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Click on any image to get the bigger picture |
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For this page, I decided to look at some artwork featuring Steve Green of John Woolfe Racing Cortina fame. Steve of course, races currently in his low-riding Mark One Cortina and has run in the sevens with the car. Back in the early '90s however, Steve was driving his all-steel Rover V8-powered version which was one of the most popular doorslammers around,
with it’s full trim and wheelstanding antics. |
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Steve went to the States and visited the Ford Motorsport people to see if they were interested in assistance and the car was thoroughly specced and priced up. It would have used a Jon Webster chassis and Jon was consulted to design a frame based on a wheelbase of around 106 to108 inches (Steve’s present car is 102 inches). I was commissioned to produce an artist's impression and this is how the car would have looked with a radically chopped body, rear wing and that big ‘ol blower poking out at the front! The car ultimately was not built since having priced it up, it was deemed too expensive. Shame eh? |
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In the mid '90s, Knut Soderquist was running what was to be his last nitro funny car until fairly recently. This is it as it appeared at Santa Pod, possibly at the Euro Finals on its last outing. Following this, Knut got into making carbon fibre components and then a lengthy involvement in Top Fuel cars which continues up to the present day. |
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In 1995, Knut Soderquist commissioned me to do the former Budweiser Dodge Daytona in Miller Pilsner colours as a potential sponsor. I thought the logos and colours had potential and the car came out well. Knut thought so too, as despite the deal not coming off, he adopted the colour scheme on the funny car pictured earlier. |
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Famed funny car veteran Tom Hoover was a Santa Pod regular but in the mid '80s he tried his hand at a Top Fuel car. I can’t remember the origins of the chassis but at the World Finals, Tom got after it with a couple of wheelstanding runs that had the car snaking up the track somewhat. I seem to recall hearing that the rear axle had come out of alignment which caused the errant passes. |
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The ever-popular rocker car legend Sammy Miller was always worth watching in his Vanishing Point Hydrogen Peroxide fuelled funny cars. Sammy had not been seen in a while and this is the Mustang bodied machine in the early '90s with vapour coming out of the rear nozzle before a run. |
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It was known that Sammy Miller would be returning to these shores as one of the main draws fro the 1994 Easter Thunderball meeting so I decided to make his Mustang a feature of the event T-shirt. I first established that the paint scheme on the car would be unchanged and I made a feature of the countdown that was done by the crowd before each run down the track. Back then, this was the only car capable of a 300 mph run down the quarter mile. |
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One of the earliest alcohol funny car entries was the Mustang II-bodied entry belonging to Mike Burt from Cheltenham. Powered by an early Hemi, the Iron Horse had its origins in the Keith Bartlett imported Slick Tricks racing car that seldom saw the track up to this point. |
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Laying down the now outlawed grip juice or ‘gorilla snot’ is Mick Hannis, the bother of Martin, who is with Doug and Joe Bond on their blown alky dragsters and altered respectively. |
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This is the Ford Thunderbird in Lenval colours, which is the sponsor Colin eventually ended up with. |
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Colin was using a VW LT articulated transporter which I scaled up properly. |
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Here is the car in action at Santa Pod with the unfortunately located Kebab stand in the background! Colin got some seven second runs out of the car and Jon Webster had a hand in the chassis. |
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Back in 1993, I did this Top Fuel proposal for Steve Read based on the then current Gillette shaving products colours. Steve of course now races in Top Fuel in Australia with much success, but back then he was still in Top Methanol Dragster. |
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There were no stickers available for Santa Pod back in 1992 and John who I did the T-shirts for, kept getting asked for them. I therefore did a design for two stickers, one with a Top Fuel car and this one featuring a funny car. The design was based on a generic Daytona body and was entirely hand drawn including all the lettering. I don’t think more than 1,000 were produced in all and they sold out quickly. |
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It was the early '90s when Top Methanol Dragster campaigner Jon Lovett approached me for some artwork based around a Top Fuel proposal. One of his selling points was his imposing Peterbilt tractor rig and I did it in Hot Wheels colours which would have looked good I’m sure. |
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This was Jon’s Top Fuel Dragster proposal, based around something like a 270-inch wheelbase car that was current at the time. I liked working with Jon as he tried hard despite being perilously short of cash and always paid in full. Conversely, another customer who I knew was loaded, always tried to do cut price deals for his art. Ain’t that always the way? |
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This is Mark Purslow in the injected alcohol Hemi-powered Flashback slingshot. Mark didn’t live far from Avon Park and was often to be found at meetings like the Hot Rod Drags. The car had bags of history, being based on the Stones Hemi Hunter and the DNA of the car can be found in Roy Wildings current machine with the same name. |
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Andy Kirk is known for his Rat Fink Camaro that runs with much success in Super Modified. The car is quite sophisticated now but has its origins in the Motorola backed Camaro of John Scott. This is the car on its last launch at Avon Park in the 90’s, though I’m not sure of the exact year. |
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The Camaro of John Scott got rather loose on this run at what is now Shakespeare County Raceway . . . . . . and this is what happened next. Unfortunately John made heavy contact with the barrier causing extensive front end damage and it would take a total rebuild to put it right. |
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All material on this site is copyright and should not be reproduced without permission |
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