Author Topic: Who's car was this? Please help me with a vintage FED identification.  (Read 3758 times)

Offline Tekton Design

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Please help us identify and locate the history of this car. We purchased the car last March. The car was located in Tuscon, AZ. This is one well-used dragster. To me, it looks to have 100's and 100's of passes on it and probably into 1000+. The car looks to be approximately 50 years old give or take a few years - likely built between 1966-1970 - just a guess. Lots of reworks and mods done over the years and it has a few repaints on it. Based upon the for sale images, the car ran a injected BBC. From the look of things, it probably ran like this for many years. The NHRA frame cert expired in 2008 so it hasn’t gone down a track in at least 10 years.

In order to be a good steward of preservation, stay on the safe side of life yet still have a little fun racing the car I’ve removed some old, added some new, and now have the car reassembled and in good racing condition. I’m committed to running the ⅛ mile and we’re running a SBC in it today - we ran an easy 6:50 ⅛ on it 3 days ago. The car came with another set of motor mounts and I can only assume it's for a vintage hemi power plant.

The roll cage looks to be an added update to meet NHRA frame cert so older pictures/video of the car would likely have a different look due to the roll bar changes. One obvious car attribute is the cockpit entry/exit handle grips welded onto the updated roll bar/cage that assist the driver in getting in and out of the car. The car is narrow. The guy I purchased it from said 3 other people had came to purchase it before me but they passed on the car because they couldn't get in it due to its narrow frame width.

In my opinion, the best identifier of the car is the front end, I’ve looked at well over 1000 FED/slingshot images online and I’ve not seen a single perfect match to the front end. To me, the front end looks to be a one-off creation.

Besides the unique front end... a few other key identifiers are the one-off and obviously hand-made butterfly steering assembly, the one-off wheelie bar assembly, the black anodized fuel tank and its location on the car, the body panels and the hand-built shorty windshield. On the underside of the top cowl are remnants of red/blue colored stickers so the car did have a brightly colored paint scheme for a time. It’s painted black today. The frame is painted today with a single-stage gray metallic and it has a dark blue original paint color underneath that. I’m guessing the blue color is the original frame painted color. There are also a few Dzus type fasteners toward the front of the engine so I’m guessing a couple of panels got lost or abandoned at some point.

To date, I have no history of who drove it, owned it, built it, etc... We sure would love to learn more about this little vintage slice of drag racing! In my opinion, when I examine it closely, the car looks to be somewhat of a one-off hand-built creation that reflects elements of more than one noted chassis builder (Gilmore, Williams, Tuttle, etc..). It's a lightweight - 610 lbs less the engine. I hesitate to call it any type of a 'cloned car' because it has some very individual identifiers. It's a very simple, even minimalistic design. All of this really has me scratching me head trying to understand exactly what we've got here.  Any help with this would be greatly appreciated!     

Thank you,

Eric Alexander
801-836-0764
 
« Last Edit: September 03, 2018, 12:11:59 PM by Tekton Design »

Offline opa1

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Re: Who's car was this? Please help me with a vintage FED identification.
« Reply #1 on: September 03, 2018, 12:53:52 PM »
I don't have any info on your car but, I know your speakers! I'm audio nut too. :O Welcome to the forums.
Mark

Offline Tekton Design

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  • Your Best Time: 5:93 1/8 @ Hypoxia - 7000 ft above sea level
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Re: Who's car was this? Please help me with a vintage FED identification.
« Reply #2 on: September 03, 2018, 01:14:14 PM »
Thanks a ton Mark! Audio engines all the way! Happy listening, my friend! Do you have a car too?

Offline Tekton Design

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  • Your Best Time: 5:93 1/8 @ Hypoxia - 7000 ft above sea level
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  • Your Vehicle: FED
  • General Location: West Coast - Utah
Re: Who's car was this? Please help me with a vintage FED identification.
« Reply #3 on: September 03, 2018, 01:15:44 PM »
Oh yeah... you've got a car too! Very cool. Let's chat sometime soon.

Offline opa1

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Re: Who's car was this? Please help me with a vintage FED identification.
« Reply #4 on: September 04, 2018, 10:38:10 PM »
You going to do any updates? What's the power train setup? Looks like it might of had a front wing at some point.

Offline rooman

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Re: Who's car was this? Please help me with a vintage FED identification.
« Reply #5 on: September 05, 2018, 03:52:46 AM »
Although the car is far from new I doubt that the majority of it is 50 years old. In 1970 Don Long was the only well known chassis builder using a two bend shoulder hoop--just about everyone else used a single large radius hoop, including most home builders. The upswept lower rail configuration is in the Woody style but nothing else that I see resembles Gilmore's work. The rear end mounting is also a bit unique and anything from around 1970 would have had either an Olds or 8 3/4 Chrysler so obviously that is an updated area. The steering box and the single side mount for it are one of the few things that resemble the earlier cars. From the front on shot it also appears that the wheelbase has been stretched as the car tapers in and then the rails run nearly parallel to the front crossmember.
  In conclusion I would suggest that maybe the mid section of the car (and some of the front end) dates back to the late 60's/early 70's but the whole back half appears to have been updated at some point. The "K" in the rear side bay is a Tuttle deal but I have never seen Dave mount a rear end ahead of the upright.

Roo
Yeah, I am from the south--any further south and I would have been a bloody penguin.

Offline Tekton Design

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  • Your Best Time: 5:93 1/8 @ Hypoxia - 7000 ft above sea level
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  • Your Vehicle: FED
  • General Location: West Coast - Utah
Re: Who's car was this? Please help me with a vintage FED identification.
« Reply #6 on: September 05, 2018, 06:48:21 AM »
Thanks Roo! I agree with your assessment. Some old and some newer on this car. Figuring out how and when this car started out has been exhausting for me. I'm going blurry eyed scrolling through small sized 50 year old online dragster images - I've gone through 1000's of them.

I've got to get a real wheelie bar going here. We're never going to get the car launching correctly with what we've got today. Thoughts... opinions here...?

Eric

Offline Tekton Design

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  • Your Best Time: 5:93 1/8 @ Hypoxia - 7000 ft above sea level
  • Your Engine: 355 SBC methanol
  • Your Track: Sage Raceway - Hypoxia Drag Strip
  • Your Vehicle: FED
  • General Location: West Coast - Utah
Re: Who's car was this? Please help me with a vintage FED identification.
« Reply #7 on: September 05, 2018, 07:05:55 AM »
Anyone familiar with old RCS (Race Car Specialties) chassis? I'm wondering if the car started out as an RCS built car in the late 60's
« Last Edit: September 05, 2018, 07:39:21 AM by Tekton Design »

Offline Tekton Design

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  • Your Best Time: 5:93 1/8 @ Hypoxia - 7000 ft above sea level
  • Your Engine: 355 SBC methanol
  • Your Track: Sage Raceway - Hypoxia Drag Strip
  • Your Vehicle: FED
  • General Location: West Coast - Utah
Re: Who's car was this? Please help me with a vintage FED identification.
« Reply #8 on: September 05, 2018, 08:08:04 AM »
You going to do any updates? What's the power train setup? Looks like it might of had a front wing at some point.

Hoping to switch to a Hilborn unit this winter. The problem I've got is simply not enough time to do what I'd like to do with the car. I'm very busy with audio and it only gets busier in the winter :)

I believe it did have a wing. It's a 9" Ford and a powerglide.