Pictures of Old Drag Cars

[babybolt]

Here's a link to a bunch of pictures.  In the Super Stock section, the Fords are at the bottom.

http://www.georgeklass.net/super-stock.html

Looks like the author is actively adding pictures.

[thatdarncat]

I love looking at the race cars "back in the day". Here's a link I think I posted before, lots of cars from North of the border.

http://www.mts.net/~red67/index.html

[cammerfe]

I got tired of wading through the George Klass BS and stopped looking---at least for now. GM didn't 'bail out' of racing; they piously said they weren't going to have anything to do with the evilness of racing and got VERY busy, quietly sliding stuff out the back door. The soon-offered 396 'mystery' engine was re-rated taking the reading at a thousand RPM lower to get a lower figure.

KS

[machoneman]

Great pics babybolt! I used to run down to the local grocery store to pickup the latest SS&DI (Super Stock and Drag Illustrated) issue, the best drag racing mag sold back then.  Some of the cars in the Klass blog  appeared there but many are new to me. Agree with Ken that Klass repeats some very questionable statements about the who, what, where and when.

'Kinda like that loser mouthpiece Roger Gordon over on the FE Forum trying to spar with me by stating that it was Chevrolet  that got NASCAR to ban the Ford SOHC engine, not Dodge/Chrysler! Hah!

[babybolt]

LOL, George Klass posts a bunch on Yellowbullet, he's a left leaning California Chevy lover - but its a lot of work to keep that website organized and running so at least I am overlooking the words he posts and just enjoying the pics.  He's probably a great guy to BS with if you ever met him in person.  Rodger Gordon probably is too if he could be un-programmed of the BC hype.

There are quite a few Thunderbolt pictures when you do scroll all the way down to the Ford in the Super Stock section.

[MeanGene]

NASCAR never banned the SOHC engine, they just hit it with a weight penalty that would have made it uncompetitive, so Ford told tham to pack it and pulled the program. Kinda like NHRA with the Clevelands- there's even an area on NHRA's own site where they admitted they gave the Chebbies (Jenkin's Vega in particular) a large weight advantage to please the large number of ticket-buying Chebbie lovers. The four-door Maverick fit into a loophole
Scroll down in the below page, beside the pic of Jenkin's Vega, where you'll find "Recognizing that the vast number of fans drove Chevrolets, NHRA reconfigured the rules to allow cars with small-block wedge engines to run at a lighter weight break."

http://www.nhra.com/story/story.aspx?F_y=2012&F_m=3&F_d=29&CustomURL=pro-stock-legend-bill-grumpy-jenkins-dies&AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1


http://www.nhra.com/userfiles/file/ndlivefiles/features/PSInnov.pdf

[machoneman]

Gene's version is correct...thanks for jogging my memory!

Although many noted NASCAR authors agree that Chrysler's execs beefed so loudly to NASCAR's Bill France in late '64 that he listened and acted, the SOHC was not "banned". When the 1965 Rules were published in late '64, the Cammer was hit with a 427 pound weight penalty over the straight valve FE. Hence, the Rules effectively removed it from competition.

And yes, NHRA also bent over backwards in the day to accommodate the Chevys in early Pro Stock yet the Clevelands still did very well! Later, the Pro rules were changed almost weekly via weight breaks to level the playing field, yet still the 351C runners did end up on top most of the time until the 500CID rule was enacted.

[jayb]

One of the interesting things about the whole SOHC NASCAR fiasco was that it went on for at least a couple years.  Earl Wade told me that when Fred Lorenzen went to Daytona in the spring of 1964 to run a prototype cammer Galaxie he ran so fast that it totally shocked the powers that be at NASCAR; I think Earl said that Lorenzen went over 180 MPH with the car.  Despite the initial rebuff, Ford continued to try to work the SOHC into the NASCAR picture before finally giving up in 1966.  One of the roadblocks that was thrown up was that the engine was not in any production cars, so for the 1966 model year Ford added a 427 SOHC 4V and a 427 SOHC 8V to the engine lineup.  Of course they never built any, but if you have a 1966 Ford full size shop manual, you can look up the engine codes and see those two engines listed.