I first met Tony Merry when I was racing Phoenix, the Mini with which I won the 1973 RAC/Castrol Drag Racing Championship.  At the time he was racing a Ford Cortina with a 3 litre Ford V6 in either middle or senior street class, and was building the first Liquidator (not the one in the pic).

This car was jointly bulit by Tony and another driver (sorry I can't remember his name), the car first  raced in the summer of 1974, and was written off two or three months later at the Pod, from memory it was at the September or October meeting.

The right hand rear wheel bearing disintegrated allowing the axle to unwind from the casing, the right hand rear then dug into the strip turning the car sharp right into the barriers at the top end of the strip just short of the timing lights, it then somersaulted over the barrier and ended up a few feet short of the fire truck. The car was being driven by the other driver at the time of the accident. The only salvageable items were the engine and gearbox.

Following the crash, Tony Merry bought the rolling chassis and body of Good Vibrations, a Ford Pop competition altered formally raced by John and Tony Dickson who by then were racing Money Hungry.

During the winter of 1974/75 I helped Tony and a friend of his called Alan install the 440 Chrysler lump and box from the crashed Liquidator in the the chassis of Good Vibrations whilst Alan painted the bodywork.  The blue was the same as Alan`s road-going small block Mustang, and the "new" Liquidator was born (which is the one in the picture).

The car first ran in the first race meeting of 1975, driven by Tony, I then drove it at the following meeting, and continued to drive it for him at every other meeting from 1975 to 1977.  For some reason I seemed to drive at all the Pod meetings and Tony drove at the NDRC meets, I guess it must have been just how the schedule worked out or something.

During this time (think it was 1976) the car was filmed by ITV for their children's programe Magpie, it was also the car that filmed Al's Gasser during the course of a run, but I can't remember the name of the film it was in now.

During my time with Liquidator we added hotter cams, Holleys, a new manifold, modified the auto box value chest, fitted a ratchet shifter etc etc and I think the best time I ran was a 10.1 in late 1977 at the Pod.

Robin Tallis