Lewis Brothers, Oregon (RIP Bill)- Two Flat Coupe - now owned by Don Smith of Mansfield, TX. What a bitchin' piece this is!
Marty, I would love to have some good info on the evolution of gas and fuel coups from cars to slingshots. I was really young and I liked them but have lost track of the time line. Maybe that is something that you or someone else remembers?
This car won the World Series of Drag Racing at Cordova, Ill. (1960 I believe). It was also the Drag News 1320 Record Holder. The driver Pork Zartman, went on to further fame and fortune as driver of Charlie Hill's Filthy Forty Willys C/Gasser.
Beano, The switch to Dragster chassis, for both Comp Coupes and Modified Roadsters around 1960, in some circumstances, was the ability to run 2 different classes, the other being Dragster. The J.L Skeans A/MR from the Slo-Poks of Vancouver,Wa was an example of that. The shots are from 1960 at Medford, Or, first pic is Skeans, and the second is the Simca of Bill Lewis ( the same one mentioned earlier by Fraze). This one ran Olds power.
Marty thanks, it sounds like the time frame I remember but being a little kid at the time sometimes time lines get blurred.
Your input is exactly what I wanted to hear. I really think I would be making a huge mistake! I have decided to build it as a 50's traditional hot rod! Any idea where some Divco milk truck or solid Halibrands might be hiding? Shawn.
Bill Coburn...started out with a chopped '34 coupe then went to this steel Fiat with a TE-440 chassis, ran some kind of a torque converter...this car was LOUD!
So does anybody know more about this car? I'm loving the '26-'27 T push car! Posted using the Full Custom H.A.M.B. App!
Very interesting factual information from everyone --- I have been eating it up! So, from what Marty remembers, the traditional looking 32-34 Ford Fuel Coupes, Competition Coupes and Fuel Altereds would have become obsolete for truly competitive drag racing by the LATE 1950s, since they went to dragster chassis "about 1960." I have wondered about the time frame in which my vintage 3 window race coupe was competing. The story I got from the California seller back in the 1980s was that it had been a dry lakes coupe, and I'm certain that it was. But I'm thinking it was also into dragging as either a 'Fuel Coupe' or a 'Competion Coupe' for some period of it's racing life. It's got its Bonneville chop back in the day and was lightened as much as feasibly possible, running without fenders, and having a plexiglass windshield etc. It looks very much like the John Sauer Coupe, pictured above, but with a more radical chop. All this information has been GREAT! Thanks!
So, I found more details and a surprise on this one......it was a San Diego car, the Pironello and Bowman Competition Coupe / Modified Roadster. The purple push car is Joe Pironello's '23 Dodge bucket, after it was featured in The Lively Set! Posted using the Full Custom H.A.M.B. App!
Not sure why the picture decided not to attach, let's try this again. There it is! Posted using the Full Custom H.A.M.B. App!
And a little more detail from the Petersen Photo Archive "June 1965. Hot Rod Magazine Championship Drags. There's a lot going on here. That's Joe Pironello's Little Miss Carriage Modified Roadster drag car with his '23 Dodge T-Bucket Roadster as a push vehicle. Joe's Bucket had a feature role in the 1964 movie "The Lively Set" starring James Darren and Doug McClure. His Pironello & Bowman Modified Roadster was a force to be reckoned with at the track. The roadster body could be swapped for a fiberglass Fiat Topolino body to run in Comp Coupe. Both drag and push-car are Chevy-powered and were on display at Petersen Publishing Company's "The Wonderful World of Wheels" exhibit at the International Auto Show in New York in 1966. Oh, and yes, that's the Shores & Hess Anglia gasser on the trailer in the background being towed by a black T-Bird. Cool stuff all around. Photo was shot for Hot Rod magazine by Eric Rickman." Posted using the Full Custom H.A.M.B. App!
I remember this car as a coupe really well, saw it at an early Smoker's Bakersfield meet, maybe '61 or '62, ran as "the Little Blue Coupe," later saw a picture of it, owner/driver identified as Dominick Cardoza...he was from San Diego...wonder if this was the same car?
It's possible, I haven't found any mention of Joe racing that early. I've also been kind of wondering if that's what he did with his movie money, since he's stated they were there for two months. Probably not enough money to buy a dragster, but maybe enough to paint everything to match? Posted using the Full Custom H.A.M.B. App!
"Dirty" Eddie Potter's Sudden Death coupe nearly was when he went off the end of the LIONS strip and wadded it up good.
They were still racing a more "traditional" gas coupe well into the '60s they raced in Gas Coupe/sedan class a street legal class. I think that truth be known most of them in dragster chassis were fuel coupes.
Bob Carroll's "Fiat Bug" (from Marietta PA) in the early 60's. When running without the body he called it the Fiat Bug Skeleton. This car was one of my favorites back in the day and decades later, a guy named Bob Carroll worked for me and for a long time I never connected the dots. Yup, turned out he was the son and he provided me with some history and video of his dad's racing days. The Fiat body was previously run as a short wheelbase fuel coupe with a flathead and carbs. Before that the flathead was in a 32 coupe. The driver was a guy with the real last name of Zipp, a perfect last name for a race car driver! Before York US 30 existed, they raced at the Lancaster Drags on old route 30 between Lancaster and Mountville PA. This strip was only used a few years before being forced to close because the noise made the chinchilla's at a nearby chinchilla farm nervous and they'd chew their skin, which then made there hides worthless. Or maybe that was just BS that was used to get rid of those damned racers! Didn't matter much, that strip was too short for any real speed anyway and there was a public road at the end.