Blast from the Past: Galpin Ford Four-Engine 'Mach IV' Funny Car

NORTH HILLS, Calif. – Multi-engined dragsters became ‘A Thing’ back in the 1960’s. “What’s the easy way to double the power of your quarter-miler? Simple – drop in another engine, and tie them crank-to-crank.” Then “TV Tommy” Ivo went the whole thing two better by creating an exhibition dragster running four Buick V-8s, after building previous twin-engined rails. Of course no quad-motored dragster was legal for any NHRA class at the time, but such an outrageous machine was sure to be a hit at any custom car or racing car show, and a popular attraction exhibition racer at any drag racing event.

TV’s exploits surely made an impression on long-haul trucker and drag racer Gary Weckesser, who saw the idea as an odd cross between an open-engined rail dragster and the Funny Car, a relatively new style of drag racer which was growing in popularity in the late ’60s when Weckesser decided to try his own spin on a quad-motored quarter-miler. Being a Ford guy, he chose to fashion his Monster Mustang around a ’69 Mach 1 Sportsroof body shape, yet unlike most “flopper” Funny Cars, the idea would be that the body would encompass only the panels from the firewall back, and a vestigial nose piece (including an OEM front bumper) and front spoiler that generally recalls the look of a ’69 Mustang grille -- leaving the entirety of the engines’ bay completely in the open.

And since it was styled after a Mustang Mach I and would be powered by four Ford engines, it would have to be named the Mach IV.



Weckesser built the car in 1969, with considerable sponsorship and product support from a variety of performance and racing companies, headlined by Galpin Ford, and including Wieand Equipment, Proto Tools, Superior Wheels, Enderle Injection, Milodon, Hurst Airheart, and Isky Racing Cams, just to name a few. You’ll recall that many ’69 Mach I’s were powered by 351 Windsor V-8s, as then would the Mach IV. The quadrant of stoutly built Windsors packed very robust, primarily aftermarket internals, topped by Enderle tall-stack fuel injection. They were fired by Hunt Magnetos, and exhausted through 16 individual and chromed zoomy pipes. Talk about a cackler!

Speaking of chrome, the car was built to a very high standard – after all, it was an exhibition racer, and needed to be a bit of an exhibitionist. Nearly every component that could be polished and chromed was, and the fiberglass bodywork was finished in a groovy, very-60s style paint job of primarily white with faded and shaded metallic-blue accent panels, pinstriped with gold.

Running or static, the Mach IV was a showpiece to be sure.



About now you may be wondering how all that power got to the ground. To be sure, it was no small feat of engineering. Just to make its burnouts ever more spectacular, the Mach IV runs full time all-wheel drive, so the result was “four turning and four burning.” A small network of driveshafts, U-joints and other mechanical magic pipe all the power through a single clutch actuating a custom-built direct drive gearbox – there was no transmission ratios per se, and no chain-drives involved, either. As you might guess, driving this beast in a straight line was no small task.

Power? That’s a subject of much speculation; the claimed combined power output was something in the neighborhood of 3,000 horsepower -- something many experts don’t buy into. For certain 750 horses per naturally aspirated Windsor would have been a lot back in the day, and it’s our guesstimate that Mach IV’s output would have been more like “a mere” 2,000 ponies. No matter, it’s got multiple 8-second runs to its credit, with terminal speeds around 180 mph.


For a time there was another quad-motored exhibition dragster running around called the Wagonmaster; it used a GM station wagon-style rear body section and Buick V-8s, said to be built out of Ivo’s old machine. Believe it or not -- or luckily enough -- the two cars actually met up in a match race. Just imagine the sound of those 16 cylinders all igniting at the same time!

 

Weckesser campaigned the car from 1969 through 1974 and then the rest of his life kinda got in the way, so it was retired and parked – for decades. Gary Weckesser recently passed away, but prior to that, his famous car was acquired by the Galpin Motors Collection, has been fully restored, and can now be seen at its marvelous Collection facility adjacent to the Galpin Auto Sports (www.galpinautosports.com) shops in the San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles.

Hoping to see four-wheeled burnouts up and down the nearby I-405 Freeway? Not likely anytime soon.



FORD PERFORMANCE PHOTOS / COURTESY THE GALPIN MOTORS COLLECTION

 

RICHARD CHARBONNEAU’S PSYCHEDELLIC 427 FAIRLANE WAGON RACER RIDES AGAIN

POMONA, Calif. – Drag-racing station wagons are nothing new. The late “Dyno Don” Nicholson raced a 427 Marauder-engined 1964 Mercury Comet station wagon running in A/FX known as “The Ugly Duckling,” which both he and “Fast Eddie” Schartman extensively match-raced. In 1967, Canadian racer and future Super Stock champ Barrie Poole also raced a 427 Mercury Comet grocery-getter called “The Collector” in SS/C with notable success. But undoubtedly one of the most successful quarter-mile grocery getters -- if not THE most successful -- was Minnesotan Richard Charbonneau’s psychedelically-hued 1967 Ford Fairlane 427 E/Stocker dubbed “The Trip,” which hauled the Division 5 racer all the way to the 1970 NHRA Stock Eliminator World Championship title. It also won him a seat on the 1970 Car Craft Magazine All-Star Drag Racing Team, effectively proving that station wagons can do a tad more than just than haul kids and groceries.

Last year we sat down with Richard, his wife Liz, and current car owner/restorer Dean Carlson on the 50th Anniversary of Charbie’s Stock Eliminator triumph during the 2020 NHRA Winternationals in Pomona, California, where the recently restored multi-colored ’67 Fairlane was displayed trackside at the Mecum Auctions booth and later placed on loan to the Wally Parks NHRA Motorsports Museum.

The car’s had quite a history. Minnesota drag racer Richard Charbonneau first burst onto the scene driving a 1962 406 Ford Tri-Power competing in the Stock Eliminator brackets. “At the time, I had the quickest Ford in Minnesota,” he said, “running a 13.70 at 109.00 on street tires. Racing was pretty basic back in those days. We didn’t have expensive drag slicks, just street tires!”

Stock and Super Stock Eliminator racing was coming into its own on the national scale, and with it came big money. This caused Richard to jump ship in 1963 and begin racing a series of Brand-X super stock cars while advancing his career on the national stage. In 1967 Richard returned to the Blue Oval camp with the purchase of a 1967 427 Ford Fairlane ordered through Brookdale Ford in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, which he alternately campaigned in NHRA SS/C and the NHRA A/Stock through C/Stock classes.

“I saw in the NHRA Rule Book that Ford had listed a 427 V-8 in a station wagon,” he explained. “When I saw that I said, ‘Wow!’ The station wagon had a shorter wheelbase by three inches, and with the added weight from a full-length roof and that tailgate hanging over the back, the weight-transfer factor had to have been phenomenal, so I started looking for one right away.

“One day I was driving through St. Paul and this brown 1967 Ford Fairlane station wagon passed me going the opposite direction. I immediately turned around and followed the guy home. After several hours of talking I convinced the owner into selling me the car. Three days later, I completed transferring the entire drivetrain from my hardtop race car into the guy’s station wagon and took it up to Brainerd, Minnesota, to race. To everybody’s amazement, on my first run the car did wheelstands!

“In 1969 and ’70 the car ended up becoming Stock Eliminator’s high points winner in the country. Then in 1970, the car won Stock Eliminator at the NHRA Winternationals. Brookdale Ford was so excited that they wanted to pay to paint the car something more identifiable, and that’s when the car received its Peanuts & Minnick-applied multi-panel candy paint job, which became the car’s signature calling card and was the subject of numerous car magazine feature articles. It went on to win quite a few more races. In fact, the car was so popular that Chrysler tried to lobby the NHRA to get the car outlawed from competition on several occasions.”

After winning the championship and being inducted into the Car Craft All Star Drag Racing Team, the wagon was ultimately outlawed at the end of the 1971 racing season so Richard decided to build a Pro Stock Ford Pinto instead. However, that was about the time Charbonneau met his future wife, Elizabeth, and the two of them became involved in hydroplane racing. The Fairlane languished for awhile prior to being sold to some racers in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin. Then the wagon was purchased by the Cook family in Robbinsdale, Minnesota, who raced the wagon for a number of years. By 2016, Dean Carlson had purchased the car with the intentions of restoring it . . . and the rest is now history.

“Over the years I had kept track of the car, and when the Cook family finally decided to sell it, I jumped at the chance,” Carlson said. “The Cooks had been racing the wagon for approximately 15 years and the car was in good shape. The drivetrain was basically all there. All it took was some freshening by Richard and me. I chose custom painters Bruce and Kelly Bush from Wizard Custom Studios and St Croix Air Brushing, who had the car for a little over a year and were able to duplicate the race car’s paint job using pictures taken from magazine articles from back in the day.”

We asked Dean what it felt like to debut the wagon at the 2020 NHRA Winternationals at Pomona and then display the car in the Wally Parks/NHRA Motorsports Museum. “We had a great time in the Mecum booth at Pomona,” he said. “It was fun seeing Richard unite with many of his fans, especially with his family present, and then get in the car and drive it again after all those may years. I also feel pretty honored to have the car statically displayed for the year in the NHRA Motorsports Museum. That was the frosting on the cake!”

What was Richard Charbonneau’s biggest thrill from Pomona? “Making that parade lap at the 2020 NHRA Winternationals (commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the Fairlane’s first big win)! The fans were on their feet cheering and waving at us from the stands. I had my three grandsons, Thomas, Luke and Christian, riding along with me and they were absolutely thrilled. To witness first-hand all the attention and adoration was amazing. You can’t believe how many people actually came up to me and told me that they saw this car win at the first drag race they ever went to back in 1970. I was totally blown away!”

FORD PERFORMANCE PHOTOS / COURTESY BOB McCLURG

 

 

At this writing, Richard & Liz Charbonneau and current owner Dean Carlson are all gathered at Pomona to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of Richard’s Stock Eliminator victory. Charbonneau’s psychedelically hued 1967 427 Ford Fairlane station wagon was displayed in the Mecum Auctions display throughout the weekend and it participated Sunday’s race day parade activities. After that, “Trip-1” (as it is known,) was put on display for the next six months inside the Wally Parks-NHRA Motorsports Museum.

Richard Charbonneau
Class at 70 springs, C.C. 70

 

VIDEO: Gas Ronda at the 1966 Green Valley Raceway AHRA?s World Point Championship Finale

RARE! Owned by Valerie Harrell - Never Seen Before Drag Racing Interviews Green Valley - 1966

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Dick Harrell Performance Center
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VIDEO: Gas Ronda at the 1966 Green Valley Raceway AHRA’s World Point Championship Finale

by Nick Lish Photo: Peter Harholdt / Vintage MotorsportLike many of our readers, I am a bit of a purist and quite ritualistic when it comes to reading the magazine. I try to avoid reading any of it digitally and wait anxiously for the tangible prefect-bound issue to arrive.

Back when I was working in an office and the latest issue was delivered, I would park myself at at a local eatery’s table and treat myself to a European-length lunch to dive into a few of the features. It’s a tradition that’s stuck with me even though I no longer work in an office and rarely go out to lunch.

With Phoenix weather becoming less oven-like I blocked out some time to get acquainted with the latest (Nov/Dec 2021) issue. I started with the cover car and the subject of the salon feature – Gas Ronda’s 1965 Ford Mustang 427 A/FX.

After reading about the history from Jim McCraw and gawking at the always glorious photos from Peter Harholdt, I did what I’m sure many others do after something piques their interest – I hopped on my computer and starting looking for anything more I could read, watch, or hear about Gas Ronda.

I quickly came across a wonderful centered around Gas Ronda that Bill McCurdy put together. Atop that list was this fabulous footage from the 1966 AHRA World Point Challenge Finale at Green Valley Raceway in Smithfield. Texas.

At just under 54 minutes it is a lengthy watch, but recaps the entire event including many of the races and plenty of interviews as well. Certainly some welcome context from someone who is always eager to learn more. Enjoy!

 

Tying some racing history together
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Legendary Engine Shop Scheduled for Demolition: Ed Pink's Hallowed Ground (Full Tour)

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TO CLARIFY: THEY ARE MOVING NOT CLOSING. EPRE WILL CONTINUE! Ed Pink has built engines for drag racing in the heyday of NHRA competition, Cosworth Indy Car engines, road race, USAC sprint cars, and many more. With a career spanning over 60 years across multiple facets of motorsports finding success in EVERY one of them...there is nobody truly like Ed out

there. He has been in this very building since 1965 and now the city of Los Angeles has annexed the property to build a bus terminal for the 2028 Olympics. They will be forced to leave at an unknown date and the building will be torn down. Gone forever.

Ed is 92 years old and still remembers everything. In this video he walks us through his legendary racing engine facility for what
will be a digital time capsule of the walls where his legacy was built.mdstapleton42@gmail.com FAN MAIL ADDRESS 208 Overhill Dr Mooresville NC 28117

 

Tying some racing history together
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See it before it goes away.