Volvo Gasser, bare steel, Hemi-powered

[Jon]

A 331 Hemi-powered Volvo Amazon gasser. Owned by Henrik Larsson of Larsson Customizing.



Gassers are culturally important in the context of stock car racing. "Stock cars" (as opposed to "race cars") used to be stock vehicles, bought off the lot from a dealership. When NASCAR was first formed in 1948, all cars that raced had to be entirely constructed of publicly-available parts from car dealers. This process is called "homologation"; the "GTO" in a Pontiac GTO famously stands for Gran Turismo Omologato - Grand Tourer Homologated.



Car manufacturers, realizing the benefit in sales of having a NASCAR-winning vehicle (hence the adage "win on Sunday, sell on Monday"), would then intentionally manufacture publicly-available "special edition" race cars (the cream of the crop of the muscle car era), and sell only as many were required to qualify as properly homologated NASCAR vehicles.



Anyway, analogous to stock cars purchased off the lot, gassers were NHRA drag racing cars that ran on regular old gasoline, instead of methanol or nitromethane. This made drag racing accessible to everyday people. In this sense, gassers were the homemade tools of the drag racing world. NHRA eliminated gasser classes in 1972, but gassers have rightly retained their position of favor in automotive history.




Previously:

Aluminum dually hot rod

[Toolmaker51]

Agreed. Nothing so typifies real drag racing as the gas classes, fleets of straight axled, max weight transfer 55 Chevys, 40 era Willys, Fiats, Kaisers, Belvederes, Anglias, and Fords. And the builder/ sponsor/ driver names involved, El Padrone, Dondero, Stone-Woods & Cook, Teixeira, Herrera, Buchanan, mouse motors, rat motors, elephant motors...and so many drivers went on to higher classes.

Here's 8 minutes worth. Few broke 11 seconds or 120mph. I guarantee those guys had better understanding of what it takes to sidestep the clutch, carry front wheels a hundred feet out and cleanly pound a 4-speed than a fat wallet and 2021 super car. And a $500 monthly insurance premium.

there are hundreds more.