History For the "old guy's", who built the 1st "funny car"?

Uh, I know the wheelbase wasn't altered ( it wasn't on lots of funny cars), but it sure looks like a funny car to me!

 

I agree, Guffey...this is a complete train-wreck.
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and, no the Chrisman Comet was not the first to be called a funny car.
It was a stock-bodied car with a blower...

To answer the question in Post #1 you first have to get to the origin of the term "funny car".
The term was coined by the track announcers to describe the odd (funny) looking altered wheelbase cars. The cars looked odd therefore the announcers called them "funny cars".
So, the question has nothing to do with who ran fuel or who had a blower or who had a fiberglass body.
No track announcer looked at the Chrisman Comet and said "thats a funny car". Again (and again and again) the term came from the odd look of the wheelbases being moved from stock locations.

The Chryslers were first to have altered wheelbases, both in the minor wheelbase adjustments of 1964 and the more dramatic wheelbase alterations that we most commonly think of from the 1965 season.
Go back to Post #41 for more details.

The real breakthrough car that best mimics today's cars....cars that run fuel, race car chassis, flip-top body would be the Don Nicholson Comet of 1966.
I was there when it was debuted. It made all other A/FX, AWB cars obsolete by the end of that year. Logghe produced four of the SOHC Comets and they were almost unstoppable that season.

But, by then the term "funny car" was several years old.

 

Larry
You almost have to by the definition that has been given. Even though it did not run in AWB it was in fact one of the first recognized cars with an altered wheel base.

Here is another way to think about it and just food for thought I am not challenging you, just the train of thought that this thread has taken. Gas Roadster was the forerunner to Gas Altered. Now if someone wanted to know who built the first Gas Altered would someone go looking to find who built the first Gas Roadster?

Like I said just food for thought.

 

So does this one

 

Gary, that Cuda of McEwens would be a good answer if the question was...:

What drag car was the earliest example of what we think of today when we hear the term "funny car".

As I said, in my mind that would be the all race car, purpose built tube chassied Nicholson Comet.
Now, you may have other cars in mind and I don't think there is a "correct" answer to the question that I just asked.
Nicholson Comet
Sach/Sons Comet
McEwens disasterous Cuda
and on and on...all would be good answers.

Again...if answering a question such as the one I just asked, there would be no correct answer for everyone.

BUT...that is not the question asked in this thread.

 

The OP is a contradiction in terms.
The first AWB cars were essentialy MoPar Super Stocks. No nitro, no fiberglass, carbs and gas. The term "funny" as in odd, or questionable reffered to the wheelbase alterations, but the cars were NOT what we consider "funny cars"! The EVELOVED into "funny cars" with the addition of engine setback, injection, nitro etc. They were "exhibition cars" then, as there was no real class for them, C/FD or CC/FD not withstanding. The first "funny car" classes were XS, Experimental Stock in 1966. The 67 Nationals ran "Funny Car Eliminator", but the cars were classed as XS. The FC classes began in 1969.
So which came first, the chicken or the egg?

 

The 66 Comets weren't the first purpose built tube chassis cars, but they were the most succesful.
Exhibit A AND there were others.

 

The biggest game changer was probably the M/T mustangs of Buttera/Foster.
They made the Logghe ladder chassis obsolete. This is the basic model for ALL FC's after them, even today.

But that wasn't the OP's question either!
The PROBLEM is the OP's question!
The way it's phrased. there is no answer.

 

I agree this is what people think of (me too) when asked about early funnies.
My pick would be the Comet of Dyno's but, thats just me.

But the first cars to be given the name FC is the steel/factory bodied Chryslers with the 'glass fenders, etc and the AWB.
Technically that is the correct answer.

What type of cars you associate with todays FC may be something different, but the real "first" as coined by the track announcers and journalists was the earlier AWB factory-bodied cars.

 

Now THAT I agree with...

 

Gary, that car preceded the Comets. It was built in late 65 and I did read somewhere that it was outlawed for a short time. Who knows the real truth when the suits step in to dictate policy. That may be a newer body after the fact. In order to avoid the train wreck thinking, this is what I call a funny car. In additional political-correctness, it was the "Fuel Coupe" class that inspired the term. A few replies back I'd mentioned how certain things seldom see print. A well prepped bone stock L-88 Vette whips the shit out of a 427 S/C Cobra. A well prepped stock 440 6bbl as delivered whips the shit out of the same year HEMI in the early days, UNLESS the HEMI is excessively well prepped. Popular Hotrodding proved that one as well as the Vette thing. Still, when the legend becomes fact, print the legend.

Most of this is academic and entertainment. I'm entertained more by "behind the scenes" stories from the guys who were there. For all we know Mazooma1 was there the 1st time an annoucer blurted the term. I'd believe every word if he said he was. Then again, we could do one of those head on train wrecks too. Did the 1st floppers show up on fuel and inspire the AWB guys to move to that class? Were there a few who tried it and got hurt or killed which in turn gave rise to the flopper? Was it the chicken or the egg? What I do like about this topic is there's nothing at stake except gaining more or correct knowledge. I still lean toward the words of those who were there.

 

Jeeezuz............I'm done.

 

This has been published years ago. Chrysler built the 1965 AWB with the intention of running them in FX class. Chrysler asked NHRA to come to Highland Park and give their OK on the cars. The NHRA guy, and I don't recall if it was Wally Parks, but I don't think it was, took one look at the cars and said, "Those sure are some funny looking cars". To my knowledge, that is the first time that expression was used to descriobe what became "exhibition match racers" as they were called quite often, until years later when NHRA finally condescended to give them a class of their own. Keep in mind there were several other santioning bodies around at that time, incuding NASCAR drag racing, UDRA, AHRA, and they all had different ways of classifying them.
There certainly are a lot of wild opinions on this thread, mostly from folks who really weren't there at the time and didn't see it evolve.
But Mopar's '65 AWB cars are the original funnycars.
You can close the thread now, I've said all that needs to be said.

 

I figured it was Dick Landy and his 64 Dodge. He bought one of the first ever factory 426 Hemi-powered cars, it was a 64 330.

LINK - http://www.1962to1965mopar.ornocar.com/landys64.html

 

NOTE: In the description of the Ramchargers Dart, it's called an "FX'er" which it is not, and a "match racer" which it is! The "FX" description persists to this day, it's totally wrong! FX was a series of classes for stockers, where cars could run anything the manufacturer produced, not neccesairly in the combination they produced them in.
Example, the SD 421 in the Tempest.
There was no one point where these cars were called funny cars!
Again. Mazooma is correct, the original "funny cars" were the AWB MoPars.

 

You might call Steve Bovan's Circuit Rider Nova a funny car.

 

just to clarify, I was not at whatever drag strip where any announcer used the term "funny car".
I was at Irwindale when Don Nicholsons Comet showed up, wowed everyone and then lost the body at 150MPH.

The Steve Bovan car? Yeah,,,funny car to the max. The first with a BB Chevy, too., but way late in the game as far as the term "FC" goes.

 

excerpts from Steve Magnate's book (he owns three AWB cars) about the AWB cars.
This chapter titled:
"Funny Pages: History and Evolution of the Altered-Wheelbase Door-Slammer"

















and, then onto the purpose built, made from scratch race cars that we often think of as the infants of the funny car world of today...although the term "funny car" had been used to describe their forerunners for several years by this point....

 

I agree that the term funny car originated with the AWB MoPars, but the term was not universally applied to such cars,(not just MoPars). I remember 67 as the year the term was always used, earlier it was funny cars, match racers, match race stockers, exhibition cars, ultra stocks and more. The first "funny car" show billed as such that I went to was at Woodburn in maybe late 66(>) or early 67, featuring a diverse field.
The Bad Bossa Nova, Tommy Grove's Ford Charger, The Fuel Cuda, the Nortwest Night Corvatte, Svela and Sons Econoline and other local cars. Most were transtion cars, steel shells with 'glass fenders etc. That was a looong time ago.
Speaking of the Svela Econoline, I also remeber them match racing Jack Coonrod and the SWC Willys.

 

Mazooma1, good read! Thanks!

 

People use to laugh at my car in high school does that count?

 

Denver Post add from the summer of 66.Tom McCroans AWB Plymouth vs.Larry Ericksons AWB Chevelle.

 

And don't forget this thing, built by Branstner in 64 as a legal FX car. It had a tendency to wheelstand! Branstner also built Cotten Owens Dart wagon in 65 along with the Rainbow Dart, two largley forgotten very early funny cars.

 

i guess it depends on what you consider a "funny car". If your talking about a flip up body I'd have to agree with a previous post that it would be Jack Chrisman or "Dyno Don" Nickleson. If your talking about stock bodied, altered wheeklbase cars I'd have to say it was the entire Chrysler factory teams like Dick Landy, the Ramchargers and a host of others. I was lucky enough to see them all run at the old U.S. 30 Dragstrip in Gary, Indiana. Man, those were some great days!

 

The Gas Ronda car isn't a Logghe. It was built by Holman-Moody out of North Carolina. The term "Funny Car" was coined by Fran Hernandez, who was the racing chief at Mercury. When he first saw the '65 AWB Mopars, he said they "looked funny." That was the beginning of the term, and magazine journalists adopted it as a standard term, and the rest is history.

 

AA/FC = double A fuel coupe, first NEW body one, Jack Chrisman Comet . End of story !! ?? THANKS Chris

 

So, where do you draw the line between Funnycar and FX? Center steering would be a good identifier, but it would eliminate a lot of the early "grey area" cars.

 

First use of the name "funny car" that I recall, was a magazine article about an altered wheelbase Dodge or Plymouth FX car. This was a steel body car with the rear axle and rear wheel wells moved forward.

It was plain from the article, that this represented something new in racing and that the term "funny car" was brand new.

This would have been in 1964. Probably in R&C, Car Craft or Hot Rod since those were the magazines I read regularly back then.

I realize there were altered wheelbase cars before then, and that what we usually think of as "funny cars" came later. But if you could track down that article you could pinpoint the date when "funny cars" as we know them began.

 

I think this horse has been sufficiently beaten, but years ago Bob Frey wrote an editorial for a magazine (maybe SS&DI?) wherein he claimed that HE was the one who coined the "funny car" term while doing announcing duties at a Midwest track (maybe Detroit? CRS with CRAFT overtones is a terrible thing).

There's also anecdotal evidence that in early '65 Al Vanderwoude had a match race with the Ronda Mustang shown above. He knew that he didn't have the traction needed, so he thought that if a little (Chrysler's 2%) was good, then A Lot would be just right. He and a friend took four days to transform his '64 into the beast shown below. Reportedly, when he showed up to race Gas, the announcer used the "that's a funny looking car" line.


Who was the first? We'll never really know because there were so many innovations being made so quickly in the '64-'65 time frame that people were doing things nearly simultaneously and the PR flacks were hard pressed to keep up with the wild and wooly cars that would show up each week.

If you want to talk current-definition style (although "fiberglass body with purpose-built chassis for racing" is broad enough that even Devin-bodied cars from the '50s could qualify), there's no doubt that when the '66 Mercury Comet "floppers" showed up at tracks - and the April '66 cover of Hot Rod - all FX-style "funny looking cars" were suddenly out of date and we were destined for unrecognizable jelly-bean cars.

 

It's interesting to note that the one guy posting here (Mazooma/Doug) who actually lived and breathed the whole era from start to finish, has answered the question accurately. But almost everyone else is ignoring his wisdom, logic and experience as if he didn't exist. He doesn't get his info from antique magazines.

Every car mentioned here made it to the west coast, where the real competition was, to race in the early 60's and Doug was at virtually every important race in Southern California. 'Nuff said.

In the end, it's just semantics. Terminology. Descriptive language evolves. The altered wheelbase cars came first ('63-'64). At that time, they were given the term "funny car". A year or two later, many of the original "funny car" builders were fielding Blown fuel, tube-chassis fliptops and the term applied to them as well.

Doug, I can understand why we don't see you on here as much as we used to.