getting a willy tommorrow

[Suicide]

Depends on the event I guess, the wider track would definately help in some places, wouldn't be so good where it's tight

[Mark1GTE]

i`ll ask jay about getting into tight places he seems to be grand master around here at that cough "ky jelly" cough

p.s this is gonch`s thread better stop talking drivvle again mate

[Kelly]

Just seen this thread - i had a Williams 2 for 3 years.

Excellent cars - but a tad difficult to work on due to ther e being NO room in the engine bay.

If you want info, technical knowledge or even a good place to start looking for a good example - get onto www.williamsclio.co.uk - an excellent site

[Crafty]

I keep reading the title for this thread and think it says willys. A bit like this:



bit more interesting than a cilo ?

[Jason]

Good god my man where did you dig that picture from???

It is so Beetle-esq that is.

[Suicide]

Yep thats def a bit more interesting than a clio... and miles more interesting than a piece of german antique technology that should have died many many years ago

[Crafty]

Beetle! beetle! ye gods man, I know people that would inflict serious pain for that !!
Willys are american cars, the company name was Willy International.. they later went on to build jeeps in the 2nd world war ( and onwards ).
But back in the late 30s and early 40s they built cheap, basic cars.. kinda like say daewoo or kia today. Puny little 4 cylinder engines, *very* basic cars.

After the 2nd world war lots of servicemen arrived home with cash in their pockets and a taste for adventure, pretty soon they were buying cars and learning how to make them go faster, racing on the streets and where possible on salt flats. Drag racing was born. The NHRA, hot rods, street rods and the whole car customising/modifying scene soon followed.

Move on to the mid/late 50s a class emerged called "Gas Cars", basically sotck, road legal cars (rules stipulated it had to be road registered and even have a trimmed interior! ). As the years progressed the gassers got more and more radical, shortened wheelbases, raised front ends (better weight transfer). The 60s were the "golden years" of the gassers, supercharged and alcohol engines were bought into the gasser classes.

By now of course a Willys Coupe, like the pic above was just an old, cheap car that no-one wanted. Ideal for stuffing a big block in and going racing then !! By virtue of this steel willys are pretty rare today and worth considerable money. You can buy glass bodies easily enough though. "Back in the day" the MOPAR engines were known to be very powerful and so it came to be that many Willys got fitted with plymouth engines ( referred to as Hemis, hemispherical head.. was new at the time.. ).

Right then, so heres a few more pics, of a car similar to the above, first a stock car..



probably one of the most famous ever willys gassers, Big John Mazmanians' 41 coupe. Note the stance. This car ran 9.77 @ 149mph in 1964!



Some street rod wilys..




radically customised body.. don't panic.. its glass!



just a couple of sites to look at:

http://www.mikesteinberg.com/
http://www.gassermadness.com/


I had an excellent link to a story about Lions Drag strip, I'll see if I can find it.

[Crafty]

Found it..

The Lions strip was one of the most famous drag racing strips, during the late 50s and early 60s thousands of strips popped up all over the US, but Lions held a special place in the hearts of many racers and fans..

Heres the story of the strip, from start to end..
http://www.northernthunder.com/lastrace.html

Also, see if you find anything you like here:
http://www.donshotrodpage.net/events.htm

[Gonch]

New i could rely on you mk1 boys, there really is some random shite posted on this thread

[Suicide]

We try our best

[Jason]

[Suicide]

[Jason]

[exuptoy]

Its official, MK1OC now has its own ANNORAK step forward CRAFTY
Soz m8.

[Suicide]