In 1946 Bill Burke built the first hot which used an airplane's external fuel tank as a body. He shoehorned a Ford flathead V-8 into the P-51 Mustang wing tank. Then, sitting on a bicycle seat, exhaust pipes running between his legs and the side of the cockpit, with no windshield, helmet, leathers, fire suit, seat belt or roll bar, he went 132mph on a Southern California dry lake bed.
The original:
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Somebody built a replica. Burke assisted in getting the details right. The photos are too large to include. Links to 2 of many photos:
It's a rite of passage for SoCal youths to take your car out to El Mirage dry lake bed. The rite is to point it at the other end of the lake and nail the throttle to the floor. The passage is keeping it there until you run out of lake bed or she just won't go any faster. That's tougher than it sounds as most car manufacturers didn't design car aerodynamics with top speed stability in mind. Became real interesting when the airstream lifted the front, the steering became light and she's still accelerating.
First car I took to El Mirage was my mom's 1968 Ford Galaxie 500 sedan. A behemoth, what they called a 'full size' car in those days. 390 cubic inch V8 (6.4 liter). Ford ran the 2 door fastback version in NASCAR which gave certain youths certain ideas. Between that big weight in the front end, and a trailer towing package that included stiffer rear springs and higher rear end gear ratio (easier acceleration but lower top speed) taking that barge past 100 was no big deal. So much so that I've forgotten what the top speed was except that the last 3 mph took what seemed like a long time.
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Second car on the dry lake was my first, a used 1971 Datsun 510 wagon. Ratty, tired with 120k miles it ran dependably. Which is about the best thing one could say about it. My balls to brains ratio at the time failed to see anything wrong with wringing it out at El Mirage. During the two runs that changed after reaching the speed where the lake bed surface irregularities caused the car to make small direction changes. I decided that was fast enough.
dtaai-maai wrote:If ever there was a question Homer was desperate for someone to ask...
Happy to oblige. His driving exploits are a little more interesting than one line, drive-by-shootings.
Homer wrote:First car I took to El Mirage was my mom's 1968 Ford Galaxie 500 sedan. A behemoth, what they called a 'full size' car in those days. 390 cubic inch V8 (6.4 liter).
I cannot imagine a 6.4 liter engine. Best I could do in my youth was a MkII Cortina 1600E or my mother's wheelchair. It's a toss up as to which was quicker.
Tearing across the dry lake sounds like fun. Hope you got your mom's permission or did you 'borrow' the car?
dtaai-maai wrote:If ever there was a question Homer was desperate for someone to ask...
Happy to oblige. His driving exploits are a little more interesting than one line, drive-by-shootings.
You've used that phrase several times when responding to my posts. To help me avoid causing offence in the future would you be so kind as to spare a minute or two to point out say 3 or 4 examples of such 'drive-by shootings' in the last 6 months?
You can find more than enough on the Trayvon Martin thread and you can add the general responses to his views on 'left' and right' politics. I believe I commented previously on not really understanding why he merited such a reaction but clearly on this topic he's on safer ground.
dtaai-maai wrote:If ever there was a question Homer was desperate for someone to ask...
Happy to oblige. His driving exploits are a little more interesting than one line, drive-by-shootings.
Homer wrote:First car I took to El Mirage was my mom's 1968 Ford Galaxie 500 sedan. A behemoth, what they called a 'full size' car in those days. 390 cubic inch V8 (6.4 liter).
I cannot imagine a 6.4 liter engine. Best I could do in my youth was a MkII Cortina 1600E or my mother's wheelchair. It's a toss up as to which was quicker.
Tearing across the dry lake sounds like fun. Hope you got your mom's permission or did you 'borrow' the car?
Back in the day Detroit iron went even bigger than 390 cu in/6.4 litres. Some Chevy's ran 454 cu ins. and I think there was a 460 Ford V-8 at one time, as well. 400 cu ins those days was quite common. They were ok in a straight line but solid rear axles and waterbed suspension weren't too good on the curves.
My dad was a motorcycle guy, owned 12 bikes during his life. Only Nortons. Back about 1930 he told me they used to go to the hard sands at Southport near Liverpool where they ran 490cc one-lung bikes. They tweaked them by shaving the cylinder head to increase compression, advancing the timing etc. He said he would lie on the bike and two pals would balance the bike to get it going. He said they got up to 90mph, no leathers and no helmets.
RICHARD OF LOXLEY
It’s none of my business what people say and think of me. I am what I am and do what I do. I expect nothing and accept everything. It makes life so much easier.
Now that's nothing. I've seen 6 on a bike, 3 of them babies, one on the breast. No helmets, no lights, doing 60 in traffic at night and the babies stayed sound asleep.
