A new Smokey story

1st source

Smokey Yunick once went to Daytona with a Chevelle, with the fenders covering the rear wheels. It gave him quite an aerodynamic advantage, but was going to make tire changing during the race a real problem.

Other owners complained, but Smokey pointed out that the rulebook said he could cut out the fenders if he wanted to, and he said that he didn't want to.

He ran with it, and the car qualified very high. As soon as the car qualified, he rolled it into the paddock, and started cutting metal from around the wheels.

Other owners complained.

Smokey pointed out that the rule books said he could cut them out, but didn't say when he had to.......

from http://www.bikeforums.net/archive/index.php/t-18185.html

2nd source

I belive it was the 67 or 68 Daytona 500 when Smokey Yunick entered a perfect 7/8ths scale Chevelle.

The car was lowered to the point that the tires were tucked up inside the wheel wells almost rubbing the sheet metal. The other teams ran with large cut-outs to clear the tires.

The teams all protested and NASCAR said there was nothing in the rule books saying the tires couldn't be tucked inside the fenders.

Smokeys car went out and easily won poll position. No other team could beat it during qualifying.

Prior to start of the race Smokey took a sawzall and cut the wheel openings to clear all the tires.

Again the other teams protested.

NASCAR said there's nothing in the rules that say he can't do that.

It was because of Smokeys 7/8ths Chevelle that NASCAR now uses templates to check body size and shape and wheel openings.

from http://www.offshoreonly.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-58834.html

The great cars the Edelbrock family has, and race

http://www.edelbrock.com/automotive/stable/index.html

Smokey's Chevelle

The quintessential Yunick story has been retold so many times, and exaggerated so much in the telling, that today it’s almost unbelievable. The facts, if they can still be determined, are that Yunick showed up with a Chevelle at Daytona in 1967 for Curtis Turner to drive.

Turner won the pole, and the big manufacturers blew a gasket–a lone privateer wasn’t supposed to show up the factory teams like that.

The car blew up on the second lap of the race, avoiding further controversy, but when Yunick brought the car to the summer Daytona race, NASCAR inspectors, determined not to let their primary manufacturers be embarrassed again, gave Yunick a list of eleven mechanical items that had to be fixed before qualifying–which started in ninety minutes.

(Item #1, reportedly, was “Replace homemade frame with stock frame.”)

They removed the gas tank from the car, claiming that its non-exploding design was non-conforming. Yunick in exasperation told them, “Make that twelve items,” hopped into his tankless Chevy, and drove it back to its garage stall as the red-faced inspectors gaped.

The rulebook didn’t specify what kind of fuel lines the car could run, so Yunick had threaded eleven feet of 2" tubing through the frame, allowing it to hold almost a gallon of additional gas.

Within a week, the rulebook had been changed to allow only 5/8" tubing of a short length.

From http://www.gordonline.com/commish/020105.html and probably a dozen other sources.

From http://www.smokeyyunick.com/PressReleases/Reviews.pdf is a bit Smokey said after Earnhardt's death:
Yunick writes: “Moveable walls, concrete tracks, fueling by computer, air jacks ’stead of the 30 pound flying sledge hammers they use, mandatory retirement age, etc. When the hell they gonna get to doing something? Maybe after next ace gets killed? When they gonna get rid of the [deleted] restrictor plates and go to smaller engines? Don’t give me the [deleted] answer you can get killed in bathtub. It’s this simple: whoever’s running NASCAR has got his head up his [deleted].”

http://grantwcooper.com/smokey.html has a terrific tribute website, and so is http://www.legendsofnascar.com/smokey.htm

For more about Smokey: http://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2008/11/great-racing-photos-and-warbirds-and.html

Smokey Yunick's Boss 302

Some of the fine artwork that Smokey performed on this 180 mph beast...

He took the starter, reversed the direction it pointed, reversed it's spinning direction, and mounted it next to the oil pan.... just to make room for the exhaust 4 into 2 into 1 hand welded collectors.

He took a wrong side / passenger side Australian steering box, and installed it in order to make room for exhaust on the opposite side from the starter mod I just mentioned.

For a better description of the tricks I just mentioned
http://www.trans-amseries.com/Drivers/RossMyers69Mustang.htm

http://www.ponysite.de/smokey.htm for more pictures

Now the conflicting info about this car is that one website says Vic Edelbrock owns and races it. Pictured here: http://www.trans-amseries.com/Drivers/VicEdelbrockMustang.htm is the formerly Follmer Boss 302. So, what's that about?

This website http://www.gordonline.com/commish/020105.html says Edelbrock owns the Smokey 302.... wonder why?

Trans am racing pics of 2002-2006, so cal mostly

http://www.trans-amseries.com/racephotos.htm

The 69 vette I restored the spring of 06.

http://www.corvettemikemidwest.com/showroom/?cf=170

The engine had never been apart, and the last owner couldn't figure why is ran like a turd, or was so noisy. The passenger side exhaust manifold broke in two. Sweet car.

Remember the 55 Chev in "American Graffitti"?

It isn't around anymore, unlike Milner's 32 duece, that resides here in San Diego. It went on to star in "Two Lane Blacktop", was modified, and destroyed during filming... http://blog.cardomain.com/blog/2008/04/55-chevy-from-t.html#more has a full write up

Really cool dealership photo, architecture was important then

Giugiaro Mustang concept. Better quality photos than the other post I did

Click to enlarge any picture

Holman Moody on a Shelby 427

Picture taken at San Diego Balboa park annual Auto Museum car show, Mike took this one, only time we've seen this engine... nice. Damn nice.

GT 350 H advert

http://de.geocities.com/us_musclecars/cars/mustang/65_mustang_ads_us.html for all the original 60's Shelby mustang ads that guy could find,.... go way in the beginning of this blog for the ones he didn't.

the Shelby GT 350H

Via: http://svammelsurium.blogg.se/

http://dbusso.typepad.com/vintagemotors/vintage_cars/ french old car site, not bad, just need a translator to read.... did I fool 'ya? Hell, I don't read, I just look at these for the pictures!


The Hertz Shelby GT350H was specially prepared for Hertz Rent-A-Car as a publicity move for the benefit of Hertz, Shelby American, and Ford.

Peyton Cramer, a brilliant marketing man, was Shelby's General Manager at this time. He was told to try to get some fleet sales. He called upon Hertz and came back with an order for 936 cars.

The catch was that they had to be painted Hertz colors, black with gold, a paint scheme used on cars made by Hertz in the 1920's, when Hertz was an automaker.

Thus was born the GT-350H.

http://www.heritagegtcc.co.uk/index.php?menu_id=26

Now what this writer didn't say, or didn't know, is that in the very last months a GT 350H could also be ordered in other colors, but the stripe remained gold. Red, blue are the rare colors, black the remembered one. If you only wanted to know what every one knows.... you wouldn't be looking or reading my blog, we're here for the cool stuff, the one step further and better stuff... that's what makes a car guy different from a car driver.

http://www.vantagesportscars.com/gallery/gallery.cgi?func=show&file=200466&Category=100012&Page=1 for a good picture of the blue,

http://www.qv500.com/shelbygt350p2.php gives the following more accurate info
"All were supplied with Gold sill stripes that read GT350H, many also being kitted out with matching Le Mans centre stripes.

Around 80% were painted Raven Black, the remaining 20% being split primarily between Wimbledon White and Candyapple Red."

What does the FE stand for, referring to the Ford engine series?

390 cubic inch FE (for Ford/Edsel)

Thanks to http://www.35pickup.com/Mustang.html

I like prototypes... hell, I just dig cars

1961 Mako Shark most of these pics are from a russian site http://autowp.ru/
1962 XP 755 Mako Shark

1962 XP 755 Mako Shark 1965 Mako Shark
1969 Manta Ray

1973 Astrovette 1956 SR-2 Corvette
http://www.tamsoldracecarsite.net is a great site and was my source for this SR-2, the precursor to the SS Corvette

I love COE's, and fire trucks, so link to this if you do too

http://capecodfd.com/PAGES%20Special/Breakers06.htm

1938 Dodge Airflow, cool old fuel truck

I was just reading in the Haggerty newsletter (March 2010) about the Ford museum in Dearborn, and how they were looking for one of these fuel tankers, and that they couldn't find one in even halfway decent condition.. they'd all been used to death. So they restored one, or bought one that had been restored, and the museum now has it's fuel tanker and it's one of the few or only vehicles there that isn't in original / as found condition. They are so proud of the original condition vehicles they actually glue paint chips back onto the 999 when they fall off

Once, men were allowed to be men... crazy daredevil, 4 motor, 4 wheel drive, rocket powered nuts.

http://www.almar.easynet.be/turbonique.htm has a really good article, and good photos.
http://vales.com/MTM2/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=12159&ARCHIVE for the best color pics and description of how powerfully enticing this was, it went on go carts (215 mph), cars, boats, etc... strap on 1000 HP, or the full boogie 1500 HP if you clang with big brass notes when you shuffle along.

http://iowahawk.typepad.com/iowahawk/2006/04/the_real_acme.html

I won't even repost the madness here.... I can't possibly do justice to the sheer machoness of strapping a 1000 hp 760 ft lbs rocket to the rear axle of a dragster and hitting the "fun" button. Trust me, Coop, and iowahawk... read it all, soak it in. Our fathers and grandfathers were effing madmen with motors and we should just drop to one knee in homage the the giants who once walked the USA, racing for the shits and grins of it all.

thanks to http://positiveapeindex.blogspot.com/2006/04/real-acme.html for reminding me about this, and I'll have more on this from my archived books and magazines someday.

http://www.the-rocketman.com/turbonique1.html has 5 photo galleries of bikes, boats, cars, and go karts that had used these.

In August 2007 CarDomain found an original Cougar with a Turbonique still strapped on: http://blog.cardomain.com/blog/2007/08/turbonique.html

For a good long write up: http://garagemagazine.com/archive-the-real-acme/