Yeah... you are today's winner of the internet Mr Ukrop. That is a glorious rabbit hole! If you dig deep enough, you'll get to the "Imported African Leopard Paw" advertisement. Marketing genius!
@J.Ukrop - Great post! I really miss @skywolf's "The Magnetic Brain" Blog ... he and I used to "share" images from our archives. In fact, this photo of the @Bob McCaffrey Deuce 3wd Drag Coupe: ... was taken in 1959 (at the 1st Annual Fuel & Gas Championships in Bakersfield) by a long-time family friend ... the late Gary "Goodguy" Meadors. I have the original Kodachrome 35mm slide of this image (& other Meadors' photos) in my archive. UPDATE: Here's a low-rez scan of the original slide:
Hello, The Magnetic Madness is very interesting. But, like all conglomerations of old copied photos, there is little to describe the photos. The builds are part of history and should have information for the rest of the people who like, who is who and what is what. The mixture of displays is nice to see the different photos that have not been shown elsewhere for the most part. This time period was pretty nice and we were very lucky to have been a part of it on the Westcoast. It helped that we lived about a mile from Lions Dragstrip and were a couple of hot rod, crazy heads. It was too bad that for anyone with skills and money, the builds keep on getting better. But to use what you have with what little you have is quite some task. It was totally fun doing all that we did as teenagers in So Cal. For all of the 1940 Willys Gas Coupe Class experts, this photo of Atts Ono and his rebuilt Willys Coupe was taken during the 1965-67 era. But, it does not mean that his immaculate Willys was one of those “fake, up in the air” set ups. His Willys was powerful enough to raise the front end upon the accelerations from the starting line at Lions. The normal stance for this Willys was level, not up in the air. Just in case someone sees this photograph and says one of the top gas coupes on the West Coast in the 60s was raised in front for a build. Not so. The power makes it rise up as it takes off down the dragstrip. Atts Ono 1940 Willys Coupe B/Gas Jnaki Yes, around the 67-70 era, there were a lot of newbies that had the nose in the air stance. (on the street and dragstrip… but look at the most consistent teams and builds. SWC, K.S. Pittman, Jr. Thompson, Doug Cook, etc. had the top results, but their builds stayed in the normal stance. A little ingenuity and mechanical engineering helps in the right build with the right stuff. This early 1960-64 era was one for the times with most racers looking for the next advantage in their builds. We took it all in and did our best with what we had.
Thanks for the kind words Joey. I'm still around but teenagers and work demand the majority of my time these days and I'm happy that The Magnetic Brain is still remembered fondly.
The Jalopy Journal
