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Roger Phillips photo
You've seen 'em, you've heard 'em, the gamest altered crew around - Marshall-Dickson Racing and their patriotic red, white and blue Oldsmobile-motored Anglia 'Good Vibrations'. Developed over a number of seasons in drag events up and down the country, Good Vibrations is one of the winningest competition altereds on the strip and crew members Tony and John Dickson and Roger Marshall have sunk something like £800 to keep it that way.
Top of their shopping list for '71 was a genuine B&M Blown Hydro heavy-duty super-shifter - that's to say a purpose-built four-speed competition auto trans with enough modifications to fly the car to the Moon. However, Marshall-Dickson Racing will settle for short trips down the strip and this season they're looking to do it under the 12.8 second best time so far. Best quarter-mile terminal speed for Good Vibrations has been clocked at 110mph, though John says he once wheeled to 143mph before running out of road and nerve.
Good Vibrations' trick paintjob came from the mind of Colourtune Spray man Phil Ritchie of Hastings, while most of the weight-saving mods to the '52 Anglia shell were completed by the team themselves. In addition to aluminium boot and roof panels the car features a one-piece tilt front end in glass fibre. Most of the original E93A's frame is still in attendance, but considerable strengthening work was required to handle the hi-performance hardware.
The Olds mill is a 394-cube Rocket, carrying a Crane cam, Federal-Mogul bearings and Perfect Circle rings, in addition to stock hardware balanced by Jack Pollard, of Forest Hill, London. Fuel (pump gas) is provided by an AFB Carter, while the oil - Duckhams Q20/50 and Wynns - is filtered courtesy of PurOlator.
Good Vibrations' rear end is also an Oldsmobile unit - with 3.47 gears - and off-the-line traction is in the hands of Spax adjustable dampers and Firestone Indy race boots. Up front, a pair of G8 Goodyear skins.
Mike Lintern
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