I cleaned up the photo a little, and gave Tom a copy at breakfast this morning... He really liked it!! Rod McCarrell asked him some questions regarding the car.... and here are the paraphrased responses... The body was designed by Tom Hanna, with some input from Tom and Skinner as to the overall look. They had Hanna do his deal first before the fist piece of pipe was ever cut. The reason? Because many people would weld together some monstrosity of a chassis, then take it to Hannas to try to be made into something beautiful. It didnt always work out well. Tom and Skinner figured make the car as beautiful as possible first, THEN, design and build the chassis to fit inside the cocoon... so thats what they did. It took some effort to pull off, parts of the 392 block needed to be ground away (Which is exactly what Tom Hanna needed to do on his own dragster , some 40 years later) and Tom said that the frame hugged the engine so closely that if it ever kicked the rods out, the frame tubing would surely get dented. It was also very narrow at the rear wheels ( to reduce the lever moment of one tire getting traction, and the other not) to make the car go straight. This left the cockpit somewhat cramped.... but still usable. They stole as many ideas as they could from Fuller, and made up the rest as they went along. Every lever and bracket was whittled from billet aluminum, not a common practice in 1966. The front axle has a beautiful bend to it that was inspired by the Stellings and Hampshire Red Stamp AA/FD car. Although it was delivered to the Bandels in raw aluminum, Tom envisioned it finished in a med. blue.. possibly metallic , with The Surfers lettered out in a gold / yellow to tie into the original scoop color. It sounded like the paint job The Blue Angles airplanes use. The engine was as good a motor as Skinner and Jobe could build... but even better as the Bandels were paying the bills ...it was all high dollar pieces. No junkyard blocks and $35 crankshafts.. this was all new stuff, from the pan up. Tom starred at the photo for a good, long while.... like seeing a photo of a old friend. I got the impression that he regretted not running the car himself, to see what the potential really was. To my knowledge the car never made 1 full, 100% pass. Right after this car was built, the wrinkly tire era started, so this chassis would have been quickly outdated.... but for a small period on time.... this was the pinnacle of spring clutch , stiff tire , un prepped track, fuel burning dragster. Such a beautiful car .... Thank you to Tom and Robert Skinner, for creating something so wonderful.
Posted on: Tue, 19 Aug 2014 23:05:34 +0000