History The "Antique Doll" Flathead Dragster

Today was a bitter sweet day.

We finally finished redoing our dragster "The Antique Doll", but 52 years ago on this day Mickey Brown (the first man to go over 150mph on gas) got killed in our car at Lions Drag Strip when it was originally the Scrima-Adams-Smith dragster.

Here is the car in 1959






And here is the car now:



Our car is being featured at the Long Beach Motorama at the Lions diorama, so we thought eh we really should go through the car and clean it up.

So we told ourselves lets paint the chassis and do a valve job on the engine… and THATS IT.

Well you guys know how that goes… one thing after another we went through the entire car, fixing things that bugged us and also giving the car that certain "look.

My dad got the car in 1974 and got it to racing condition. The car went through many changes, and has never really been restored since then, the biggest change was in 2006 when we put a powerglide in the car (we couldn't push start anymore"

So here we go, join us on our journey as we work on the "Antique Doll" flathead dragster.

Lets start it off with some old pics of the car from the mid- 60's to the mid 70's when the car was part of the UFRA (United Flathead Racing Association) is SO-Cal.

 

Lets get started on the build!!

Well the first thing to do was the tear down, which goes pretty quick when its a dragster.







Now that the car is apart, it's time to address some issues with the car. It has been fine up until now but the rear end is only attached at 2 points, a bolt and a weld. Since we are adding a blown flathead in the car next year we decided to run a bead down the entire bracket. Just a little stronger, and gives me peace of mind haha



Next job is paint.

We really didn't car for the original color which was rattlecaned on there, so we decided to go a lot lighter and brighter, we think it really goes with the body a lot better

On a side note we are leaving the body panels original, it was done in the mid 70's and its bitchen metal flake!

 

Look what showed up on our door step while the paint was drying!

The guys at Hurst did a great job!!



MOOOOOON



Since we are on the topic of tires this is what happens when you don't take in consideration tire expansion. Here are battle wounds from the late 70's



Here is good angle of the rear end.



We originally have spoke wheels on the car, but the chrome was getting pretty rough on them, and when I caught my dad spray painting them silver I knew something had to be done. So we decided to have Moon make some custom disc for the front of the car. MAN! Chico at Moon did an AWESOME JOB!

 

Now to the engine!

Lets just do a valve job.... final last words.

We took it to the machine shop and inspected the engine with the machinist.

The bearing were pretty shot...
The cylinder walls were out of round...
And why not get stainless valves?

All of it definitely needed to be done.

Now we really wanted to get the Injectors flow tested... the last time it was done was the late 70's... so a buddy of my dad who he used to race with Bob McKray told us to bring it down and he would go through it, and get it perfect!

We always thought the engine was doing pretty good. The last Antique Nationals we did a 12:14 we have always wanted to get into the 11's. The fastest the car has gone was 12 flat in Tuscan Arizona in the late 60's by Larry Lee.

After ALL this work we HOPE it will get there!

We gave it a bright red paint job like it was in the late 60's







And of course for Nostalgic sake...

 

man that was and still is a sweet looking piece..nice job

 

When we put the Powerglide in we put in this modern shifter in also, it never bothered my dad but it really stuck out like a sore thumb to me. SO my dad spent hours and made this custom shifter arm for it, like the original brake arm the car had.

 

Classy Cool - Thanks

 

And for the GRAND FINALE!!!

We finished all the little do-dads and rolled the car out.

WOW I love it! What do you guys think? Did we get the "look"??

 

Well here is a video of the car starting up. Its just an idle, no high RPM because we are still breaking the engine in but it sounds good

<iframe width="560" height="345" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/gGxmwJlGYMI" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>


We are hoping to be racing at Eagle Field OCT. 8 after the Motorama.

 

Man, I wasn't sure about the front Moon Discs, but they're BITCHIN!

 

That thing is just beautiful, you can be proud of it!

 

Nice job, sounds great and wish I could see her run down the 1/4 mile.........

 

Man, I'm an old flathead guy ('52 F-1) and I am so impressed by the work you've done on the dragster. Keep it goin'!

 

"The look" - You nailed it!

I like how the new chassis and old panel paint came out together.

All the best for safe and fun 11's next month, will be looking forward to the report.

Ed

 

How about some engine specs? Us flathead guys want to know. Great job!!!

 

looks great, you dad too owner ship in 74? thats the same year i was born.. cool stuff.. looks great, and i think it was a good choice to leave the body alone.. the frame and the body mesh well together.. good luck on the strip.
chris.

 

Not only does it look good but it sounds 'bitchin', yeah you got the look!!

I wonder what the people passing buy thought!

Doc.

 

Wow great thread, love it! What are you using for fuel? Are you ever going to get up north? love to see it in person...........How about Eagle Field in Oct?
Along with Roc the Moons are BITCHIN

 

Wow that's cool! Yeah, you got the look nailed down!

Couple questions, how'd the name come around?
Also, would solid discs on the front like that affect the car in a slight crosswind or a steering correction while at speed?

 

Very, very nice.

 

I thought the same thing when we put them on the car... but I really do like them!

Thank You!!! My dad always tells me, that #1 it is a race car, but we should keep it as classy as possible.

I can't wait to take it down the 1/4 mile

FLATHEADS FOREVER! Thank you!!

I was worried when we laid down the paint.. but when we put the panels on it came out perfect. It looks a little better in person also.

Thanks!!

 

I saw the Adams name, and that blown Olds, and figured it must have been Gene Adams. I did a little digging and found your other thread.

Here is the link for anyone interested in this beautiful car's incredible history.
http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?p=5693028

 

Specs:

1949 Mercury Flathead
3/8" X 3/8" Motor 296ci
ClaySmith 283-2
Ported and polished
Mid 60's Hilborn Fuel Injection
Harmon and Collins Magneto

We were planning on doing a little more on the engine but we decided to leave the engine as it is.

We are in the beginning stages of building a 304ci 4 ported blown flathead. Here are some pictures.

We bought the engine from a buddy of ours Dave McCain who has a rear engine blown flathead dragster.



You can see how large the ports are on this engine, he had to weld on more metal!



The engine is also filled with aluminum



We also got a pair of heads that are already modified to work with the 4th exhaust port. Since we don't run water we can eliminate the water jackets.

 

My dad got the car in 1974 when he was 17 years old. He had no idea about drag racing but ended up meeting Wayne Talley (the guy who bought the car after it crashed in 1959) and told him that it was for sale.

He found it in the back yard of Larry Lees who owned and ran the car in the late 60's, and for a pricey sum of $200 my dad owned a dragster!

 

We are running Methanol. And we are REALLY REALLY going to try to make it to Eagle Field!

Larry Lee named the car "The Antique Doll" in 1965ish? so it was considered an "antique" even then!

Funny story, when my dad owned the car, he gave it a brand new paint job and told Larry to check it out. (Larry Lee was a hippy racer) He didn't seem to interested to see the car and was also sad because he thought my dad changed the name. And when he saw the car, and how it was still called the Antique Doll he said,

"The Antique Doll Man... Bitchen!"

Where he came up with the name? Not sure. But the car originally had a raggity anne doll on it, you can see it up on the old pics in the beginning of the thread.

And not sure bout the Moon Disc affecting crosswind... I'll let you know...

 

I'll be honest, I'm not feeling it. Those moon disks aren't pulling off "the look". When I see the moons on the rear, I'm thinking they are covering up a cheap steel wheel. A painted steel wheel would look better with no disk cover, and the offset has the rear tire too close to the body.
The solid aluminum wheel on the front in the old picture looks better than the moon disks.
I'm actually digging the 70's look in the bottom three pictures I quoted, but I'm not seeing moon covers in any pictures. I think they are doing a bad thing to your beautiful FED.

 

that's a cool little car. do I have pics of that at Bakersfield a couple years ago or is it a different blue flathead powered dragster???

 

The car originally had halibrand magnesium wheels front and back, and at this moment in time we can't afford to do that. When we get the magnesium wheels some day we are ditching the moon disc.

Right now the front moon disc are covering the original spokes so we can always change back if we want to.

Also with the new hurst tires we couldn't use our aluminum slot wheels that my dad got in the mid 70's.

The worst thing is my dad threw away the original magnesium wheels because they were ugly and you couldn't keep them polished...

 

That should be our car. My dad ran it there a couple years ago. It's really hard for us to run it there. In the 3 days we got 2 runs in...

 

Oh and I forgot to post this...

This is the chassis research tag that proves it's an original. With so many copies being made today I'm really happy Scotty Fenn added this to our chassis to prove it's a CR. I guess he was having the same problems back then with copies too!