Jim Oddy's Austin is Alive and Angry !

Awesome, you did a great job, I remember it in its glory days. You just turned back time for me. Congrats!!!! Larry

 

Fantastic! Love to see old forgotten classics rescued. Much like the guys restoring and flying WW-II aircraft. Always liked the Austin and Anglia drag cars.

Mike

 

Great job John. Nothing sweeter than the sound of a blown hemi!

 

time to go racin'

 

That is so awesome.

 

That is an awesome resurrection. Love the sound of a blown engine.

 

glad you could save it......thank you

 

This video was shot a week or so ago when Jim Oddy heard his famous NHRA record holding Blown/Injected Hemi 1948 Austin gasser fire up for the first time since 1968. That's Jim Oddy himself in the video, just like he was back in the day priming the engine. He came up from Mooresville, NC, where he now lives, just for this moment. You will notice that John did an incredible job recreating the original look of this original Gasser.


This is how the car was back in the day



And this is it today. Every part on it is exactly the way Oddy built it.

 

Very, very cool. Another one saved.

 

Freakin Kool!
Great restoration!

 

Great job!!

 

Awesome Job John!! Hope to see it in person some day!!

 

GREAT JOB John!!!!! and it sounds AWESOME...
I am proud to say I owned that car for a year way back in 1976 and I am so happy that John did such a fantastic job bringing it back to life again.

when i had it it still had the roll cage and interior in it and looked just like the way it was raced when oddy had it, but the car was painted black and I bought it less engine and trans, I had it as a street/strip car for that year but with no front brakes it was a hand full, I then sold it to a guy in Canada an the was lost for a long time till john found it.
THANK YOU john for bringing back such a great part of western NY history Ron...

here are a few pictures from the day I got the car and when it was in a few local shows...

 

Hell yeah! Great Job Johnny, wish i could have been there for this. I think We need to have our own Cacklefest in WNY... HAHA! We have enough AA/GS cars here to do it! Absolutely love this car. Congrats!

 

Very nice,and what I like the most is that its actually running on G A S.

The AA/"GAS" cars of today are all on Alky which is okay I guess...just sayin.
Even though it sounds a little 'tinny' on my speakers,it still reminds me of when KS Pittman used to spend the summers at his aunts house down the street from us in Bellflower Calif.
If my dad wasnt push starting his Fueler down the street,KS was firing up his gassers in his aunts driveway.
Thanks for sharing & bringing back a badass piece of history!
Troy Cagle

 

Thanks all of you guys for all the nice words about the car. It has been a LONG time but it getting there because My Buddy's all made it come together. It get a lot of good reveiws on the HAMB. Thanks Phil for posting it for me !!

Thanks All of You

Trouble

 

Great car!! Great restoration !! My friend Ron Podsiadly who has since relocted to California bought this car without engine or trans from a Jim Hopper in Mt.Morris NY in the 70's.Hopper had got it from Oddy..It was intact except it was painted black and had a bad pinion bearing . I helped him take off all the lettering and touch up the black paint and added some blue flames.Interior was still Oddys and in great shape.He put in a 440 with a tunnel ram /automatic and drove it on the street for a while and then sold it to some canadians.Too bad it was stripped down and lost so many parts but nice to see it so nicely redone.

 

Hell yes !!!!! Love it!!!!!

 

watched him race it at Niagara many times.....nice job!!!!

 

One of the best looking gassers of all time!

 

X2... Johnny can be my neighbor anytime. I'd have no problem waking up to that tune in the morning. Gets my adrenaline going better than my sponge bob alarm and cup of coffee.

 

It's great to see it restored and to hear it running! Just like I remember it from Niagara Dragstrip and the Nationals at Indy. Oddy's and Zakia's cars were my favorites!!

 

Beautiful music John. I love it!!!!

 

John, your the man! Glad you found this Austin and did it 100% right as it deserved! Two thumbs up......
Dave.

 

Wanna hear something sad? I lived down the road from Oddy's race shop and had no idea about all the history that was there. I never even went in before moving down South.

However now I'm older and a little wiser, I know for a fact that this is awesome.

 

Good going...watched it win many times...Niagara, Cayuga....Frank Kunkel

 

That thing Is BAD ASS.

 

Absolutely beautiful

 

Here's some photos I took at the Canadian Street Rod Nationals (CANATS) years ago - don't know the exact year. At the time the car was plated in Quebec and I was told it was the Oddy Austin. There are some similarities - the chop, the rear nerf bars, the chute box in the trunk lid. Maybe??

 

That is the car it was Black then Yellow it still had the vega tail lights in it when i got it. There will be a story on the car in Gasser Wars very soon

thanks for posting the pics I never seen them

Trouble