Lions Dragstrip, one of the most popular street legal classes held an all comers meet for coupes, sedans and trucks. This was one of the first in the time period. The popularity of the Gas Coupes and Sedans has always been good for the general public. It represented any normal hot rod with street legal items to run at the dragstrip with as much gusto as possible. It was a true “run what you own…” scenario. But, as the class grew by leaps and bounds, the top racers battling each other for sponsor money, the builds kept advancing and the popularity was close to the top if not at the top of all drag racing. Fans associated with these so called “street legal” race cars. The promoters let the top gas coupe racers from all over enter in this special meet. The pits looked like a dictionary of the top racers in So Cal and elsewhere. Of course, a few big names were missing, but as the crowds will attest, it was some drag racing event that held everyone in awe. The sad thing is/was, it may have been the last hurrah, as within the next few years, this very popular class disappeared and the racers sent to meld into other categories. Jnaki Since my brother and I had a C&O Stick Hydro installed in our 1958 Impala tow car, we were partial to the small local racers that had the C&O emblem or sticker on the sides of the race car. One of them was the red 1941 pickup of Gene Ciambella from Inglewood in So Cal. But, if our next build had proceeded as normal, we probably liked the Willys truck, but could not fit comfortably inside without some major modifications. The Willys Coupe was tight fitting with all of the modifications, 10% set back, new trans cover and hump floor, a Moon Tank and Pump, two bucket seats, etc. Luckily, my brother and I were pretty much the same size until I started growing in the 10-11th grade to almost 6 feet in high school. My brother was 5’7” but did say the Willys coupe felt a little cramped. So, the truck cab would be a little tight for us, modifications and all. C&O stood for Ciambella and O'Brien. Steve Montrelli doing a lot of the work, too. The Willys Pick Up at the 1964 All Gas Coupe/Sedan Meet...Lions Dragstrip 1964 LIONS Willys TRUCK
@elgringo71 This popped up on the H.A.M.B this morning. you can see the Sparks & Bonney car at 0.49 in the video.
Jnaki, I definitely enjoyed the video and hearing details from someone that was there. That was a famous Pickup and I never knew what the C&O stood for. You are right, the 37-42 pickups are quite a bit smaller inside than a Coupe and especially with an engine setback. I don’t know if you have ever sat in a 33-36 Willys but they are even narrower.
https://ahrf.com/tom-sparks/ Here is a link to the American Hot Rod Foundation write up on Tommy Sparks and if you go to the bottom of the page there are several interviews that they did with him when he was still with us. He talks about his Willys Coupe and his life and I found it very interesting Here is a picture and write up that they have of him and his Coupe. It’s definitely worth a look
1955 So Cal Hello, One of the earliest Willys Gas Coupes on the Westcoast was one owned by Chuck Bennett. The times and speeds were consistent with those early days of street legal Gas Coupes/Sedans. Hence the name: Gas Classes, Street C/S (Coupes/Sedans). Jnaki Jan 1955 Note: The early 1955 class winner in a different class than we all are accustomed to seeing is for D/Gas. An Oldsmobile powered street Gas Coupe/ Sedan is none other than Dick Harriman. “The cool part was about the time Dick Harriman was "IT," when it came to running at San Fernando. (Harriman ran a ’50 Olds Gasser at San Fernando Drag Strip. Harriman was the guy who named San Fernando “the Pond” by saying, “Rather than run other big dragstrips he’d prefer to be a big fish in a small pond,” and Pond stuck.) “He ran a B&M Hydro in his ’50 Gasser Olds. We’d sit on the dirt mound and watch him race. Harriman never had a front bumper on his Olds, for the weight I guess.”
Fantastic post, that’s one of the earliest ones that I have ever seen and it’s well documented to top it off. Thanks for your efforts, it’s gotten hard to find new ones for the thread. It was also very fast for its time.
OH WOW! I have looked at this photo many times and loved it and just now realized those are 3 window rear wheels. Can someone please identify them for me?
Hello, Luckily, the Phil Parker Red, 1940 Willys Coupe was featured in the popular video of the Dragmaster Group during the U.S. Nationals back in 1959. Filmed by the NHRA. They were associated with the So Cal group and were included in the 59 Nationals film. Thanks @elgringo71 The U.S. Nationals were held in September. By December, 1959, they made the trek to So Cal to enter in the Riverside Raceway East vs West drag meet. It was a short film clip, but for quite some time, it was hard to decide which Willys it was in the pits filming sequence. Jnaki 1959 Riverside Raceway Phil Parker Team The Phil Parker Crew at the start of the “pits” film clip
@jnaki, I believe the video is called Ingenuity in Action. I have read that at one point the roof was damaged in a towing accident and they put a new roof on it. The coupe has been bought back by Phil Parker and recently has been returned back to how it used to be.
Hey EG71, It looks like him in that old Willys team photo. (although, the tall guy does not look like Bones Balogh) But, here is a question about the Safeway Sandblasting Willys. The red car raced in a later year of competition. I took some films of Doug Cook and his 37 Chevy racing a White Willys Coupe that should have had Safeway Sandblasting printed on the side in 1959-60 years. Doug Cook vs White Willys in C/Gas at :41 sec So, if your Willys files can be accessed, did you ever see a door panel that said Safeway Sandblasting on a White Willys coupe? Jnaki Back then, we knew the Gas Coupe names, owners, motor power, transmissions, and drivers. We had some association with several teams. But, we never had the need to write anything down. Teenage actions thinking we will live forever with those keen young minds. Ha! It was not until I had the old color films digitized and found a very short list created when those films were transferred to VHS, during the heydays of tape. The blurry lines were/are perfect for Safeway on the first line, Sandblasting on the 2nd and the following lines would have the city in two words and the last line would he the phone number like He 60457. "He" was the shortened public version of Hemlock. The whole Los Angeles County phone numbers had prefixes starting with the first two letters of a word. A digital editor goes frame by frame, but those old C/Gas Coupes were fast and whizzed by quickly. Also, my movie camera was a point and shoot version, not a $$$$ Beaulieu Movie Camera with a telephoto lens. So, if you or any of the Willys historians/photo keepers have any mention or photo proof to show the name on the door, please post it or PM me a copy. A massive library awaits your contribution... Thanks.
@jnaki, I didn’t have any luck finding any pictures of that Coupe. I think that the best chance is looking in Drag News. Maybe it won a meet or raced in the finals and is mentioned in there. If we had the name of the owner or driver that might lead to finding a photograph. There couldn’t have been that many Willys Coupes racing in that area that early on. One more clue that would eliminate some possible matches is that it must have raced in the same class as Doug Cook.
View attachment 5375648 That picture looks similar to what I am building. I'm considering installing my boring Olds engine in mine View attachment 5375643 .
@drumyn29, I think that you meant to say bored Olds engine. That would be a cool early engine in that Coupe.