Gary Gabelich's Four-Wheel Drive Funny Car

Gary Gabelich's
Four-Wheel Drive Funny Car

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From drawing board to reality . . . can this car be for real?

This month's cover car represents one of the best-kept secrets of recent drag-racing history. Even in Southern California, few people were aware that a Chrysler-powered, rear-engined, four-wheel-drive, monocoque Vega panel truck was under construction. Even with the rumors that circulated, few people knew the who, why and where of the unique undertaking. Now the car is finished and ready for its driver, Gary Gabelich, the "fastest man on wheels."

This particular car began to evolve during a discussion between Bob Kachler and Kenny Youngblood at Kachler's Racing Graphics offices in Long Beach, California. Ideas developed into drawings, and soon chassis-builder Paul Sutherland had become involved, bringing with him Al Willard, a friend and engineer who had helped design the highly innovative and successful Ti-22 titanium Can-Am car.

All that was left was to find someone with some money and an interest in the project. That person was Gary Gabelich, holder of the World's Land Speed Record at over 600 mph, a record achieved at the Bonneville Salt Flats in a rocket-powered vehicle.

Drag racing is nothing new to Gabelich. He has piloted both Top Fuel dragsters and Funny Cars, including the Beach City Corvette. He was also a test subject for the astronaut's life support systems -- space suits and ejection equipment -- for the Apollo moon program. Now, following his success at Bonneville, Gary wanted to try his hand at drag racing again. And in a unique fashion.

Gary's car couldn't be much more unique at the present time. Currently there are no single-engine, four-wheel-drive cars on the drag strips. Nor are there any monocoque vehicles (Mickey Thompson's monocoque Mustang has long since been retired). There are only a handful of rear-engined Funny Cars, and none that can be considered successful. There are no Vega panel trucks. And, certainly, there is no other car that has as distinctive an appearance.

The car's construction was handled by Paul Sutherland at his Race Car Works from plans produced by himself and Al Willard. Since the entire concept of the car is so unusual, there is a minimal number of parts that are already in existence that are adaptable to this particular design. For this reason, the cost of the car is slightly higher than the average Funny Car.

Near the end of construction, the cost was just approaching $32,000, thanks in part to such special items as the hand-spun, two-piece, 12-inch-wide Cragar aluminum wheels and the Spicer-Dana constant-velocity axles (each of the four axles is worth over $900).

The formed-aluminum monocoque construction was chosen for lightest weight and maximum driver safety, and contributes to the car's 60% - 40% weight distribution. With a wheelbase of 130 inches and an overall height of only 41 inches, the Vega panel easily qualifies as one of the longest, lowest Funny Cars ever to hit the strips. Don Kirby handled the paint; Kenny Youngblood did the lettering and detail painting.

As unique as it is, the Gabelich Vega represents only one in a series of radically different drag-racing vehicles to be featured first in the pages of Car Craft in the coming months.

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Illustration by Kenny Youngblood

Cutaway view shows relative position of drive components, with the driver housed in the centrally located monocque "tub." Halibrand champ-type quick-change center sections are mounted at the front and rear to allow the final-drive gear ratios to be adjusted as necessary.

All four wheels are sprung; the fronts by adjustable torsion-bars, the rears by coil-over shocks. A geared P&S power takeoff bolted to the engine's bellhousing splits the power to the two rearends, the front quick-change being driven by a three-piece driveshaft that passes through the left side of the monocoque tub.

The engine is a 473 cubic-inch late Chrysler Hemi. No transmission is used. Though not completed in time for the photography, the exhausts will exit at the rear of the car in an effort to destroy any vacuum forces created by the shape of the car's body. An oil tank mounted above the rear differential supplies the engine's dry-sump oiling system.

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written by Don Green
from Car Craft magazine
page 49-50 - December 1971
© Petersen Publishing Co. Ltd. 1971