We do love a good mystery. And when it’s backed up by a neat story, nay, legend, count us in, kid. And so it is with the legend of a certain ’56 Chevy post coupe that ran the San Francisco Bay area b...
While we’re all cooped-up at home practicing the gearhead version of social distancing (read: texting each other drag pics behind closed garage doors), we know that, at some point, you’ll find yourse...
Still from NHRA video. With more than 50 years now separating us from the two historical racing events we discussed this past week – Don Garlits’s transmission explosion at Lions in 1970 and Ken Mile...
Is there anything more fun than heads-up, straight-axled drag cars on the street? Than backing a car off a trailer where mere mortals park commuter crossovers? Than trying to time the last smokey bur...
Don Garlits in Swamp Rat XIII, March 1970. Photo courtesy NHRA. 1,300 pounds. 1,600 horsepower. 220 inches out to those front wheels. No more bodywork or paint than necessary. Like many a Don Garlits...
Photo by Matt Litwin. In every niche in the collector car world, there are people you stop and listen to, no matter the occasion. When it comes to Studebaker drag racing, that person is Ted Harbit, w...
When we talk about the “glory days” of drag racing, we’re not talking about the cars, alone. Sure, the cars are at the center of our affections, but there was also the dragstrip exhibition scene. Y’k...
Documented 1963 Dodge 330 lightweight for sale on Hemmings.com. From the seller’s description: The first factory lightweight (yes car #1) produced and one of only 34 factory lightweight 330-trim coup...
Photo: MP Collection If you’ve been following along for awhile, it won’t come as a surprise that we never miss a chance to share an old snapshot from what we believe to be the greatest era of motorsp...
The Seventies. Big hair, bell bottoms, platform shoes, disco, and proto-malaise. Not all of it was bad, though, and this video is here to remind you that drag racing in the Nixon era ruled, in the da...
Image from the Turbonique catalog via the Iowahawk blog. This week, we thought it’d be a good idea to kick off the new year with an old, favorite topic: the Turbonique Drag Axle. If you’ve snooped ar...
Much as we love talking about the “good ‘ol days” of drag racing and performance, we’d be missing out on a whole new, glorious world if we didn’t invite the kids to the benchracing session. For every...
To quote Bobby DeNiro’s Al Capone in “The Untouchables;” “What is that which gives me joy?” A fresh set of slicks, thank you very much. Nothing like the aroma of a new set of tires, amiright? But, as...
You can’t rush perfection, and it seems that perfection is exactly what model maker Ken Foran is after with his scratchbuilt 1/8-scale version of Tommy Ivo’s quad-engine dragster. We came across the ...
Images courtesy the Loyed Woodland collection at the Don Garlits Museum of Drag Racing. Whoever knew that a post-war fascination with mechanical innovation in construction and drag racing would lead ...
Photos courtesy Mecum Auctions, except where noted. If we were to assemble a clickbait top-10 list of T.V. Tommy Ivo drag-racing moments, the creation of his quad-engine Showboat exhibition racer and...
The oldest surviving American automobile, as The Henry Ford pointed out this week, exists in the museum’s collection, and it well predates the internal combustion engine. Smoke-belching steam locomot...
Photo credit: Dodge Chevrolet has the COPO Camaro, Ford has the Mustang Cobra Jet, and Dodge has the Challenger Drag Pak. Each one is a limited-edition, track-only turnkey drag racer from the factory...
We often find ourselves saying, around here, “We don’t live on vintage muscle, alone.” Sure, you can substitute any strain of car culture for “vintage muscle,” but the point is, as much as we love ou...
OK, OK–forgive the blurriness, but we had to blow this thing up to see all the crazy-good details in it: that digger, the paint, the trailer, the ’58 Chevy in the background, the fuelie set-up, the b...
We come across some great vintage celluloid in our line of work. It’s one of the real joys of the job, y’know? And amidst the amazing hair styles and the bias-ply slicks and the magnesium wheels and ...