Category: throwback thursday

Darrell Gwynn in his gold 1989 Coors Light Gold won the US Nationals

Two years after the “Bud-liner” Darrell Gwynn was racing a standard dragster, this one painted in metallic gold, red, black, and white. I love everything about this car! This car works very well. The color scheme is great, and the design works perfectly with the color scheme. I give it a perfect 100% A.

Darrell Gwynn’s 1987 disasterous attempt to recreate Swamp Rat 30

The Budweiser red looks good, I’m not a huge fan of the white front design they used here, but they fixed in by 1992. The old QUAKER STATE logo looks decent, but I hate the shade of green they used. It almost looks like the current shade of green, if it had faded in the sun. It’s really bland. I’ll give the paint scheme a B- The car design looks OK, but the covered wheels don’t look good, and the lack of mud flaps doesn’t help the streamlined look. It’s good the streamline concept died shortly thereafter.

Gary Ormsby races his streamlined 1986 Castrol dragster

Castrol has a very good shade of green and a very good shade of red in their logo, and both are on display with this dragster. I like the idea of the green stripe up the side interrupted by a white background with CASTROL GTX in green and red letters. This would be the design that they used when they started sponsoring John Force. It’s an A scheme. I don’t like this version of a streamlined dragster. It looks forced, and it looks like there is no way enough air can get in the supercharger. The large wheels look clunky, and would create drag. It’s just not a good car, and I’m glad it bit the dust.

Don Garlitts races Swamp Rat 30 in 1986, before it ended in the Smithsonian

Attempts had been made to streamline dragsters in the past, but leave it to Don Garlitts to take it to a new and effective level with Swamp Rat XXX. The black with yellow and white logo color scheme works, and the relatively plain design works very well too. I do like the swamp rat characters on the front fenders. It’s an A scheme. The streamline concept was tried by others, as we will see in the next few weeks.

Darrell Gwynn’s recently restored 1985 dragster was recently auctioned off

Metallic silver, light blue, and black. It might seem like an odd combination, but this scheme makes the color scheme work well. The stripes up the sides, especially the pattern that repeats itself on the DARRELL GWYNN logo work well too. The scheme is excellent, and it earns an A.

Johnny Abbott won the 1981 US Nationals in his Jolly Rancher dragster

All aboard the Candyland Express! The design looks really good. Jolly Ranchers had a really good logo that worked well on the sides of dragsters. This is no exception. I don’t really get the shade of tan that they felt the need to use. It just doesn’t look good. Also, if you pay attention to the right, you see the old four amber Christmas tree, which was eliminated in competition in 1986 due to Pro Stock drivers not being able to see the green light. It’s a solid A- scheme.

Jeb Allen burns out his 1980 English Leather at the 1980 Fallnationals

Black, gold, orange, and white is a bit of a bold color scheme. That said, the design works very well. The stripes aren’t over done, the logos work well with the color schemes, and the car looks good as a whole. I like the idea of the front suspension and front wing being one in the same. I also see another instance of a useless windshield setup here. All in all, it’s an A scheme.

Stan Shiroma wins the 1977 Fallnationals in Seattle in this Lidtke & Zeller dragster

The stripes up the sides are a bit overdone, but they work with the color scheme. I do like the red background near where the driver sits. Is the split down the middle of LIDTKE supposed to be like that, or is that a mistake caused by the body panel design? I’m going to guess its part of the design. It’s a C scheme.

Don Prudhomme’s 1972 Hot Wheels wedge gears up for a run

The paint scheme itself is really good. The dark red with the white stripe design works very well, and looks great. The car itself is kind of odd. Did Hot Wheels design it? It looks like something that would be sold as a Hot Wheels car. This actually looks like many future tempts to streamline top fuel dragsters. These attempts came back to haunt many who drove them. This paint scheme earns an A.

Gary Beck won the 1972 US Nationals in his top fuel dragster

The NHRA Top Fuel month starts with this Gary Back example from 1972. The blue looks really good, but the white stripe design isn’t great. It’s overdone. It’s visually distracting, and ht doesn’t make the gold and black logos look that good. Granted this was the early 1970’s, but it could be a lot better. I give it a B-