You Only Die Once

I remember reading that exact heading in a magazine editorial that was published well over 20 years ago. The main focus of that editorial was on that unique vehicle called a hearse. But not just any hearse - it highlighted some funeral home services where you're last ride would be in a vintage 30's, 40's, or 50's GM, Ford, or Chrysler hearse. The editor who wrote that piece figured you only died once. Why take your last ride in some generic modern hearse, (or worse a Dodge Caravan hearse), when you could literally go out in high style. Their are still a vast amount of these funeral homes offering these "stylin" options all across the country - some even in hot rod style rigs. As gearheads, is there really any other choice? It may be a kinda bizarre Google search, but go for it.

Before writing this weeks post, I looked back through the history of Full Throttle. Why I never wrote about the incredible popularity of modified and hot rod hearses escaped me. As many genre's we have in our vintage car-loving hobby, there seems to be the same number of genre's within the hearse realm. Everything from full-on stock restorations, to hot rods, street rods and rat rods, to incredible drag cars. There are car shows that highlight these unique rides - nothing else is allowed to display, with the occasional deviance being ambulances. One of the best in the country is Hearsecon held yearly, with 2016 being in Denver Colorado. (Photo courtesy of HearseClub.com)

I think most of our readers have heard the likes of the hot rod hearse. Usually a vintage 50's or 60's black Cadillac, that many times has blown big block engine power as well as flames painted on the side. But I also mentioned rat rods and street rods. Case in point this chopped and channeled circa 30's Ford Model A Tudor. Would be perfect with a chopped coffin as well. Think of the possibilities and the uniqueness. You'd be the only one in Forest Lawn with that shit. Classic resto looks, and massive street rod style; what's not to love?

Another aspect you don't see too often is the hearse in the drag racing arena. After all, most of these specialty vehicles are 22 feet long, although the shear volume of rear overhang would add to the traction and hooking at the starting line aspects. But there are examples out there - one rocks to the tune of 9-second quarter mile times. Say what? The devious masterminds at AMS Performance claim Madness, a sinister, black Caprice professional wagon, is both the world's fastest and quickest hearse and is capable of screaming down a quarter-mile drag strip in under 10 seconds. Being a professional wagon, means it has all the full-tilt hearse equipment - from the special interior to the landau roof. While they took some liberties with the paint job, this behemoth still weighs a ton - more than 2 1/2 to be exact - tipping the scales at more than 5,000 lbs. But that's fine; when you're running 23 psi of boost, the turbocharged GM 6.0-liter LQ4 V8 engine puts over 1,000 horsepower to the rear wheels. It's enough to make the last ride you'll ever take one of your fastest: 0-60 mph comes in 2.26 seconds (a good 1.3 seconds faster than an E63 AMG wagon, and good luck fitting a casket in the back of one of those). 0-100 mph takes just 5.20 seconds. A quarter-mile flies by in 9.94 seconds at 137.36 mph.

If this doesn't at least tickle your fancy or bake your cookies, you probably don't have a pulse - and you should be riding in the back of one of these beauties anyways...

Until next time, peace out.
Happy Halloween!
Dave

What If...

I've been glancing at a number of articles this week in various magazines and inadvertently they all had the theme of "what if...". The articles ranged from the last-minute fallout of the Ford-Ferrari deal way back in 1963, to the beginning of the oil embargo which started this month back in 1973, to muscle car engines that were planned and even built, but never saw production. It got me to thinking about alternative realities, or what would have happened if...


One outcome we know for certain after Enzo Ferrari pulled the plug at the last minute on Henry Ford and the deal they literally had in writing back in 1963; the Ford GT-40. Now, what if that deal went through? The proposal was, for a price of $10 million dollars (this is back in 1963, remember?), Ford would have owned half of Ferrari. My belief is, there wouldn't have been a GT-40 built, but instead perhaps a Ford sports car body with Ferrari drive-train. I think it would have been similar to the short marriage Ford had with Alejandro de Tomaso and his Pantera that was imported by Lincoln-Mercury in 1973. If anything, if that 1963 deal had become reality, we probably would have prancing horses on Mustangs instead of galloping ones.

If you ever want to seriously set foot into "what if..." territory, look no further than some of the muscle car engines that Detroit had planned, but never built back in the 1960's through the early 70's. Some of these motors are more well-known than others, like the Ball-Stud Hemi that Chrysler hoped to put into production sometime between 1971 and 1973. More powerful than the 440 Magnum running with a single Carter Thermo-quad carburetor, it even had lower compression (9.5:1) to run on unleaded fuel. It would have been a fantastic high performance motor for the early '70's. Unfortunately, due to financial restrictions and government pressure, only a handful were built and it is believed only one is still in existence today.

But let's dig deeper. Ever hear of the 421 SOHC engine that Pontiac was experimenting with back in 1964? Or how about the 1969 Plymouth Weslake DOHC engine? Or perhaps the Oldsmobile DOHC W43 engine developed in 1969 in case the muscle car wars really got intense? Let's start with the Pontiac.

This mystery engine is probably the easiest to shed light on. Most likely prompted by its development of the now-famous Pontiac OHC six cylinder engine of the mid-60's, the GM division built three different experimental SOHC 421 CID V8  engines in early 1964. According to the engineers who worked on the project, the SOHC 421 engines produced around 625 hp and were capable of turning 7,000 rpm. One version of the engine featured camshafts driven off the front of the engine, another design had the cams driven by gears off the back of the engine. Rumor has it, at least one of these engines survives under the hood of an engineer’s personal Pontiac.

Moving onto Plymouth. This one gets a little more complicated; It’s unknown whether this project was purely for racing, or Plymouth had the intent to offer the motor in a street car at some point. Following the 1968 season, Richard Petty announced he was leaving Chrysler and going to Ford for the 1969 NASCAR season. The money allocated for Petty was used to develop the Plymouth Indy DOHC V8. Design work began in February 1969 and running engines were provided to Andy Granatelli’s STP race team less than 90 days later.
The designer of the special cylinder heads was Harry Weslake, a British engineer best known for his expertise in gas flow through internal combustion engines.Unfortunately, the engine lacked top-end horsepower necessary to compete at the high speed oval tracks, but it had plenty of bottom-end torque which made it quite competitive on the short oval. In fact, Art Pollard drove the Plymouth-Westlake engine to victory at the 200-mile Indy car race at Dover, Delaware on August 24, 1969. This would turn out to be the only victory for Plymouth in the history of Indy Car racing.

Finally, the Oldsmobile DOHC W43 or what is more commonly referred to as the "doomsday" muscle car engine. As part of the development of the 455 V-8, Olds engineers wanted to take the design of the engine as far as possible. The ultimate version added a set of dual overhead camshaft cylinder heads to the mighty engine. A gear drive supported by roller bearings in an aluminum gear case at the front of the motor spun the cams, while a drive-shaft was used in the standard camshaft position to transmit motion to the oil pump and distributor.
Toward the end of 1969, engineers dyno tested the DOHC W43, built with a high (even by late 60's standards) 12.2:1 compression ratio, and recorded a very flat (and fat) torque curve. Olds engineers recorded peak power at a whopping 700 horsepower at close to 7000 rpm. But in January 1970, General Motors President Edward N. Cole  announced that all GM divisions would lower the compression of their motors so 91 octane unleaded fuel could be used, and development stopped on the DOHC Olds. Can you imagine a 700 horse 4-4-2? Or what other manufacturers would've come out with to combat this engine? It makes ones skin tingle.

In my opinion, much of this development seed is planted by racing, and drag racing specifically. One of the biggest "what if's..." is TV Tommy Ivo's “Showboat”. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Tommy Ivo, he acted in series of television shows, some for a few episodes, others for a season or two, in the 1950's when he was a kid. While Ivo was no James Dean he was a great self-promoter and drag racing fanatic. After his TV career dried up, he build a twin-engined dragster that set a number of records. But that wasn’t enough. In 1961, Ivo (now nicknamed TV Tommy) created a beast that drag racing has never again seen the likes of.  With four (yes four) Buick “nailhead” V8 engines, Ivo’s all-wheel drive dragster was a monster that he named the “Showboat”. The engines on the left side drove the front wheels, while the engines on the right powered the rear wheels. The net total was1,856 cubic inches of displacement generating about 2,000 horsepower. Concerned that four-engined cars might become the norm, the NHRA relegated the “Showboat” to an exhibition class and limited Top Fuel cars to one engine. The one-off dragster faded into the history books when the Detroit manufacturers started getting heavily involved with exhibition classes, mainly A/FX. But can you imagine if 4-engine dragsters became the norm? Would this have led to six or even eight engine diggers? It boggles the mind.

Until next time, peace out.
Dave

"Hello - I'm A _______ And This Is My Story"

The reason for the blank is where one would fill in the year, make, and model of a specific American vintage automobile. Picture a bunch of
pre-'75 Detroit iron sitting in a circular row of chairs, starting their story with this opening line. Although I was clueless about this concept as a kid growing up in suburbia in northern New Jersey, now I look back through the time glass of life, and this statement has never rung more true. As I've said before; this is one of the major reasons why I like beaters so much. They are original and unrestored. They have lived the car life and have the scars to show it.

Once a particular year, make, and model was underway with their history, within the first minute, they would probably expound on a particular owner - original or otherwise. A few examples that pop into my head are as follows: One is a friend of mine when we were just pups in said suburbia. He had an older brother, (he was the youngest of six), who purchased an rather worn 1957 Chevy Bel Air back in 1968 and promptly turned the pedestrian coupe into a full-on A/FX Gasser. He didn't even touch the faded paint. The car was all function.

The other example was my next door neighbor in the

same suburbia neighborhood one year earlier. He purchased a new Plymouth GTX with the 426 Hemi engine in 1967, bombed around in it for a few weeks, then spent about a about five nights and one weekend, turning it into a drag strip terror. I remembered when he fired up the GTX in his garage... complete with open headers. It nearly blew the windows out the structure. Even though it sounded savage, it ran perfectly. It was a cross between a Swiss watch and an atomic bomb. Can you imagine the stories those two vehicles could tell?

I was reading in Hot Rod Magazine just about month ago regarding Drag Week 2016. While there is the usual assortment of beaters in the mix, there are some that stand out, including one that hasn't been seen for a while, nor the team of guys campaigning it (or one like it to my knowledge). Aside from the patina-laden, crazy-ass, twin turbo '69 Chevelle SS that received tons of ink, two of favorite real-world street-strip drag cars are Shane McClelland's 1962 twin turbo Nova which made some serious noise a year or two ago, as well as the 1959 Pontiac Catalina campaigned by Brent "Buck" McCoy and his team.

The Nova wore well-loved faded white paint, had some surface rust along the rocker panels, but carried some cues to it's true nature. As beat as the Nova was, you couldn't help but notice the purpose drag wheels, modern gauges, and trick roll cage. McCoy's Catalina, however, was at the opposite end of the spectrum. It was a 4-door sedan, adorned with rust, patina, and faded paint on every flank. Aside from the rear slicks, you would never guess this boat ran in the 10 second bracket. Even the front wheels had the plain factory hubcaps. To cap off the look, Buck and his team even dressed in overalls and straw hats. There goes the neighborhood...

When these two cars rolled off the assembly line, GM had no idea that cars like these could be recreated into what you see before you. Again, I have nothing against restored vehicles. In fact, they can spawn new ideas for our hot rodding hobby and community. On the flipside, you've been warned - the next time you see a cool hot rod or street rod and it doesn't carry off a sense of pristine, don't write it off as simply another rat rod.  It may be an automotive lifer that also has an incredible amount of knowledge to share. Or perhaps some macked out street machine that will deal you a dose of humility...

Until next time, peace out.
Dave

Unsung Hereos

I mentioned last weekend that the blog post got shelved because I was photographing so many cars that weekend, I just didn't have time to write. One week later, as I type this, I'm still processing the last few remaining pictures. I think I've also processed the last remaining hot rod ideas that just won't work, out of my head. All these ideas came to me while attending and photographing various car shows. During the past five days, I searched the following (and a few more than what's listed) on Craigslist as well as Racing Junk:
 - Gasser
 - School bus
 - Panel delivery truck
 - 31 Ford model A (again)

Somehow, I also stumbled across an ad for a 1984 International S1700 that's in very good condition for cheap money. I even reasoned with one of the lines in the ad: "Under 16,000 pounds - no CDL required." Bonus!

As I slowly but surely work these half-baked ideas out of my grey-matter, I have to be reminded of an absolute truth that my wife says from time to time; "We have a perfectly good car now." And while it may not be as glamorous as a muscle car, street rod, or rat rod, our current ride has served it's purpose so well, it doesn't owe me a dime. Maybe the car is paying me back, where a number of winters ago, I dug it out of a snow bank, paid $300 bucks for it, replaced a few parts over the years, and have proceeded to rack up almost 50,000 miles. Did I mention the odometer is almost at 200K now? It's still a comfy car, the heated leather seats still work, the Chrysler 3.5 HO engine can muster a few ponies and can tach up to 5,500 rpm every once in a while with relative ease. The JVC stereo in it is worth more than what I paid for the thing, and I can knock down about 22mpg. As far as daily drivers go, it's an unsung hero.

These heroes can come in all years, makes and models. Ever hear the story of the 1969 Shelby GT500 that has over 400,000 thousand miles on it? And it's still going on the original big block engine and top-loader 4speed? Granted, it's been through three clutches, one radiator, two carburetor rebuilds, almost two dozen brake pads, a timing chain, a cylinder head freshening, and more preventative maintenance you can shake a bunch of sticks at. It's been driven (and shifted) so much that the clutch fork also wore out - bent from use and fatigue - that the mechanic who replaced it had never seen that before. The vehicle is driven quite a bit less than when it was new. But back in 1969 and throughout the '70's, it was just another car.

Or how about the Gasser-influenced flip front 1940 Ford that Glen Krapff has owned for decades? He purchased it for a mere $50 bucks back in November 1962. The dash and interior paint is still original. The seats are from a 1966 GTO that was wrecked in 1969. They've never been recovered. The exterior paint was applied in 1971 - looking good with just a little fading. The blown big block Chevy has been in the family for over 30 years. Still crankin' thank you very much. And no, this is not a low-mileage, rarely driven rig; it has well over 100,000 miles... way over.

Now that I think about it, I was on Racing Junk earlier today. I saw this nice '32 5-window street rod with an East Coast style channel and no-chop roof. Literally turn key. Maybe I could convince my wife that this hot rod could the next "unsung hero" in the stable. I didn't think so either...

Until next time, peace out.
Dave