Out with the new, in with the old

Could your “little red wagon” do wheelstands?

Maybe, with your fat cousin sitting in the back of it while you were going downhill, it could. But not like the “little red wagon” I know.

Now, if your eyes have watered and your nostrils have burned because of nitromethane, you probably know what “wagon” I’m talking about.

If you know what VHT TrackBite is, then you’ve probably heard of Bill Golden.
Bill “Maverick” Golden was the driver of the “Little Red Wagon.” He took two Dodge products, new in 1964, and put them together to create a Super Stock drag truck that has landed in the pages of drag racing history.

By combining an A-100, Dodge’s new cab-forward truck, and Dodge’s 426 Hemi engine, Golden created a 425-horsepower Goliaththat would tear down drag strips on only it’s rear wheels.

That monster of a car sold for a monster of a price — more than half a million dollars.
“Little Red Wagon” broke into territory held mostly by matching-number classics and hard-to-find Ferraris.

But the all-Dodge Frankenstein isn’t the only car making it’s way from the cold beer and burnouts of the drag strip to the white lace, satin sheet world of classic car collecting.

The “Wagon-Master” was a car even more insane than the “Little Red Wagon.”
Most cars have one engine. “Wagon-Master” has four, 425 cubic-inch engines.
Coupled with an all-wheel drive system, this mammoth ran down the quarter-mile strip in about eight seconds.  It sold for $209,000.  

A supercharged 1929 Ford Roadster sold for a thousand dollars more.

While the auto industry is falling apart at the seams, it seems as though there are people in the world willing to empty their pockets to preserve history.

I think this is a welcome change to the usual crowd who shell out millions to buy an old Italian sports car with no pedigree but the name behind it.

The names behind drag cars are the names of those who built them from the ground up. They are the names of the people who drove them, slamming the throttle when the tree turned green.

When you buy a drag, you’re buying a piece of someone else’s past and keeping it alive for him or her.

But to be honest, I think buying drag cars for the vast numbers displayed on their price tags is a fad.

If I were going to buy a car for a half-million dollars, even if I were just a collector, I’d like to know that I could take it out on the streets and just drive it for awhile.

Most drag cars aren’t street legal. Hell, even most of their tires aren’t street legal.

So unless you take it to the strip, you won’t be opening the taps on your quarter-mile killer.

Regardless, if you’re going to buy a collector piece, make it one with a history. Don’t just throw money into something with a V12 and Italian name.

Get something that makes your knuckles white every time you drive.