Keith Harman drums up all the news, views andlatest stuff on the hot rod and custom scene...Over in Florida, late July saw Big Daddy
Don Garlits, (now 87 years old), set a
new quarter-mile record for an electric-
powered dragster.Swamp Rat 38 is Garlits’We make no apology for yet another story
uncovered at Dragstalgia, but this time it’sthe
fascinating storyoft his1959 Corvette.The
car looks like it was literally pulled fromabarn
last week, but in fact has been with theWitham
family from Bedfordshire since 1986.We spoke
to HarryWitham, whose grandfather bought it
fromagarage forecourt back then, and Harry
told us that the car had been partially strippedp y ppp g pAlsointhepitsatDragstalgia,thetalk
amongfansoftraditionalhotrodderswas
thefirstglimpseintheUKofthis 1940 Ford
Coupe.ThissurvivorhotrodwithitsHilborn
injectedsmall-blocklastracedin 1959 and
hasremainedvirtuallyunchangedsince
thosedays.Recentlyimportedby
GilesHanauer,thecarneedsworkbefore
itcanreturntothestriponceagain,
Dragstalgiabeingitsfirstappearancein
publicoverhere.
ri i
o ,LIVING HISTORY
COUPE
Green light record for Big Daddysecond electric-powered car,Swamp Rat
37 settinganew record back in 2014 at
7.25 seconds at 185.65mph. This time,
the aim was to break the 200mph barrier,
andfor that the new car was built as a
stripped-down version, withaweight
saving of 1000lb. Plenty of fans flocked
to Palm Beach Raceway to witness the
atte mpt, and althoughanew record
was set at 7.235 seconds at 189.04mph,
the 200mph barrier,for now,remains
elusive. However,with batterytechnology
improving all the time, it can only be
amatte roft imebefore Garlits adds
this record to his lifetime of drag
racing achievements.Further to our event report on Dragstalgia
in this issue (see page 101), the event also
saw the welcome return to the strip of
the legendaryAl’sGasse r. Many visitors to
Santa Pod in the Seventies will remember Al
O’Connor’soriginal crowd-pleasing Ford Pop
Gasser,with its sky-high stance and black and
flamed paint. Debuting in 1974, the Pop soon
moved up the ranks to the Altered classes until
abad crash occurred in 1978. But Al was back
in 1979 witharebuilt car and ran in theTop
Modified Super Gas classes until 1985.
In later years, and afterayear touring the
US in 1988, Al returned to the strip, racing
with the Outlaw Anglia series until at The Main
Event at Santa Pod in 2017, the car sustained
serious damage inaroll-over crash. Soon after,Return of alegend!fellow Outlaw Anglia racer,‘Ginner’ Middleton
and afew friends hatchedaplantobring the
Gasser back from the dead. The project was
kept hush-hush until the reborn Al’sGasser
wasunveiled and once again returned to the
strip. It seems in the drag racing world, with
the right friends around you, you can’tkeep a
good car down!ANGLO-AMERICAN SURVIVOR
of its exterior trim ready forare-spray that never
happened, and has remained the same since
then. According to Harry, thecar wasimported
new in 1959 and circuit-raced foraseason by
amateur racing driver Gawain Baille. Baille (who
inherited Leeds Castle in Kent and was later
madeabaronet), obviously liked his American
iron, as he went on to successfully race a
Mustang,aFalco nand aFord Galaxie in touring
car classes in the Sixties. The Corvette wonarace
in May ’59 at Snetterton, and placed fourth at
Brands Hatch in the August, but seems to have
been retired after just the one season.
We foundone pictureonline ofa’Vette racing
in the UK that year,but unfortunately the picture
was too small to reproduce here, or to confirm
if the registration number was the same. Seems
likely though,aCorvette would be pretty exotic
in the UK in the late Fifties. Anyone out there
know more?We’d love to know...Oh so cool...Al’sGasser.It’selectric!Big Daddy is 87.RetroWillys.14 classic-american.com