![]() Posts: 431 Re: Altered Wheelbase Picture ThreadĬalling the "High & Mighty" and the #813 cars that had pics posted an AWB car is not correct." ->Only someone who crawled out from under a rock would call Ditmar's Lil' Screamer the #813 carīy the way, Ditmar's Lil' Screamer won B/A at the same '65 NHRA Nationals where many of the AWB cars ran in a variety of non-A/FX classes. Feel free to keep on believing you know something. In essence, trying to equate a particular modification (altered wheelbase) with a particular class and era of cars (A/FX of mid '60s) is just as naive as the newb's who call everything with a straight axle a "gasser". They became match race and exhibition cars. In fact the AWB cars were banned by NHRA from A/FX and many later ran at NHRA events I attended as altereds, some even in dragster classes. ![]() Mazooma and Maxwell are trying to equate a modification with a particular class and era. '" The old man was 70, David was 66 but kept that little bit of info to himself when he made the deal.There was never an Altered Wheelbase class in NHRA, AHRA, etc. The following June, on Father's Day, Cora handed me the money and said, 'Happy Father's Day!' The old man told me on the phone, 'I have to sell this car to someone younger than me, it can't be driven again, it can't ever be dismantled, and the history can't be lost. He wanted $8,500 for it, but I couldn't afford it. "In 2003, a fellow in Illinois sent me a picture of the car after hearing I collected old drag cars. "It went through a series of owners, all in the same car club, and was last raced in 1964-160-something in the low 9s." The story of how Dave came to own the car sums up the museum-and Dave-perfectly. It originally had a 392 Hemi with 4:71 and a two-port Hilborn injector. Those didn't work, and everybody changed them over to a spring," Dave says. "It was originally a biscuit-front chassis, with no spring up front. Dick was known as a tuner and racer Jay went on to become Mr. This car was originally built in 1958-1959 by Jay Orberg and Dick Stevens in Monmouth, Illinois. I was always thinking-even back then-about having a museum one day." "That's when I got an idea-there was a model car made of it, so I went to the store, bought a kit, came home, and had instructions on how to build my car! I had it put together in a day!" How many people can say they owned a car AMT or ERTL made instructions for? "Even then, I knew the car was something significant, so I made sure not to cut it up or do anything to it that couldn't be undone. I bought it in pieces in an alley in Detroit for $500 (all legal)." Dave hauled the pieces home in the back of his truck and then spent a long time trying to figure out how it went together. "It was a Woody Gilmore chassis and was the very first dragster to run a 426 Hemi. Dave ran the Chassis Research car for a number of years, and then in 1973, after front engine diggers were obsolete in the pro ranks, he bought one of the most significant drag cars ever: the original Ramchargers rail. "It was a nice car and a lot of fun." We can only imagine. "Īfter the Altered, Dave bought a Chassis Research frame and dropped a 413 Chrysler wedge in it, then replaced that with an injected 426-Wedge and shorty TorqueFlite. "I always wanted a black car, and this one was straight. After I loaded it up, he came out with a brand-new Bob's Drag Chute and brand-new Moon fuel tank." The body was so good, Dave painted it black rather than the metalflake green. Amazingly, the American magnesium wheels didn't suffer from all that time in the elements. Finally, he called me and asked if I was interested in the car, I said I sure was, and he said come get it. It's on a Model A frame, shortened to 91 inches, and has a '55-'57 Chevy rear with 5.38 gears. It was metalflake green, but all the paint was sitting on the ground. It sat out in the pine trees for 25 years, and he kept telling me he was going to fix it up one day. He'd push it into the garage, she'd push it back out and park her car there. The guy bought it probably 30 years ago, but he was so (ahem) 'whipped,' his wife wouldn't let him bring it in and work on it. It was sitting in a guy's yard on a back road halfway between Battle Creek and Kalamazoo.
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