Where There's Smoke, There's Fire

Remember a few blog posts back we took a closer look at 1966 - supposedly when everything started going to hell in the non-performance conservatives eyes? Things were a-changing, and hot rodding, muscle cars, and racing were getting radical as well. However, I received an email last week from a regular reader named Tom. He mentioned that "...nobody just flipped a switch and bang - everything changed overnight. All this "going to hell" started happening a few years earlier. While it may or may not have been the official turning point, one has to admit that there were some impossible to miss signposts." Agreed!

The first place I looked for a smoking gun was a 1964 issue of National Dragster - and it was loaded with clues. For starters, Don Prudhomme was setting the drag racing world on its ear. Speed records, in all aspects of drag racing, were falling like the snow in last weeks blizzard in the Washington D.C. area. Prudhomme set yet another top speed record at Pamona with a then-blazing 202.24 mph. That may sound like yawn city today, but 50+ years ago, that was cooking.

If you need more proof, at that very same event, Jack Chrisman unleashed a series of absolute tire-smoking blasts in the now-famous Sachs & Son blown 1964 Mercury Comet. Experimenting with new injectors, Chrisman nailed a best time of 10.60 at almost 150 mph. And this was with tire spin for about 400 feet. Within a year, a landslide of A/FX cars would follow in its footsteps.


Is it me or are Gasser's getting a ton of ink lately? It seems almost every magazine is covering them to some degree - be it Hot Rod Deluxe, Street Rodder, or Maximum Drive. In no way am I complaining. I'm also digging the diversity. The history books show a majority of these vehicles were either Chevy's, mainly tri-fives, or Willy's coupes. While I dig these rides to no end, I still have a soft spot for the "dare to be different" rides. Like tri-five Fords, Chevelle's, Falcons, and Novas. One trend I'm also starting to see more of are street-driven hot rods with a Gasser appearance. While this isn't everyone's cup of tea, kudos go out to the owners who have the stones to make it work.

In my opinion, NASCAR was ahead of the curve in regards to what was happening in 1964. Thanks to Chrysler, NASCAR had absolutely no warning of the bomb the manufacturer would drop at Daytona; namely the 426 Race Hemi engine. While there is plenty of folklore in regards to how these now famous engines almost didn't make the Daytona 500 deadline (mostly due to block casting and cracking problems), it's all fact that Richard Petty and company blew the doors off the competition and Chrysler drivers finished first, second, and third. So dominant the engine would be, it would be banned from racing until Chrysler agreed to make it a regular production engine (de-tuned of course) in assembly line built vehicles.

In 1964, muscle car advertising was in its infancy, but Detroit was already fanning the flames. The interesting point here is while racing was going full-on ballistic, the marketing firms back on Madison Avenue had to tread lightly... everyone that is except the ad agencies working for Plymouth and Pontiac. Apparently, they didn't the memo. Case in point:
 - The 1964 Pontiac GTO; in its debut brochure, Pontiac had the balls to print that the dual exhaust wasn't exactly quiet, and that unless you ordered the manufacturers lazy 3.08 geared rear axle, gas mileage was nothing to write home about.
 - But the years most blatant award went to Plymouth and their advertising of their 426 Max Wedge engine. Advertisements depicted artwork and copy that was a street racers dream. Huge engines, politically incorrect language, and all the emphasis was on performance and speed.

I'm sure the people behind all these events couldn't have possibly predicted the ripple effects that would end up influencing drivers and enthusiasts for decades to come. They also had no way of knowing how much diversity would grow out of these early milestones. We'll leave you with this - if it weren't for these events of the past, do you honestly think we would have hot rodders building machinery like the one pictured on the left. An old 1970 Chevy C-10 pickup truck that simply goes by the name of "Farm Truck". Looks like an absolute beater, but has a nitrous fed 572 big block and runs mid-10's. How this rig holds together under such hard launches amazes me, but man do I want to build one just like it.

Until next time, peace out.
Dave