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The Golden Age of British Stock Cars |
Eight Hot Rods:
six 1960's English, one US, one
Swedish
John Wright, a Lincolnshire farmer and flier owned this (bright yellow) creation, and brought it to a Peterborough (Perkins Diesel) Show 1964. Wide-open-exhausted Jag motor behind a Rolls-Royce rad.: Jaguar/Rolls/Austin pickup hot-rod. Next is the same car in stripped drag-racing guise at Santa Pod: drag pick-up. His brother Richard Wrightdrag-raced and street-drove a Caddy-engined "T" rod, Cad-Rod . I am certain I saw this in a road-going "coupe" form, at the British Hot Rod Association AGM in South Norwood, London, with six chrome motorbike silencers bolted directly to the ports. Here's the same car in (barely) road-going guise: Someone tells me that this beast could be seen rumbling along the public roads, as you see it, to Santa Pod .Richard's Coupe Geoff Jagoof Brighton built this metal-flake convertible Ford Thames van-cum-pickup; shame about my camera work! Stunning hot-rod at Woburn Abbey in 1964/5. Yes, it was once a "vertical/perpendicular" Pop style van. A stock-car link: Geoff Jago raced and won at Southampton's track back in 1959. Jago's Rod again. This shot taken at a unique BHRA scar how in Hyde Park's then-new underground parking lot! NEWS as of May '99: apparently this car has been kept in storage for over 20 years and is still as gorgeous today! Correction March 2004! see below: If you were around in the early 1960's, there was the BRITISH HOT ROD ASSOCIATION, before the BDHRA. BHRA chairman John Bennett drag-raced his Pontiac by pulling out the back seat and spare wheel, and unhooking the power steering! (His wife Anne raced it too.) One pioneer was Ken Cooper, who was a devoted 'flathead' engineer, and raced a side-valve (Ford Pilot) slingshot to prove it. Here is his earlier -- perhaps England's first -- hot-rod, a '32 Model B Ford roadster with V-8 Ford power. A super-nice guy and a brave pioneer, Ken drove this on Midlands streets 40 years ago! V-8 Deuce **** NO IT'S NOT A '32! Eagle-eyed Brian Lucas just pointed out that Ken's rod was a '33 Ford 40, with a '32 grille --- Brian is a long-time hot-rodder and he runs a '32 roadster with a modified flathead motor. Thanks Brian. Ford Thames vans crop up everywhere. This one is a street-driven van, snapped in the parking lot at Seattle International Raceway, (US). Check the rear tyres and imagine clipping a pot-hole at speed.: "Fatty-Tyred Van" A swoopy custom based on a Ford Thunderbird, built by a Swedish rodder and shown here at Santa Pod. Mal Hawkins photo.
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