You Look A Little Funny...

Last week we took a very brief look at the more traditional Gasser-class race car. What started as a very simple, often daily driven hot rod, morphed into an often super-charged, nitro-fed animal that easily broke the 9-second barrier. This week, we're going to take a brief look at another very popular, but even shorter lived step-child; the A/FX class race car, that took a similar road like the Gasser. There's almost some kind of magic in the abbreviation - A/FX; The FX portion stood for "Factory Experimental". The "A" stood for the racing class the vehicle competed in, as there were also "B" and "C" classes depending on the vehicle weight to engine cubic inches. FX cars were also the birth of the Funny Car as we know it today.

In 1962, the NHRA created the class in an effort to deal with the big-three manufacturers releasing (or potentially releasing) high performance parts that were not in regular production or "assembly line produced". For example, a year earlier, Chevy released the infamous 409 cubic inch V-8; Chevy only produced approximately 142 assembly line built Impala's, Bel-Air's, and Biscayne's optioned with the 409 for 1961. However, the engine had been installed in more Chevy's by dealers and racers, than were ever produced at the factory. The NHRA was not going to have that happen in 1962. They were prepared to maintain that Super Stock cars had to be built "in quantity" at the factory on the assembly line. In order to deal with the discrepancy between "stock parts" and "special equipment" the Factory Experimental class was born.

The NHRA rulebook for 1962 listed the FX class rules right along side the Super Stock rules. Basically, the FX class was a "mix and match" combination of stock parts from one vehicle being used on another vehicle of the same name. For example, an engine from one vehicle (a Pontiac Catalina 421 engine for instance) could be mated with a much smaller and lighter Pontiac (a Tempest Le Mans). The same held true with transmissions, rear end housings and other drive-line components. But the important point to remember is that the engine transported from one model to the other model (the Pontiac 421 in this instance) still had to meet the same specs as if it were in the original Catalina model. It still had to be "Super Stock legal". Fiberglass or aluminum body parts were not legal in 1962, unless produced (or released) by the factory. Same for magnesium wheels. Wheelbases still needed to remain stock for the body used. Same for suspension. FX did permit a slightly larger tire to be used. The restrictions for the Super Stock class was a tire with at least two tread grooves and a width not to exceed 7-inches. Drag slicks were permitted in the Factory Experimental class, provided that they fit inside the original and unmodified rear wheel well tubs, and did not exceed 10-inches. 

The FX classes started gaining momentum and popularity by late 1962 and into 1963. The first big noise was when a Pontiac Tempest was fitted with a 421-inch Pontiac engine. This car was assembled by Hayden Proffitt and Lloyd Cox, working out of Mickey Thompson's shop in Long Beach, CA. But Pontiac was not alone. The same idea occurred to Jim Nelson and Dode Martin, the owners of the legendary Dragmaster Chassis company in San Diego who took the 413-inch S/S engine out of the Dodge sedan and installed it in the compact Dodge Lancer. In the Chevy camp, numerous racers installed small block Chevy V8 engines into Chevy II's but the rig just about everyone remembers is "Dyno" Don Nicholson's white Chevy II station wagon that he drove to victory in the B/FX class.

1964 was where we really started separating the FX cars from regular super stock cars. Ironically, it was Chrysler who blurred the lines of the Super Stock class and created an entirely new monster for A/FX; the altered wheelbase drag car. In order to gain more of an advantage over the Chevy Z-11 Impala's as well as 427 powered Ford Thunderbolt Fairlane's, Chrysler engineers move the wheelbase of their super stock cars forward by two percent. While numerous racers commenting on how "funny" the cars looked, the concept worked. The Mopar camp gained valuable traction by leaps and bounds and thus more wins.

As a result of altering the wheelbase, the resulting domino effect that occurred throughout that year and into 1965, was out of control. The NHRA could hardly keep up with the radical changes that were occurring on almost a monthly, if not weekly, basis. Nothing was sacred - everything from massively altered wheelbases, engine set-back, Hilborn injection, liberal use of lightweight aluminum, and gutted interiors were experimented with. "Factory" was quickly becoming a thing of the past in regards to FX. One of the more significant race cars from 1964 was the Sachs and Sons blown Mercury Comet. Driven by the famous Jack Chrisman, it was a major step in the evolution of a door-slammer into a Funny Car. During the Nationals that summer, officials were quite confused as to which class the car should race in. It was too radical for FX, it certainly wasn't a super stock vehicle, so they had it run in B/Fuel Dragster. While Chrisman was eliminated in the first round due to an obvious mismatch of a lightweight dragster verses a heavier brick-like Comet, Chrisman smoked the rear wheels the entire length of the quarter mile and still managed to post a mid-9 second run at 150+ mph. Needless to say, the crowd at Indy went absolutely wild.

By the end of 1965, drag racers and fans alike, especially along the west coast, regarded the funny car/FX cars as “circus” acts and not real race cars. Two more milestone vehicles that changed peoples opinions about them, while at the same time, officially put an end to the FX car and cemented the modern day Funny Car. The first car was the Mr. Norm’s Grand-Spaulding Dodge. When Norm Krause and Gary Dyer brought the ex-Roger Lindamood factory altered wheelbase car to Lions Dragway in Los Angeles in late 1965, the team was not known outside of the Midwest. Dyer ran 8.63 and it went down as one of the greatest runs in history. 

The second vehicle was "Dyno" Don Nicholson's 1966 Mercury Comet Eliminator I funny car. It was the first all-fiberglass body that was draped over a tube-chassis, similar to a dragster. Any resemblance to a stock vehicle was now completely gone and the metamorphosis to the funny car was complete.

Until next time, peace out.

Dave