Beautiful Cars & Trucks

[Eric]

[Schmidt Meister]

Ford Coupe Hot Rod (2015 SEMA)

[ChuteTheMall]

[pipedreams]

1964 Porsche 356C/SC

 

 

[railfancwb]

After the Don Garlits event dragster drivers moved from behind the drive train to its front.

Did anyone try hanging the engine etc behind the axle, about where drivers once sat?

[Eric]

5 minutes ago, railfancwb said:

After the Don Garlits event dragster drivers moved from behind the drive train to its front.

Did anyone try hanging the engine etc behind the axle, about where drivers once sat?

It seems like you would want the weight forward of the rear axle.

I remember seeing front engine dragsters running, when I was a kid. My father was part owner in one for a short time, when I was in 3rd grade. Man, that thing sounded sweet.

[Borg warner]

6 minutes ago, railfancwb said:

After the Don Garlits event dragster drivers moved from behind the drive train to its front.

Did anyone try hanging the engine etc behind the axle, about where drivers once sat?

Garlit's decision to build a mid-engined, rather than a front engined or rear engined dragster was the result of an accident on March 8, 1970, at Lions Drag Strip, when Garlits was driving the Swamp Rat XIII, a front-engined slingshot rail dragster, when the vehicle suffered a catastrophic failure. The two-speed transmission Garlits was developing exploded and took a piece out of his right foot, while at the same time the car broke in half in front of the cockpit. As a result, he was out for the remainder of the season. In an interview by Florida Trend, Garlits said this of the incident: "In 1970, the transmission exploded in my dragster on the final run, and it cut my foot off and cut the car in two. That’s when I drew up plans for what I thought would be a championship rear-engine car. I would go out to the shop in Seffner on my wheelchair, saw stuff out on the band saw and make the parts."

Garlits returned to Pomona in 1971 with Swamp Rat XIV, a brand new mid-engined, front-cockpit rail, also dubbed the "Swamp Rat I-R" by Hot Rod Magazine in the article introducing it to their readers. Most  hot rodding magazines considered the disadvantages of the new dragster design "obvious," and, indeed, Garlits lost in his first outing with the new car at Lions Drag Strip early that year.

However, Swamp Rat XIV became so successful that in 1971, Garlits won two of his next three Top Fuel Eliminator titles (the Winternats and Bakersfield), and was a runner-up at Lions, all in the new car.  Since then, others followed suit and rear engined  (or more correctly, mid-engined) dragsters have since become mainstream in drag racing.

[janice6]

On 9/10/2022 at 7:09 AM, pipedreams said:

IIRC that had an electric retractable rear window -  I know it did in the Turnpike Cruiser.

[railfancwb]

1 minute ago, janice6 said:

IIRC that had an electric retractable rear window -  I know it did in the Turnpike Cruiser.

Road speed with those side vent windows - no AC needed. 

[janice6]

1 hour ago, Eric said:

It seems like you would want the weight forward of the rear axle.

I remember seeing front engine dragsters running, when I was a kid. My father was part owner in one for a short time, when I was in 3rd grade. Man, that thing sounded sweet.

When I was heavy into cars, my neighbor down the street was running a fueler rail with a Chrysler Hemi and direct drive.  He was one of the fastest in the area.  His wife told him she would leave him rather than see him come home in a box as a result of drag accident.

So he came over to my house and tried to talk me into driving it one last time for him.  I couldn't.  I know I'm pretty quick, but the thought of that thing between my legs scared the living crap out of me.  I was flattered he asked..........

[tous]

3 hours ago, railfancwb said:

After the Don Garlits event dragster drivers moved from behind the drive train to its front.

Did anyone try hanging the engine etc behind the axle, about where drivers once sat?

Prepare for geekness. 

The rail-type dragster already has trouble keeping the front end on the ground under the drastic torque manufactured by high horsepower and huge wheels and tires.

Think of the dragster as a big hinge and the rear axle the pin the halves of the hinge pivot around.

When designing things that move, be they aircraft, ships or automobiles, we are always critically conscious of where the center of gravity is, that is, the place on the plane. boat or vehicle where the weight, the effect of gravity, is equal fore and aft.  Even wonder why the rail-type dragster is so long?  They need to move the center of gravity to somewhere around half-way between the front wheels and the rear wheels.

If we put the engine aft of the rear axle, the center of gravity also moves aft and we no longer have that nice balance between front and rear wheels.

The engine aft of the rear axle also applies a lot of force (weight) to the back half of the hinge and without a balancing weight forward, the dragster would rotate along the rear axle and the front would be off the ground.

But, we're designing a thing that moves and the biggest challenge is what happens when we apply all that torque to those huge rear wheels and tires.

We have seen funny cars, basically dragsters with a much shorter wheelbase, do a huge wheelie under acceleration; the automobile rotates along the rear axle, front points to the sky.

More than most folk realize goes into making nearly anything work well and if that thing also moves, that complicates matters enormously.

It's why we have slide rules. 

So, now you know. 

 

[DAKA]

12 hours ago, pipedreams said:

1964 Porsche 356C/SC

 

 

Outlaw 356   Engine ??

[Schmidt Meister]

Volkswagen - Off Road/Back Woods Edition

[Schmidt Meister]

The 1958 Chevrolet Impala used in American Graffiti, restored.

[Schmidt Meister]

1953 Derny Cyclotandem Grand Tourisme. Used in postwar France while gasoline was rationed and very few people could afford cars. I thought it unusual because you see very few two-seater motorcycles like this.

[Schmidt Meister]

1956 Chevrolet 210 Delray. 350ci V8 - T10 4-Speed Manual.

[Schmidt Meister]

1950 Black And Copper Colored Cadillac - Twin Turbo-Charged Cummins

Matte black paint is nothing new in the chop shop world. Leaving just the primer on used to mean "I don't give a hoot," but this Cadillac takes it to another level. Against the immaculate and extremely dark body, the copper accents added to its front end stand out even more.
The project was revealed in 2016 at the SEMA Show in Las Vegas. However, its concept began way before that. Wet Sounds Marine Audio, a company known for its custom sound system in wakeboard boats, wanted a custom vehicle to attract some attention and also tow some boats.
They made a lifted Silverado with some fancy speakers, right? Not even close. Company owner Tim White contracted Hot Rod Restos and together they came up with this idea, a classic Caddy with a trick-like heart. What started life as a 2-door 1950 Cadillac was massaged and chopped into a more streamlined shape. Restored from the ground up, the car doesn't share a single panel with a stock vehicle.
Dubbed "Nightmare", the custom Caddy is stretched by around 6 inches and sits atop a custom-built truck chassis with 8-lug 20x15 wheels. When it came time for accents, the front end went from normal chrome to copper-coated, a treatment also used for its engine.
While chopped rods usually get their power from small-block V8s, in this case, the original 331 OHV has been replaced with a 12-valve 5.9-liter Cummins engine with gigantic twin turbochargers. From what we gather, it makes 800 hp "normally" and up to 1,000 hp plus 2,000 lb-ft of torque when the meth injection system is used.

[Schmidt Meister]

Unusual, Industry-Specific Vehicle Design from the 1950s: The DeKalb Lumberjack.
This is a 1940s sketch of an unusual vehicle done for Preston Tucker. The Tucker Corporation famously went belly-up and this vehicle was never produced.
But …
That's not a one-off. That's a 1956 Lumberjack, manufactured by a company called DeKalb, which originally started out as a wagon manufacturer. DeKalb made truck bodies that could be bolted on to the truck chassis produced by major automakers like Ford, GMC, Chevrolet and Dodge.
The door is so tall it looks like you can just walk into the cab.
In the last photo, you can see there's both upper and lower loading levels.
The two levels were designed to hold differing materials. The 125 inch wheel base made it possible to carry 16-18’ lengths of lumber. The lower deck will accommodate full size sheets of plywood or many tools. The lower level is also flanked with storage bins for nails and other construction materials.
With 4-wheel drive and off-road tires this truck would be able to get to almost any construction site.

[jmohme]

[pipedreams]

Porche 550 Spyder Custom Build

[pipedreams]

[pipedreams]

[gwalchmai]

This Florida teen is making a business out of rebuilding old-school auto tech

https://www.popsci.com/technology/carburetor-repair-rileys-rebuilds/

Carburetors may represent old-school tech in the automotive world, but don’t tell Riley Schlick, a high school senior in Florida who rebuilds them for a tidy profit. Send your tired, dirty, mucked-up carburetor to Schlick and she’ll return it to you clean, shiny, and ready for duty once again. She has operated her Bradenton-based business, Riley’s Rebuilds, for three years now, and a steady stream of carburetors has crossed her path.

At first, Riley’s Rebuilds was a way for 17-year-old Schlick to buy her first car, which had to meet her parents’ specifications: It needed to have a manual transmission and a roll bar. Within a few months, she made enough money to buy a Jeep. Then, she brought on four friends to work with her. That hiring spree solved two problems, in Schlick’s mind. Her friends make more money rebuilding carburetors than they would working a minimum wage job, and they get to spend time together. 

She learned how to do the work from her dad. “I said to her, ‘You can get a job at Publix or I can show you how to do some restoration stuff in the garage,” says Schlick’s father, Dane Trask, who rebuilds classic cars as a hobby. He showed her how to do it, and also made use of some YouTube tutorials. “She picked it up quick,” he says.

===========

More at the link. Worth a read. 

[Schmidt Meister]

1914 Locomobile Model 48, With French Velvet, Silk, English Broadcloth, And Tiffany Reading Lamps - Only one left known to exist.

[Schmidt Meister]

That would be one rough ass ride ...