This little gem is currently for sale on Ebay. It’s a custom 8 wheel drive, 8 wheel steer 1953 Willys Jeep nicknamed the Centipede. Dick Cook pulled parts from 3 different Willys Jeeps to build this one. It’s powered by a 327 Corvette engine that lives in its own compartment in the back.
“We just bolted $1600 worth of carburetors to this $1000 crap can.” The guys from Hot Rod Magazine buy a $1000 1974 Jaguar XJ12 with a Chevy 350 already in it with plans to go drag racing. They bring a huge Weiand supercharger (these instantly make everything awesome) and a pair of Holley carburetors on the plane with them to pick up the car and then install everything in a parts store parking lot. The guys then drive the Draguar to San Francisco stopping every 12 miles to get a car wash to cool the engine until finally making it to the drag strip and doing a couple of passes. I hope they keep this car, it’s pretty rad.
Holley Performance profiled this 1970 Bernie Cedoz dirt racing car that showed up at their 2012 Hot Rod Reunion. The car runs a dry sump 5.0 liter Chevy V8 fed with methanol by a Hilborn mechanical injection. It has one speed, no starter and carried enough fuel to race for 100 miles at a time. The owner, Bill Akin, has chosen to leave the car just as he found it in the builder’s son’s barn.
Tri-Powers and Six Packs were found on some of the most legendary muscle cars of the 60’s and 70’s. When you wanted good gas mileage and driveability, the V8 breathed through the center carburetor. When you wanted more power, the other two carburetors opened up to flow a lot more air and fuel into the engine to make ridiculous power while sounding awesome. Stacey David did this bit for his show, Gearz, on SPEED where he shows how to build your own tri-power or six pack on the cheap using 3 regular carburetors and a conversion kit. Even if you’re not building a tri-power of your own, it’s still pretty fascinating to see how these work.
Part 1: History and Theory of the Tri-Power and the start of the rebuild of the GM Rochester carburetors.
The hardcore diesel performance guys are a uniquely awesome bunch. Torque and black smoke give their rides a certain attitude and swagger. Case in point is this amazing Powerstroke powered dually hot rod. Everything about it is wonderfully done.