What was the tiny streamliner that was destroyed in a fire at Speed Week
about fourteen years ago?
I remember now that Bill Burke was talking to Steve and describing the car
that was restored by Travers. Painted blue and white at Speed Week. The
car I brought up to Utah had been raced by Bill without Eels' permission.
It was painted gold and had bullet hole decals on it when I got it. There's
pictures of it on the cover of Sports Cars Illustrated from about 1964.
Bill can't remember the exact number of different cars he has raced at the
flats but it's around 20.
Ak Miller spent a lot of Ford's money in the later sixties trying to get a
Falcon 6 cyl. engine to go faster than the slant six in Wilford Day's
Barracuda. Never happened, SCTA ended up splitting the class, retiring
Wilford's record and Ak finally got a record. Funny thing was Wilford had
done a lot of the work on the slant six in Ak's shop. The guy is a great
tuner. Has the slant six in an Aston Martin DB coupe, I think it is a DB6.
Won the Aston Martin Hillclimb at Carson City a few years ago. All the
Aston buffs were raving about the great sounding Aston engine ... until he
popped the "bonnet." Some surprised faces.
Wes
on 5/25/01 8:30 PM, glen barrett at speedtimer@charter.net wrote:
> Wes, Bill
> Go to the scta-bni.org web site. Click on bonneville and go to 1999. There
> is a picture of the Pumpkin Seed on the 8-19-99 picture post.It had a GMC 6
> in it then.
> Glen
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Wester S Potter" <wspotter@jps.net>
> To: "William McIntyre" <acromac@worldnet.att.net>;
> <land-speed@autox.team.net>
> Sent: Friday, May 25, 2001 9:01 PM
> Subject: Re: Ford OHV 6's
>
>
>> The Wee Wee Eel was in dry, spider infested, storage in Torrance with the
>> other Eelco car ( now at the Speedway Museum in Lincoln, NE.) for many
>> years. Eels Lohn raced it with a British Ford engine. They had problems
>> with the engine getting enough gas until they took the jets out of the
>> carb's. It went over 200 with that set up. It was almost a tricycle
> set-up
>> with the rear tires very close together ... just room for the sprocket for
>> the chain drive. Nothing to stop the chain from doing serious damage to
> the
>> driver's head if it broke. I picked the car up from Eels in early June of
>> '94, brought it to Salt Lake and USFRA people restored the exterior of the
>> car cosmetically, re-painted it the correct color and put the same type
>> lettering on the car. It was on display at Saltair until the shop where
> it
>> was on display changed hands and we couldn't guarantee it's safety. It
> was
>> then at the Salt Flats Garage except for an Autorama show where we had it
> on
>> display. Eighteen months ago it was moved to the Stateline Hotel in
>> Wendover through an arrangement with Larry Volk, the Stateline manager at
>> the time and Eels Lohn. Last I saw the car some non-green-card janitor
> had
>> his stinking feet propped on it while he took a nap.
>>
>> The Pumpkin Seed was a smaller car that really resembled just that. If
> I'm
>> thinking of the right car it was tiny, short wheelbase, the driver looked
>> between his feet to see the course and there was just the clear plastic
>> nose, not much of a bubble for head space. The car I'm thinking of was
>> destroyed in a fire on the salt in the '80's.
>>
>> Wes
>>
>> on 5/25/01 7:44 PM, William McIntyre at acromac@worldnet.att.net wrote:
>>
>>> When I was drag racing in the late 50's / early 60's I think I
>>> remember reading about a Ford OHV 6 powered Bonneville car called the
>>> "punkin seed" possibly owned and/or sponsered by Ells Lohn of ELCO
>>> fame.Perhaps Ardun Doug could enlighten us on this.
>>> Bill in Mesa,Arizona where 110 degrees came early this year.
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