![]() In fact, his book is dedicated to the AWB era. One book is in publication this summer, written by Steve Magnante who knows a thing or two about AWB cars. My photos and films have been published in three drag racing books and four drag racing documentries. Goober vbmenu_register("postmenu_4302712", true) Įxcuse me, Sir, but I do know something. Opinions are like assholes and this is just mine. By '67 fans (me for one) wanted Funny Cars to look simular to what they drove. ![]() I accept almost all of the cars on this thread as awb cars because most of these pictures were shot in the mid '60s at the height of the altered wheelbase popularity. Some became very succesful by converting them to Funny Cars. '60s model AA/GS gassers just didn't get it. They still were classified as "gassers" but were not accepted by their fans and soon went away. Some "gasser" teams built new model cars but used the engine/trans combo out of their '30s, '40s cars. In the late '60s "Gassers" fell out of favor with some drag racing fans because of the Funny Car revolution. The term for them is "altered" simply because they were originally manufactured before the Funny Car revolution. Only cars originally manufactured from say '62-66 qualify. If you say "factory" altered wheelbase only a few qualify but if you say awb to me I include any simular car that was altered in '65 or '66, really the only two years it was popular back then or simular cars that have been built lately to again capture that era. Mopar offered full size AWB blueprints for Mopar racers to use. There are 10 pages of great pictures here of about all makes. There were only a few of each built, 11 total I believe, by the factory but dozens more built by teams that got one and teams that didn't including Mopar, GM and Ford Motor Company racers. They were called Altered Wheelbase Cars before they were called Funny Cars. The '65 year model Dodges and Plymouths were of course the cars that were so "wildly" altered that the moniker "Funny Car" was born. Here is my opinion on the altered wheelbase term and I was going to drag races almost every weekend in '65. It so happens in '65 there were 45 cars running in B/Altered and Ditmars won the final round against Dick Brannan's factory-backed Mustang which had its wheelbase altered by the rear wheels being moved 3" forward. Posts: 431 Re: Altered Wheelbase Picture ThreadĬalling the "High & Mighty" and the #813 cars that had pics posted an AWB car is not correct." ->Only someone who crawled out from under a rock would call Ditmar's Lil' Screamer the #813 carīy the way, Ditmar's Lil' Screamer won B/A at the same '65 NHRA Nationals where many of the AWB cars ran in a variety of non-A/FX classes. Feel free to keep on believing you know something. ![]() In essence, trying to equate a particular modification (altered wheelbase) with a particular class and era of cars (A/FX of mid '60s) is just as naive as the newb's who call everything with a straight axle a "gasser". They became match race and exhibition cars. In fact the AWB cars were banned by NHRA from A/FX and many later ran at NHRA events I attended as altereds, some even in dragster classes. Mazooma and Maxwell are trying to equate a modification with a particular class and era. The altered wheelbase drag racers shown above, pending verification of the liveries (which I understood to be authentic), are at least based on real types of cars being built and raced back in the day.There was never an Altered Wheelbase class in NHRA, AHRA, etc. The dragsters and Funny Cars."fuelies".ran nitro methane, with substantially higher horsepower. The altered wheelbase models were, for lack of a better example, more like modern super stock class, running regular gasoline. It was always a trade off.short wheelbase has a tendency to pop wheelies, long wheelbase adds weight but also changes the physics, like a fulcrum or lever, making it harder for the engine torque to lift the front wheels. Stretch wheelbase was done as well, certainly dragsters (and over time, Funny Cars) also stretched their frames.and my understanding of why that was done *on drag racers* was an attempt to keep the front wheels on the ground. Technically this would be in the same vein as what you are showing. Those may be based on real cars, I don't know, but in my mind those are fantasy issues. ![]()
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