Wow. Best unrestored Gasser award! That's quite an honor considering all the competition. Darrell must have been giddy.
Yes. I remember "200" mph Art and his Charger. With a blown and alcohol injected 392 hemi straight out of one of Bill Phillip's dragsters Art had fun piloting this beast on the streets. Only problem was keeping fuel in the tank.
That would be Langley A&W right! Nope just noticed the posts are different. Hope you enjoy the pictures anyway.
Close but no cigar Pensive Scribe. That was the Burnaby A&W which was Art's regular haunt. Like the shots from the old Langley Dub though.
the Austin was the Fat Boys car,later Don Wilson's Low to No Buck.It is in the USA somewhere now.The King and Johnstone Vega became the first Say No To Drugs car.It was sold and went to Ontario.It was sold again and went to the USA.
That is the Langley A&W, those cars were weekend regulars. I spent a lot of time there back in the day.
Awesome photo. Pensive mentioned someone had posted a photo of him, I had to check it out! Great stuff! Really cool that he is actually in the photo as well, not just the car! Man, you just made my day!
I was one of the regulars at the A&W on Kingsway (near Gilley) in the late 70s-early 80s. I was in the Greater Vancouver Street Machines car club in those days, and a bunch of us members hung out at "the Dub." In addition to his silver blown 392 Charger, Art Johnson had a few other cool MoPars, an orange 70 Hemi Cuda, and a yellow metalflaked 70 440 6 pack 4 speed Road Runner. I haven`t seen Art in like 25 years, don`t know if he still has any (or all) of those cars.
I knew I'd seen some more recent info on fatboys folly somewhere, a google search brought this up. Looks like it may currently belong to a HAMBER?? http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=622628&page=2 Check post #93, pg 5
Anybody have any pics/info on that black Austin A40 with the blue flames and tunnel ram 340 mopar that was around the local show/street scene, circa '70/'75ish? Cragars, lotsa chrome and polished aluminum? I have one night-time shot of it engaging in a "unsanctioned acceleration contest", but its on my ancient shop computer, no way to post it on the internet.
I sure do, the black Austin with blue flames belonged to Dan MacKinnon, who lived 2 blocks from my chilhood home in North Delta.So I spent a fair bit of time hanging out in his garage.He occasionly ran the Austin at Mission, but it got wrecked in the early-mid 80s when Dan flipped the car on Hwy 99, near the #10 highway exit. Dan also had a really nice black 66 or 67 Olds 442 with a 4 speed, and is still around. He has a black 37 Chev coupe, and normally races it at the Mission Loafers Oldies races. There was quite a few car guys in that area of North Delta in the 70s, drag racer Kerry Rawlick, Mike Boyer, car show regulars like street rodder Dan Schweers, and Bob Clough (black and flamed 57 Corvettewith a chromed straight axle and 6.71 blown SB Chev, Larry Ast had a SB Chev powered Datsun PU with a Halibrand quic change rearend. A couple of my school chums also had some neat stuff, Dave Laird had a green 68 Datsun PU with a tunnel rammed 327 and 4 speed, Al Stoltz had a 396 4 speed 66 Chevy 11.
Thanks Rory, I remember the two datsuns and the Corvette you mentioned as well. In the late eighties/early nineties, I worked at a saw-mill down off River Road in Maple Ridge, there was a small machine shop across the the street, there was always a real nice black on red 4 speed '66/'67 442 parked there, wonder if it was the same car? Do you know anything about a orange, solid front axle '56/'57 Corvette with white coves in the Newton area in the early eighties?
I got my ass handed to me one night on King George Highway by that guy. I had a 56 Chev 2 door post with a 327 at the time.
I never actually saw the car run, he used to regularly stop in for lunch in the same greasy spoon I did, it sounded pretty healthy, and definately had a 4 series rear gear. Very cool car, often wonder where it is, or if its still recognizable. <!-- / message --><!-- sig -->
Dragin' Don Murray Door Slammer was a 56/7 Vette.When he bought it.It was a straight axle car.Corvette Specialties had in their lot as a roller.Maybe that was it
I`m pretty sure the Don Murray Corvette was black when he bought the car. I understand the previous owner was Fred Turner of Bachman Turner Overdrive fame. I do recall an orange and white 56 or 57 Corvette that used to race at Ashcroft in the tracks first few years of running, in the late 80s, but I don`t remember that car having a straight axle front end. The owner/driver had white hair, and later restored the car back to stock condition. As for MacKinnons 442, I seem to recall it had a black interior. I ran into MacKinnon at the NAPA car show on 200th in Langley a year or 2 ago, and I asked him about the Olds, and he said I was standing right next to it! It has been painted back to its origional silver color, with chrome Magnum 500s, and looked great.
Rory is correct on Don Murray's car. I want to say the guy with the orange car was Paul, I don't know his last name. Dan lives about 15 minutes from me, saw some Austin pics on his shop wall.
About the same time you mentioned the Austin was wrecked, a similar car showed up at Butch Benn's shop on West Saanich Rd in Victoria. We looked at it and felt it could be repaired. We heard that Lorne McNutt bought it. Any Victoria guys know what Lorne did with it?
Thanks Rory. The 442 I saw was probably a different car, black on red with chrome magnums. VERY clean car.
Very likely the same car, as I heard that after the wreck, the car ended up on Vancouver Island shortly afterwards.
Here's a pic from 75. My quarter midget in the pits with the Frizzel Bros. car. I actually made a pass down the track that day.
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