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Click on any image to get the bigger picture |
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Kevin Harvey's Vauxhall VX/490-bodied Mr Shift is seen approaching the line at Silverstone. Despite its looks it was a competition altered and not a funny car although the body was later used on Tony Froome's rear engined Sundance funny car after receiving some very radical modifications (click here to see a picture). |
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Mr Shift has had a new paint job as seen in this picture taken at Santa Pod Raceway. |
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Rick Fielding's blown Lotus twin cam-powered Imagination 6 Fiat Topolino hazes its tyres at Santa Pod Raceway. |
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Rick Fielding was a prolific builder of both competition altereds and dragsters. Imagination 6 gave way to version 7 which was still fitted with the blown Lotus lump . . . |
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. . . but not for long! Imagination 7 gets new paint and more importantly a blown Daimler V8 which must have been quite a handful in such a short wheelbase car. |
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This is Mexico Mouse which used to be Rick Fielding's Imagination 6. The car was run by the team of John Gibbons, Pete Ward and Vince Shaw. I think it then went to Roland Chaplain who raced it with a 1600cc crossflow Ford lump under the name of Harum Scarum. It then passed to Steve Young who called it Autocat and uprated it to an 1800cc Lotus twin cam with the help of Steve Johnson. |
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Bengt Stafberg's Gas Rat II was a hard running Scandinavian entry which made lots of trips to the UK, trouble is he had a habit of winning all the time! My thanks go to Anders Olsson for providing the driver's name and to Andy Barrack for telling me that power was courtesy of a 6.5 litre Chevy. |
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Anders Lantz went on to drive a glittering array of mainly Pro Comp funny cars. This beautiful Plymouth 5 window coupe was an early indication of what was to come. |
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Footbait was a Mark I Ford Cortina and extremely rapid, it is pictured here at the Royal Naval Air Yard Wroughton. Both Anders Olsson and Peter Axeldal have identified the driver as Bernt Frederiksson. |
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Colin Fisher's Themis Topo-bodied altered in the pits at Santa Pod. Themis was powered by a 5098cc Chevy lump. |
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This must be Barry Sheavill's Stagecoach car now re-named Highwayman, the driver was Roger Cracknell who ran it in 1976. |
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Dave Burfitt's Boss Cat in the near lane shapes up for a qualifying pass against John Powis in Henry's Revenge, the venue is Snetterton. |
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The beautiful Liquidator Ford Pop pictured in the pits at Blackbushe. I had originally ascribed this car to Tony Merry. However Pete Goddard has been in touch to tell me that he bought the car from Tony in 1979 and he recognised the sponsorship banners on the car which confirms that he was the owner when this picture was taken. Robin Tallis, who helped build the car and shared the driving with Tony Merry, has been in touch and you can read his reminiscences of that time by clicking here. |
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Phil Herrick launches hard off the line at Santa Pod in his Vicious Trait altered. The 'Trait' part of the name is a play on the name of the body which was a Triumph TR8 - the 'Vicious' bit is obvious. That is Richard Dawson's Enforcer Jaguar-powered rail in the pit lane. |
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Herb Andrews' great looking '27 roadster-bodied Magnum Force was the first small block altered to run an eight in Europe. Herb tells me that this picture must have been taken in 1983. |
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My Swedish research team have swung into action yet again and tell me that this car was owned and driven by the late Lee-Anders Hasselstrom of Flygvapnet funny car fame. Anders tried to get his wife to drive the car in competition whilst he drove his funny car without much success. The car later turned up in the hands of Norwegian Oysten Solberg and was called Black Money. Thanks again to Anders and Peter. |
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Roy Webb's Spiderman was a very well turned car as this picture clearly demonstrates. The venue is Santa Pod and the weather does not look too bright. My thanks to Ian Jupp for providing the correct driver's name. |
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Straight Shooter is pictured here receiving a little TLC in the pits at Santa Pod. The car was driven by one Rob Turner - now why does that name sound familiar to me? |
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Ivor Roffey's Cosmic Canary pictured in the Santa Pod sunshine (unusual!) on 7 April 1985. |
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"It is a late canary - it has ceased to be" as someone once said. |
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