I'm looking for any pictures or information relating to 1964-1965 Mercury Comets brought into Honolulu by Jimmy Pflueger back in the "60's".Pflueger owned Hawaii Raceway Park and Pflueger Lincoln/Mercury.He was heavily involved in Drag Comets and Safari Comets.Any info or leads would be appreciated....Mahalo.
The discovery of both of these A/FX Comets is discussed in the book "The Hemi In The Barn". Don't know if you know this or not. The '65 car was found in a junk yard and after the purchase and alittle more snooping around the islands, the '64 was discovered being raced with a Big Block Chevy. It's a great chapter in the book. Good luck and if you have any luck finding old photos, please post 'em.
I have somewhere in one of my albums of Earl "Safari" Char's A/FX Comet. I'll try and look for it and post it if I can find it. I was racing there in E/G & D/MP at the time - '65. I remember Pflueger's white '64 (?) Comet with the Weber setup. Jimmy's mom owned the property on which my parents leased for a chicken farm in Niu Valley. Vic
Check out the shoes! These guys were rockin' back in the day. I wonder what the wag was good for in the 1/4.
I sent this link to a longtime friend of mine. Here was his reply: Jeremy, The '64 Comet wagon was campaigned by Dyno Don Nicholson all over the mainland. If my memory is intact, Jimmy Pflueger brought the car down here for Earle to drive for the grand opening of Hawaii Raceway Park. This was a one shot deal. Believe that he also brought down the Greer/Black/Pruhdome top fuel dragster to make exhibition passes. Pflueger bought a white fiberglass equipped '64 289 Comet with 4 Weber 48 carbs. We ran the car for a while in B/G and C/A (B-gas & C-altered) and match races. This car was sold to Stan McNeal and later became "Mr. 289" and was painted blue. The 289 was replaced by a '65 427 "medium riser" red Comet with tubular drop front axle. The car came with Webers, but Pflueger finally bought a 427 "high rise" dual quad motor blue printed by Performance Associates Les Ritchie. The original car was altered to a short wheelbase as shown in one of the posted pics. I remember spending all SAT afternoon watching the guys cutting up the chassis and sending the driveshaft out to be shortened. We showed up at the track, made a pass and found out that the Unibody wasn't too strong after being modified. The back end was drooping a little after the pass. The 289 ran low 12's at over 110 MPH. The 427 ran low 10's at over 120 MPH. Please see attached pix.
My friend JT emailed me 2 pics. But, I was only able to download one. I'll try and post the other pic tomorrow. Whats funny is the "Mr. 289" version of the comet he mentions was my fathers main rival at Hawaii Raceway Park. I can still remember my fathers Red 55 squaring off anainst Mr 289. I am sure I can dig up some pics of Mr 289 from my father. He still hates that car. Jeremy
Okay brah, I found the picture of Earl's red Comet and attaching it - this was before it was lettered , I believe around 1965. If I remember correctly, this was the car that Earl did a huge wheelstand and came crashing down and damaged the frontend. I remember I was in the pits working on my car and heard about it. I'm also attaching two pictures of Les Ritchey of Performance Associates with his A/FX Mustang when he was at Hawaii Raceway Park. Enjoy!
Both of Earl's Comets are now located in Illinois. They were both built by "Bill Stroppe & Assoc." in Long Beach, Ca.. Visit http://users.adams.net/~terryh/hawaiian.htm to read the complete story and view more photos of both cars.
Aloha and Howzit, cuz! Just got clued in on this thread. Been talking with "Analog Dog" extensively about these Hawaiian Comets. If you're interested, check out the '64-'65 Comet thread, lots of discussion of the A/FX and B/FX cars. Way back in the late '80s I saw the A/FX car, just didn't know enough about cars back then to know what I was looking at. I was just scrounging around for parts for my '69 Mustang, and the Parnelli Jones mag wheels that I found the center caps for, sitting on the desk in John's shop. Later, I saw the Comets show up in the same storage facility where I was storing my two '70 Mustangs. Jimmy Pflueger did provide the cars for Hawaii 5-0, and when I was still a member of IATSE, one of the riggers (I think) owned the big ol LTD convertible that was Jack Lord's personal car. Jimmy's son, Alan, recently opened a huge Honda dealership right in the middle of downtown Honolulu. Jimmy is still into hot rods, and brought a real nice woody in from the mainland last year. He took it to Bardo's Hot Rod Shop and we worked on it, to suite Jimmy's ideas. Aloha, Robert
Good Day! This is my first post on the HAMB! Well, I have one. It is not an A/FX, but I believe mine was raced at some point, which is why I ended up on this thread. Let me go back and explain. I am currently restoring a 1964 Cyclone which was purchased from Pflueger Lincoln-Mercury on Feb 17, 1964. So, as I am tearing things down, I ran across five 3/4" drilled holes in the dash on the left hand side of the instrument panel that I had discovered today. The holes were hidden with a piece of leather that I finally pulled off. That patch had been on there for the twelve years that I have owned the car. I thought, those holes look like they used to house a few switches. Curiosity is running wild, so, I googled Pflueger Lincoln-Mercury and here I am. I sure would like to know more about the history of my car... If it has any history.
Hello , don't know if this helps but pflueger had some comets shipped in that were called the African safari cars . They were raced across Africa , the ones that made it were sold to pflueger . Don't recall how many total . But they had extra lights which may have been on toggle switches on dash . Hope this helps . Gary
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