Banshee Firebird arrived late for the 1968 Autorama. The owners are seen waiting for approval to move the car onto to the show floor. Note the snow underneath the car and the heavily-padded roll bar that extends through the roof.

I was in the basement loading dock at the 1968 Detroit Autorama, when these guys showed up with an injected Pontiac Firebird. The show was already open to the public and all of the other cars were set up in their displays.

Some of the officials pointed out that the owners had missed the deadline and attempted to prevent them from bringing the car into the auditorium. Cooler heads realized that the crowd was there to see cars, and the more cars the better. So the Firebird was allowed to join the other exhibits in the lower “overflow” area.

The Firebird looked to be freshly completed. The fact that the car arrived at Cobo Hall after the show opened to the public has always led me to believe the car was thrashed together to make the show.

The Pontiac was known as the Banshee. I’m not sure what class it was built for. It looks like a funny car, but it wouldn’t have been very competitive against the supercharged floppers on the match race circuit. It is possible it was intended for the NASCAR Ultra Stock class, where it would compete against cars like Wayne Gapp’s Super Cat Cougar.

One odd thing is the roll bar; which extends through the roof. What’s the deal with Pontiacs with the driver’s head above the roof line? We’ve already looked at Dick Jesse’s chopped GTO. The Banshee would be the second Pontiac at the same show with this configuration.

It is possible that Jesse had input into this car’s construction. If you were from the Detroit area and were intent on building a Pontiac funny car, you would almost certainly talk things over with Dick Jesse. Perhaps Mr. Unswitchable suggested the roll bar above the roof design?

I assume from the arrangement of the injector stacks, that there is a Pontiac V-8 under the hood. The other injected engines I am familiar with typically lined the stacks up in neat rows.

The name Banshee is a reference to the code name for the Firebird. Not long after rumors started to spread that Chevrolet was developing the Camaro, we heard that Pontiac wanted in on the “pony car” action. The automotive press announced the new Pontiac would be called the Banshee and Pontiac even displayed a Banshee concept car on the show car circuit.

Shortly before the Banshee was to be released, however, Pontiac abruptly announced that their Mustang fighter would be known as the Pontiac Firebird.

Apparently someone at Pontiac did a little research and discovered that Banshee is a Scottish term for “Wailing Death Spirit.” You have to remember that there was no Google and no internet back then. Seeking out information such as this required much more effort in 1967.

The management at Pontiac always tended to free-spirited, but even they realized that you don’t offer a car named after a death spirit. So exit the Pontiac Banshee and enter the Pontiac Firebird.

Of course that is the story I heard. Wikipedia suggests that Pontiac didn’t want to pay Eugene Lally for the naming rights. That could be true, but the death spirit story is the one we heard back in 1967.

The builders of this Firebird chose Banshee for their drag racing name. Unfortunately, I can’t tell you who owned, built and drove the little Banshee. Can someone step up and provide more details on this injected Firebird?

Another shot of the Banshee in the Cobo Hall loading dock.

<a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/32698815@N04/6743729075/” title=”banshee-431 by TomBonner, on Flickr”><img src=”http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7011/6743729075_1b5710fa6d.jpg” width=”496″ height=”500″ alt=”banshee-431″></a>

 

Wayne Gapp got it done in 1968 with this gasoline Cougar Funny Car.

The last time we looked at Wayne Gapp, he was still running the Chargin’ Cyclone for the Hi-Risers. For 1968, however, Gapp went out on his own, campaigning the new Super Cat Mercury Cougar.

Gapp’s Cougar was another race car on display at the 1968 Detroit Autorama. Although flip-top funny cars were becoming the de-facto standard, Gapp’s new ride adopted the familiar tilt-forward front clip on a stock appearing factory shell.

When nearly all his contemporaries were embracing nitro and superchargers, Gapp bucked the system by building a new, gasoline powered funny car. The Cougar relied on the tried and true injected SOHC Ford 427, mounted in a tube frame. You cannot see them in this photo, but the injector tubes punched through the hood and were nearly as high as the car’s roof. I cannot say whether the body was shell was steel or fiberglass. I suspect it was a mixture of both.

Although the fuel cars grabbed most of the headlines in ’68, the Super Cat was very successful. NASCAR was still sanctioning drag races in 1968, and Gapp walked off with the NASCAR Winternationals gas funny car crown. He won class or eliminator titles at several other events as well. In addition, Gapp and the Super Cat engaged in match racing with other gas funny cars.

You can read more about the and find additional Super Cat photos on Gapp Online, Jeff Gapp’s web tribute to his father.

According to FordMercuryCougarXR7.com the Cougar was eventually sold to John Skitmas, who continued to campaign the car under the Super Cat name. Gapp acquired Pete Gate’s old Comet flopper, equipped it with a fiberglass “68 Mustang shell and replaced the Cammer with an injected Boss 429 Ford running gasoline. Daryl Huffman now owns the body shell and has done a wonderful restoration of the Pete Gates “Gate Job” Comet using the original chassis. I have no word about the whereabouts of the Super Cat in 2012.

 

Another B/G entry at the 1968 Autorama was the Dennett Brothers and their modern 1965 Chevelle gasser.

Another gasser at the 1968 Detroit Autorama was this sanitary 1965 Chevelle.

Although I preferred the traditional Willys and Anglia gassers, there is no denying the Dennett Brothers B/G Chevelle was a head turner. Built from a 1965 Chevelle, the Psycho was powered by a fuel injected, 440 CI rat motor.

According to Draglist, the Westland, Michigan based Chevelle achieved a best of 10.19 at 135mph, which was hauling for a B/Gas coupe in the late ’60s. I wonder if the Dennett Brothers ever faced off with the Buckpasser Willys that I talked about a few weeks ago. The Buckpasser also ran B/G, so it wouldn’t be surprising if the Dennett gang tangled with the Ohio based Buckpasser at some point.

It appears that the brothers took turns driving the Psycho, as Dennett Brothers is painted on the doors where the driver’s name usually appears.

The team eventually moved on to fuel funny cars, fielding a slippery blown Corvette, also known as Psycho. Ken Dennett was the principle driver for the funny car.

Front 3/4 view shows 1965 Chevelle grille with inner headlights removed and tall ram tube injectors stabbing through the hood.

 

The Chevrolet Big Block V-8 is affectionately known as the rat motor to Chevy high performance fans.

One of the displays at the 1868 Detroit Autorama was this jewel-like big-block Chevy, AKA the Rat Motor. How did the big Chevy come to be known as a rat?

To a hot rodder or racer any Chevrolet big block V-8 is a rat motor. The slang term goes back over four decades and few enthusiasts will use any other term to identify the big Chevy power-plant.

Generally, the expression rat is less than complimentary. From James Cagney’s famous line “…that dirty, double-crossin’ rat” to the much-maligned rat finks of the fifties, calling someone or something a rat is the ultimate insult. When something is old, used up and falling apart, it is “ratty.”

The Chevrolet big block is a marvel of engineering and is the most powerful automotive engine ever mass-produced by General Motors. How did such a masterpiece of automotive design come to known-by the unsavory term of rat?

In the early 1960s, long before the first rat motor was introduced, a David and Goliath confrontation was taking place on the nation’s dragstrips. The Chrysler Hemi had become the dominate force in the Top Fuel and Top Gas categories, gradually replacing the Cadillac, Lincoln on Oldsmobile engines that previously controlled these categories.

The early Chrysler Hemi: Elephant Motor

While the Chrysler Hemi produced gobs of power, it was also physically larger and heavier than other V8 engines. The huge V-8 quickly earned the soubriquet of Elephant motor due to it’s size. An elephant motor with a GMC supercharger looked amazingly huge when installed in the typical tube frame sling-shot dragster chassis. It was enormous.

Although the big elephants were the de-facto standard in Top Fuel, there was another engine that could hold its own against the hemi. Many chose to run the legendary small-block Chevy in their dragsters. As often as not, they didn’t bother with a supercharger, preferring a simple set of injectors.

On paper it was an unequal contest. The blown hemi was far more powerful than the miniscule Chevy, and it seemed that the Chevy didn’t have prayer against the Chrysler in a quarter-mile sprint.

The Chevy, however, did have an edge. Tire-technology, or rather the lack of tire technology was on the Chevy’s side.

While the big elephant motors developed a huge amount of horsepower, the tires of the day were unequal to the task of delivering that power to the asphalt. As a result, much of that power went up in smoke, as the big Chrysler rails burned the tires almost the full length of the drags-tip.

The Chevrolet powered rails could burn their tires as well, but their lower power allowed the tires to hook up and gain traction while the big hemis were still spinning their wheels. The combination less wheelspin, lighter overall weight and higher RPMs allowed the little Chevy powered cars to be competitive and often best the more powerful hemis.

Enter the Chevy Mouse Motor

While the hemi teams weren’t actually afraid of the little Chevy dragsters, the small blocks tended to make them more than a little nervous. There was no shame for a blown hemi machine to lose to another blown hemi, but it was positively embarrassing to lose to the much smaller Chevy.

Some wag remembered the fable that the only creatures elephants are afraid of are mice, and started referring to the small Chevy as the mouse motor. Thus the elephant and mouse motors vied for racing honors on dragstrips throughout the country.

The mouse motor’s role as elephant-killer was short lived. Tire and clutch engineers continued to expand their technology, and the big elephants were eventually able to deliver more power to the track. By the early sixties, the mouse motor could no longer plague the big Chryslers in the Top Eliminator ranks. The small block Chevy was still hugely popular in the altered, gas coupe and modified classes. Even though it seldom ran against the big elephant motors any longer, the engine was still known as the mouse motor.

During that period, Chevrolet and General Motors were following a strict non-involvement policy toward auto racing. It is well known that many GM engineers didn’t agree with this policy, and flaunted the official stance by helping various race teams without management’s knowledge or approval.

The Mystery Engine

Legend has it that during the early sixties, certain Chevy drivers showed up at the race track with a strange new engine under the hood of their race cars. It wasn’t a mouse motor, and it wasn’t the big 409 V-8 that the Beach Boys immortalized in song. It was a mysterious, all new Chevy V-8.

The mystery only lasted a short while, as in 1965, Chevrolet formally announced a new big block V8. Available first as a 396 cubic inch version, the engine eventually evolved to displacements of 402, 427 and 454 CI. Eventually, enthusiasts could buy a 572 cubic inch crate motor based on the same engine block.

Even after the engine was introduced, many people still continued to refer to it as the mystery engine. When the valve covers were removed, hot rodders noticed that, unlike the mouse motor which had the valve stems neatly lined up in a row, the valves in the new engine were canted at various angles. Because of this, the engine also gained the nick-name of the porcupine V8. When engine builders started modifying the engine for racing, they noted that the cylinder heads had a somewhat hemispherical design. The engine wasn’t a true hemi, but it wasn’t exactly a wedge head, either. Thus the engine earned another name: the semi-hemi.

Look at photos of Chevrolet race cars from the era, and you find many examples of cars with the terms Mystery Engine or Semi Hemi painted on the hood.

The Rat Motor, big brother to the Mouse

For most rodders and racers, however, there was only one legitimate moniker for the new engine. If the small Chevy V-8 was a mouse motor, it’s bigger, more powerful, fiercer sibling could only be a RAT motor.

The name has stuck. Today, only old school hot rodders and nostalgia buffs still employ the terms mouse motor and elephant motor. The name rat motor, however, is still universally used to describe the big block Chevy V8. Far from being a derogatory term, the expression rat motor is much-loved by Chevy fans and is used as a title of respect even by those who build and race other brands.

And that is how the Chevy V-8 became known as a rat motor.

 

Not many funny car drivers were positioned above the roof of their race cars, but that is exactly how Dick Jesse drove the 1967 version of his Mr. Unswitchable Pontiac GTO. In case anyone was wondering, the car was Pontiac powered.

Pay no attention to the man poking through this GTO’s roof. It’s just Dick Jesse and his “slightly” chopped Mr. Unswitchable extreme funny car.

When we last saw Jesse, he was running an altered wheelbase 1965 GTO, which was also known as Mr. Unswitchable. The ’65 edition was one of the earliest independent match racers and Jesse kept the heavy goat competitive as long as he could, adding a supercharger to the Pontiac 421.

Jesse built this ultra-radical GTO for the 1967 season. Starting with a brand-new 1967 GTO fresh from a Pontiac showroom, Jesse built a tube frame, altered the wheelbase and replaced the hood, front fenders and doors with light-weight fiberglass. The only sheet metal retained from the original GTO was the roof and rear quarter panels.

Of course there is the issue of the major chopped top. The front of the roof was dropped 13 inches and the rear B pillars were shortened by 7 inches. The result is a steeply raked roof line. Car Craft magazine quickly dubbed the car the Slant Roof GTO.

Even with the radical chopped top, the car was still recognizable as a Pontiac GTO. However, Jesse no longer fit inside the car. He constructed a raised platform so he could drive with his head and shoulders protruding through the roof. The figure in this photo is only a mannequin dressed in a firesuit for the car show. But that is where Jesse would be seated on his quarter mile passes.

To be honest, I didn’t care for Jesse’s attempt at pushing the boundaries of the budding match race ranks. As a funny car, it was too radical for my taste. As an unlimited drag car, however, I thought it was great.

Let me explain. To me, funny cars were supposed to be all out race cars that looked like the cars you could buy at the local dealer. They were supposed to resemble the car you drove, or the car your father drove or the car your neighbor parked in their driveway. No one I knew drove around with his head sticking out the roof of the car, making the slant-roof GTO too extreme to be considered a true funny car.

As an unlimited drag car, however, Jesse’s concept harkened back to many of the forerunners of the sport. Go back and watch the Ingenuity In Action movie. Take a good look at some of the cars running in the unlimited classes at the 1959 US Nationals. Unlike today, where all Top Fuel dragsters look basically the same, Top Eliminator was made up of a varied assortment of strange and exotic race cars. The Pontiac GTO didn’t come out until 1965, but if Jesse had cobbled up a ’59 Bonnevelle in the same way as his ’67 GTO he would have been right at home running for Top Eliminator in 1959.

Which brings me to another minor mystery. The extreme GTO was featured in the January 1967 issue of Car Craft magazine. Jesse actually built the slammed goat in late 1966. So how is that both times I saw Mr. Unswitchable in 1967, Jesse was the running the older 1965 GTO?

Jesse had the ’65 Goat at the 1967 Autorama and he also drove the mash-bash car at the Detroit Dragway Midwest Championships in May of the same year. The question is, if Jesse had the swoopy tubular frame slant roof GTO available, why did he continue to run the heavier, less competitive altered wheelbase Pontiac?

I can think of three possible explanations.

Maybe Jesse never intended the chopped car to be his principle racing machine. With his head poking through the roof, it is possible the new car was intended to be an exhibition machine, and Jesse kept the older mash bash car for funny car racing. Not sure that makes sense, as the old car was seriously outdated. It would make more sense to simply build a flopper and leave the exhibition runs to wheelstanders.

A second explanation could be that the slant roof machine was damaged in late ’66 or early ’67. A crash or fire could have sidelined the new car forcing Jesse to put his old ride back in competition until he could get the ’67 car repaired. I never heard of any incident involving the chopped roof car, but that wouldn’t be surprising considering the frenzied pace of match racing. During that era, you could find match races scheduled nearly every day of the week. It’s not inconceivable that the chopped GTO was put out of action for a time after a wreck at some small out of the way track.

My final theory is that it simply took time to get the radical car sorted out. It wouldn’t be the first time that someone developed a revolutionary race car that needed extensive massaging to get running well. Maybe Jesse took most of 1967 to get the new car dialed in so it would run straight and true. It is possible that in-between tuning sessions with the new car he continued to race the old ’65 machine.

Which car did Jesse drive at the US Nationals in Indianapolis in 1967? Mr. Unswitchable captured C/Altered honors at the Nationals that year. There was a funny car eliminator at the ’67 Nationals, but Jesse’s old GTO wouldn’ t have been competitive against the lightweight tube frame cars. NHRA probably wouldn’t allow a car with the driver sticking out the roof in Funny Car, so Jesse could have ran as a C/A with either car. Anyone remember?

There is usually some Dick Jesse memorabilia available on eBay.

I have one final question. What happened to the slant-roof Mr. Unswitchable after 1968? Less exotic cars could change hands and continue to race under a new owner without being recognized. A car this radical, however couldn’t be disguised with a some paint and body work. The driver position would make it impossible to conceal the car’s original identity. So what happened? Where is the GTO now?

 

Pretty little B/G Willys Coupe: The Buckpasser appeared at the 1968 Detroit Autorama at Cobo Hall.

Fortunately, Google is our friend. Typing “Buckpasser Willys” in the search field in Google resulted in a large page of gasser photos on the site called Gasser Madness.

There I found a photo of the Willys at National Trail Raceway, along with the information the car ran in the B/Gas category and was campaigned by “Tinney and Tignanelli.”

There is no mention of first name for either member of the team.

A little research revealed that Tom Tignanelli was the driver of the UFO Altered Wheelbase Plymouth Fury in the mid-sixties. I never saw the UFO run, but in the sixties, I did see numerous photos of the A/FXer in various racing magazines. The car was owned by the Tignanelli Brothers and also carried Shadowoods Auto Center sponsorship.

So which of the Tignanelli brothers was partner with “Tinny” on this gasser?

B/Gas indicates the car was normally aspirated. Supercharged gassers were indicated by a double class letter or by a “s” after the eliminator designation. The top gassers competed in A/GS or AA/G, depending on the sanctioning body.

A B/G car would have a less powerful engine with either injectors or carburetors. I can’t say what engine is under the Buckpasser’s hood, but I would guess it is a small block V-8 of some sort. The small block Chevy was extremely popular for this kind of work, but the Tignanelli’s seem to favor Mopar powerplants. I’m only guessing but I think the car probably had some sort of high winding Dodge or Plymouth small block V-8.

I think the three guys setting up the display in the background are interesting. This photo must have been shot on Friday night, right after the three-day show opened to the public. Note the rag protecting the paint where the hood closes has yet to be removed. These guys are thrashing to get the display set up, even as the crowds pour in.

Shot in 1968, no one in this photo had ever heard of the internet, or the personal computer for that matter. The only computers were in gunnery control centers on battleships and huge mainframes used in a limited number of financial institutions. These men could hardly guess that some teenager would snap a photo of them struggling with the display stands and that more than forty years later their image would be on the world-wide web for all to see.

We live in a magical age, indeed.

Anyone have anything to add about this Willys gasser?

 

Connie Kalitta's simple but fearsome front engine Ford powered dragster at the 1968 Autorama in Detroit.

Connie Kalitta had his Ford SOHC Top Fuel car on display at the 1968 Autorama. It’s amazing how simple this rig looks. Slingshot dragster chassis, with a minimum of body work and a huge Ford V-8 mounted in front of the driver.

This isn’t some cut-away display car, it is the complete dragster, ready to race. The chassis is from Logghe Stamping Company, and Kalitta carried the LSC sponsorship in 1968.

Kalitta was a Michigan native, and he gained fame (and fortune) campaigning his famous series of “Bounty Hunter” top fuel cars. Kalitta painted the names of all the big stars in the AA/FD ranks on the side of his cars. With great ceremony, he crossed the names off one-by-one after he defeated them in match races. This gimmick made him extremely popular with drag racing fans throughout the country.

Of course the Bounty-Hunter gig could only work if Kalitta could actually win against the drivers he displayed on his car. That wasn’t a problem, as Kalitta was a fairly consistent winner, both as a match-racer and in national event competition.

Like almost everyone else in the Top Fuel ranks, Kalitta started out running a 392 Chrysler power plant. Ford had originally created the SOHC V-8 to run in NASCAR stock cars. When NASCAR banned the big V-8 from the high-bank ovals, Ford had a surplus of ‘cammers available. Ford offered engines to several highly ranked dragster teams, including Greer-Black-Prudhomme and “Sneaky” Pete Robinson.

Kalitta was also on the receiving end of the Ford deal, and he made it well worth Ford’s sponsorship by winning the 1967 NHRA, AHRA and NASCAR Winternationals with the ‘cammer powered rail. The Ford powered version of the Bounty-Hunter continued to rack-up match race wins a well, making the Bounty Hunter name feared from coast to coast.

Besides being quite simple, notice the rear slicks on this car. Compared to the monstrous tires used on current top fuel dragsters, these slicks look fairly tame, but they were state-of-the-art in ’68.

Kalitta, of course, would go on to further fame and fortune, and he is still active as a team owner today. He no longer drives, and his current rear-engine dragsters are a far cry from this spartan rail from 1968. One thing hasn’t changed however. The Bounty Hunter is still collecting bounties.

 

It may look stock, but Dave Zackary campaigned this all steel, flip-top Eldorado Funny Car

Dave Zackary decided the drag racing world needed at least one Cadillac funny car. To that end, he created this one-of-a-kind Eldorado flopper.

Since no one offered a fiberglass Eldo body shell, Zackary created his own one-piece body by welding together stock Cadillac sheet metal components. The resulting body was said to be much heavier than the fiberglass shells decorating his competitors, but Zackary could still boast he ran the quickest and fastest Cadillac Eldorado in the world.

Zackary also built the chassis, utilizing square tubing. The chassis rails consisted of long, straight pieces of tubing, only interrupted by a small dragster-style roll bar.

For power, Zackary started with an injected Chevy “rat-motor.” The heavy, steel body rendered that set-up uncompetitive, so Zackary upgraded to a blower, eventually trading the Chevy for a full-tilt Keith-Black Hemi.

Zackary displayed the Caddy at the ’68 Detroit Autorama, where I shot these photos. As you can see the Eldorado looks completely stock, with the exception of the blower poking through the hood.

I’m not sure which engine Zackary was running at the time, as they never raised the body while I was around. In addition to the oddity of being a Cadillac flip-top with a steel shell, the car was also noteworthy because the body was hinged at the front and raised from the rear.

Sadly, we will never know if Zackary could have made the Eldorado competitive against the ‘glass Comets, Mustangs, Novas and Barracudas that dominated the funny car scene in 1968. In September of that year, Zackary was killed when the car went out of control on a full throttle run at Lexington, Kentucky.

According to Dragstripdeaths, the Eldorado barrel-rolled in the lights. Reportedly, the roll bar failed and Zachary did not survive the crash.

Thus ended the life of the colorful figure who conceived the idea of a steel bodied, fliptop Eledorado funny car.

 

Funny cars with Mustang Notchback body shells are fairly rare, but Paul Stefansky chose a notchback for his Boss Hoss fuel funny car

Last time around I explored Another Mustang Funny Car Mystery, in which I looked at an under construction car that looked suspiciously like Paul Stefansky’s Notch-back Mustang flopper.

Thanks to input from Daryl Huffman, we now know the car in question belonged to Tom Stanke and that the bodies on both Stanke’s car and the Boss Hoss came from Ford Styling. Ford used fiberglass mockups to demo the Mustang before the actual metal cars were built. According to Huffman (who knows more than a little about 1960s-era Ford and Mercury funny cars) Stefanky purchased the body shell for the Boss Hoss directly from Lee Iacocca.

If you compare this 1968 Detroit Autorama photo of the Boss Hoss with that of Stanke’s car, you will see that while the body shells are similar, the chassis are very different.

The chassis of the Boss Hoss appears to be a Logghe Brothers ladder frame, or at least a similar design. Power comes from an injected Ford SOHC V-8, the same power-plant used by the dominant Mercury Comets of Don Nicholson and Eddie Schartman in 1968.

I don’t know whether Stefansky ever converted the Boss Hoss to a supercharger, as most of his contempories did during the ’68 season. Stefansky did switch to a blown cammer for the sleek fastback Super Stang he campainged in later years.

Note that Stefansky’s car, like the other fuel cars of the period, lacked up-swept headers. Zoomie headers, designed to increase down force and increase traction, had yet to become popular.

The Boss Hoss has a full roll-cage. The original 1966 Logghe flip-top cars had dragster-style loop roll bars. At some point, NHRA and other sanctioning bodies mandated that funny cars be equipped with full four-point roll cages. Even before the new rules were enacted, however, many builders and competitors adopted the safer rollcage design. Stefansky was prepared with a complete roll cage.

I saw the Boss Hoss run at least a couple of times. His later ride, the Super Stang, was beautiful, swoopy Mustang fastback. I missed the notchback design, however. In a sea of fastback Mustang funny cars, Stefansky’s Boss Hoss always stood out from the herd.

 

This Mustang appeared briefly at North Brother's Ford in 1967. Who built it and what became of it?

Note: additional photos at the bottom of the post

What is about Mustang funny cars? Not too long ago, with the help of several Vintage-Nitro readers, I explored and solved the Mystery of the Competition + Mustang, which I believe is the original flip-top Mustang funny car. Going through my photo archives, I have discovered another mysterious Mustang flopper. Hopefully a reader will step forward to provide the story behind the strange case of the North Brothers Mustang.

In the fall of 1967, I was relaxing after a day of High School when one of my friends came over with some tantalizing news: “My brother was just up at North Brothers Ford. They’re building a flip-top funny car in the service area!”

I was skeptical. North Brothers was the local Ford dealership in Garden City, Michigan. If someone asked you to name a high performance Ford dealership in the lower Detroit area, you would probably think of Splitter-Demmer or Stark Hickey Ford — both of which had their names plastered on local race cars. North Brothers  sold muscle cars, of course. Heck in 1967, even the Rambler dealerships sold muscle cars. But North Brothers didn’t typically delve too deeply into racing, especially at the funny car level.

Are they really building a Funny Car at North Brothers?

Still, we had to check this story out. None of my friends could drive, but at the time, North Brothers was less than a mile away. (Since then, the dealership, which is till active, moved a mile or so west of the location they used in 1967.) Heading out the door for the hike to Ford road, I grabbed my trusty Kodak Instamatic 104, in case there was indeed a funny car at the dealership.

It was a crisp, fall day, and it only took twenty or so minutes to walk to the dealership. The service bay doors were open because of the nice weather, and sure enough, there was a primered, notch-back Mustang flopper sitting silently inside one of the bays.

The car was obviously still under construction, with a roller chassis and a bare-block between the chassis rails. Still, it was an honest to goodness, flip-top Mustang. There was no indication of the owner or builder.

It was apparently a slow day at the dealership. There were a few cars in for service, but there weren’t any mechanics working on them. The service manager was behind a counter,  reading a newspaper.  He just shook his head when I asked him if he knew anything about the fiberglass Mustang. I didn’t believe he was telling the truth then and I still doubt it today.

Remember, there were only a handful of flip-top funny cars in 1967, so a Mustang flopper was something quite out of the ordinary. If you spent your days scheduling oil changes and tuneups, don’t you think the appearance of a flip-top Mustang might just peak your interest? My guess is he didn’t want a bunch of kids hanging around, so he denied any knowledge of the Mustang.

So what became of this Mustang Funny Car?

That was the end of the story. A couple of days afterward, several of us walked back to North Brothers again, hoping to see some progress on the flopper. There was no sign of the car anywhere. Almost 44 years after that sighting at North Brothers, I still don’t who was building the Mustang or what became of it.

Right about  now some of you are jumping up, saying “I know. I know. It’s Paul Stefansky’s Boss Hoss Mustang!” And you would be wrong. Or at least partially wrong.

Not Stefansky’s Boss Hoss; chassis does not match

Stefansky is a good guess, because the body of the Stefansky and Hatton car and the shell of the North Brothers Mustang are virtual clones. Stefansky ran a rare notch-back Mustang, rather than the more common fast-back. Both Stefansky and partner Paul Hatton have links to Garden City, Michigan, which matches the North Brothers location. But there is a major problem. The chassis is all wrong.

These photos were taken in September or October of 1967. I also have photos of the brand new Boss Hoss at the 1968 Detroit Autorama — three or four months afterwards. Stefansky’s Boss Hoss is riding on either a Logghe Chassis or a close facsimile of one. In contrast, the chassis on the North Brothers’ Mustang looks like a welding shop special.

A Logghe chassis was state of the art in ’67 and consisted of consistent diameter top and bottom round tubing with “ladder frame” uprights. This car appears to have large square rails on top, with lower rails of smaller diameter round tubing. The front couple of feet of the chassis morph into thinner diameter round tubing to support the suspension. This is definitely not a Logghe style design. In addition, Stefansky’s car featured a full roll cage, while the North Brothers car appears to have a dragster-style loop behind the driver.

So while the body shell on Stefansky’s funny car and the North Brothers Mustang are carbon copies, the chassis rails are decidedly different.

Let the guessing begin

I can think of three scenarios about the car in the photos.

The first is that this car has nothing to do with Stepaahnski and Hatton. The body shell probably came out of the same mold, but that is the only similarity between the two cars.  Perhaps the car raced locally and did not achieve much success. Maybe it was never finished. Maybe if you peek under a tarp inside a barn somewhere in South-Eastern Michigan, you’ll find a decaying fiberglass shell riding draped over some rusty chassis rails.

The second scenario is that Stefansky and Hatton built the car with this chassis, then decided to switch to a Logghe model before the car was finished. Maybe they actually ran the car and discovered the chassis did not run straight. Maybe some other racer talked them in to switching to a L0gghe chassis. Maybe rule changes made this chassis, without a full role cage, illegal. Whatever, it is possible that between the time these I took these photos and the debut of the Boss Hoss at Autorama, Stefansky swiched to a Logghe style chassis.

The final scenario is that someone got a good start on a home-made funny car, but couldn’t complete it. They might have lost interest, got married, got divorced,  lost their job, run out of money, got drafted; there a thousand reasons while someone would sell a race car before it is complete. Perhaps this car was put up for sale and Stefansky or Hatton decided the body shell would be perfect for the Ford funny car they were building. So they bought just the body and adapted it to a Logghe style chassis.

After 44 years, I still don’t know who built this funny car

After 44 years, I still know next to nothing about this mysterious fiberglass Mustang. Hopefully, somewhere in cyberspace a reader remembers this car and can tell us what became of it. I would love to hear from you!

Somewhat bizarre chassis uses square and round tubing of various diameters. Definitely not a Logghe style funny car chassis.

Another view of the Mustang flip-top inside the service area at North brother's Ford. Note the street cars awaiting service in the background.