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Click on any image to get the bigger picture |
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Money Hungry in the original form that it was imported from the States by the late Tony Dickson. |
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The Red E Jaguar E-type of Bob Oram seen in the pits at the Royal Naval Air Yard Wroughton. |
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Al's Gasser, Alan O'Connor's crowd pleasing, bouncing, wheelie pulling Ford Pop. I read somewhere that this car was in fact a conversion of the Motor Psycho competition altered back to the street class. |
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John Ledster's Big John Ford Mustang photographed in his front garden (a friend of mine lived nearby and put me on to it). I do hope he didn't mind - he wasn't called Big John for nothing! |
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If you shoehorn a 5000cc Chevrolet engine into a Mark 1 Ford Escort the result is 10 second runs. Those of you who look at the enlarged picture will see that the driver at the time this shot was taken was Dave Lee Travis (aka 'The Hairy Monster') a very popular Radio 1 DJ of the time. |
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This is the beautiful Satan's Toy Camaro Pro Stocker campaigned by Kevin Pilling. Kevin had previously run a competition altered car called Pure Seven very successfully. It's amazing what a difference a name makes, when preparing the image files for this page I left out an 'a' and almost renamed the car Stan's Toy - hasn't really got the same ring has it? |
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Gunne Back's Camaro More Frighten behind the start line at Silverstone. Gunne's previous car (which unfortunately pre-dated my photographic efforts) was a Corvette called Frighten Chicken which used to leave the line spectacularly with enormous rear weight transfer. |
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The highly entertaining Hemi Cuda belonging to the Rose Brothers doing its bit to dispose of rubber in a thoroughly ecological way. Static burn outs such as this were quite the thing at the time, I am impressed by how unconcerned the crewman seems with all that mayhem going on right in front of him! |
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This is the famous London Heavy of Colin Mullan which, with Brooklyn Heavy, re-wrote the Pro Stock record books at a stroke. After many attempts by numerous drivers to clock a sub-10 second run the two of them rattled nines off seemingly effortlessly. The car is pictured behind the start line at Silverstone doubtless about to severely re-adjust the strip record. |
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The other half of the Heavy partnership - Brooklyn this time. In contrast to the Rose Brothers' car above the crew seem to be having a real fight to keep the beast under control during its burn out. Thanks to both Nick Cleveland and Carl Kirk for reminding me that the driver was Adrian York. |
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Gary Goggin's Camaro Clunk Click in the pits at Santa Pod. The car's unusual name derived from an advertising campaign to encourage the wearing of front seat belts which had just then become compulsory. Gary was one of several who were pipped to a nine second run by the two Heavy cars. |
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Big John again, this time performing a hallmark smoky burn out behind the start line at Santa Pod. |
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Andy Barrack has written to tell me that Super Pumpkin was driven by Pete Devlin and was a '57 Chevy. Ricardo di Tomasso has also been in touch and tells me that he bought this car from Richard Smith in either 1974 or '75 and believes that he was the owner at the time that this picture was taken. If this is the case the car was fitted with a 440" wedge installed by his close friend Collin Mullen. |
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The Rose Brothers continuing their good work in rubber re-cycling, this time at Blackbushe. The car has now got a smart new paint job and has been named Cracklin' Rose. The crew man still seems to be taking it all in his stride but the NDRC start line marshal seems to be finding things a bit too noisy. |
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Peter Svensson's Salt & Peppar Volvo powered by a B20 engine. I recall this car was amazingly fast given the modest size of its engine and was constructed along Pro Stock lines. I am very grateful to Anders Olsson who has provided me with invaluable information on this and two of the other Swedish cars on this page. |
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Peter Crane is best known as the first man to run a five in a top fuel dragster outside the USA. He is seen here, very much the centre of attraction at Blackbushe, as he practices his skills in the Eazy Ridin' Camaro. |
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Jim Whiting's Silent Knight, an immaculate Austin A40, was quite rapid and capable of giving many of the much larger American cars a good race much to the chagrin of any of the American military who happened to be present. |
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Tony Dickson's Money Hungry has received considerable attention compared to the previous picture. Although not readily apparent in this shot there were pound notes stuck on the doors and lacquered in. |
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I am not entirely sure whether this car was an altered or a street class runner, however its here now. The owners were Pelle Lindelow and Gunnar Elmqvist who later competed in top fuel dragster as the P&G Racing team. The car is seen leaving the line at Snetterton. Pelle tells me that the car ran a best of 12.2 seconds and the prize money at this event was a princely £3 which was rounded up to a fiver because they liked the car! |
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The mighty 'Swedish Jeep' definitely was a street car as it was often driven to meetings. It was forced to run in the altered ranks over here because it was just so quick. Anyway, no point missing another opportunity to admire Svante Ericsson's amazing Hemi-powered creation is there? |
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