Mopar Factory Drag Cars Ultimate Box Set: Mopar Factory Drag Cars, Hemi Under Glass, Hurst Equipped, & Dyno Don

Stock-based drag racing throughout the 1960s demanded that the cars competing on the track be genuine production models and that they could be purchased by anyone. The strict regulations dictated total commitment from the manufacturers if they were to be successful. None were more committed than Chrysler.

Chrysler attacked Stock (Super Stock) drag racing in the 1960s with the same fervor as it did the NASCAR Grand National, which itself spawned the reintroduction of the Hemi engine. Its engineers designed and produced a new factory Super Stock turnkey race car most years throughout the decade and enjoyed absolute success on the track, forever cementing its legendary performance status.

The introduction of Pro Stock in 1970 brought with it exciting heads-up racing with the expectation of producing multiple winners from a variety of brands. Instead, it resulted in total Mopar supremacy, as Hemi-powered Chrysler cars won 12 of the 15 national races throughout the first two years, prompting the NHRA to introduce weight breaks to scupper the Chrysler domination. The new 1972 regulations favored small-blockpowered compact cars and were the first major step toward Pro Stock spiraling away from its roots and into the tube-frame silhouette formula seen today.

Racing historian Steve Holmes delves into this fascinating period, capturing the careers of the Ramchargers, Melrose Missile, Bud Faubel, Dick Landy, Sox & Martin, Herb McCandless, Don Grotheer, Motown Missile, and countless others. He provides a blow-by-blow account of Chrysler’s factory drag car programs and the incredible cars it produced to trounce its rivals during the most epic era in Stock drag racing history.

• Mopar drag cars routinely sell for more than $150,000 at auction

• The most famous names in drag racing history campaigned Mopar drag cars

• No manufacturer created more factory drag cars in the 1960s and 1970s than Mopar

While the established stock and modified brackets are
long-recognized as the heart and soul of drag racing, it was
the wheelstanders that more often than not put butts in the
bleachers. In that category, some of the most well-known
names included Bill “Maverick” Golden’s Little Red Wagon,
Bill Shewsberry’s L.A. Dart and Chuck Poole’s Chuck
Wagon. Although, most memorable of all was the Hurst
Hemi Under Glass Plymouth Barracuda campaigned by
Bob Riggle.

Riggle started his career in the early 1960s as a car
builder and mechanic for Hurst-Campbell and eventually
ascended to pilot the Hemi Under Glass. When he left
Hurst in 1969, the Hemi Under Glass franchise transferred
with Riggle. He continued for six more years as the owner/
driver of a succession of Hemi Under Glass renditions.
In the 1990s he resurrected the concept of the original
car—making four different versions (1966, 1967, 1968,
and 1969)—and continued to thrill drag racing fans with his
wheelstanding antics.

At the time of this writing, Bob’s last run with the Hemi
Under Glass was in the summer of 2019. He claims to have
retired (he was 83 years old at the time), but he’s claimed
that before!

This is Bob’s story, one that Mark Fletcher and Richard
Truesdell, co-authors of the 2012 book Hurst Equipped, are
honored to share. They say the story was easy to tell—given
their unprecedented access not only to Bob but also to
his vast archive of photos that reflect his ongoing popularity.
Many of the photos in this book are seen in print for the
very first time.

• Bob Riggle is recognized as the greatest wheel stander
of all time and as drag racing’s most popular exhibitionist

• Many never-before-seen photos from the Bob Riggle
archive illustrate this history of Hemi Under Glass

• Bob Riggle has made 10s of thousands of drag racing
passes, entertaining 10s of millions of fans

About the Authors

Richard Truesdell is a veteran magazine editor with
more than 25 years of experience. He has written scores
of magazine articles and has been the editor-in-chief of
Chevy Enthusiast and Car Audio and Electronics. Currently,
he is the editorial director of Automotive Traveler.
Mark Fletcher has been a regular contributor to several
automotive websites and magazines. Mark is a long-time
muscle car enthusiast, and owns a Hurst SC Rambler. Currently, he resides in Steven’s Point, Wisconsin.

George Hurst was a hot rodder at heart, but he was also a visionary, an innovator, a brilliant promoter, and he was particularly skilled at building alliances. Hurst developed and marketed a high-performance line of shifters that led the industry and became the cornerstone of the company. After forming an alliance with Anco Industries, Hurst marketed and sold more than 100 speed parts that included shifters, heads, wheels, and many other parts. Eventually, the Hurst catalog became the source for high-performance parts in the 1960s and 1970s. Jack “Doc” Watson joined Hurst and became a pivotal figure within the company, which led to many performance projects with Pontiac. Over the years, Hurst also partnered with Oldsmobile to build special 442s known as the “Hurst” Olds, with AMC to build the wickedly effective SC Rambler, and with Chrysler to create a number of Super Stock cars as well as the 300H. He also helped build one of the most memorable exhibition cars in drag-racing history, the Hemi Under Glass. No other company or individual had as big of an impact on so many aspects of the automotive industry as George Hurst. His performance parts were some of the best ever, the competition cars won many races, and the muscle cars that bear his name were some of the best of the era. Scores of interviews, in-depth research, and exceptional insight from veteran magazine editor Richard Truesdell and co-author Mark Fletcher have created a great book. In this revised softcover edition, Hurst Equipped: Revised and Updated Edition captures the complete story from the production cars and race cars to the performance parts. • New updated, softcover edition of a previous best seller • Hurst Equipped cars, and factory special cars associated with the Hurst brand, are extremely popular and valuable today • Hurst speed parts are still best sellers today for vintage drag racing subjects. Many fans of drag racing consider the most interesting era to be from the 1950s through the 1970s, the years when the sport really took off. During that period, so much changed from a speed and technology standpoint that people often refer to this time as the golden age of drag racing.Drivers often became associated with a particular manufacturer, such as Chevy, Ford, or Chrysler through sponsorship, factory team rides, or sometimes simply their own preference. The more successful drivers became household names in the drag racing community. Chevy had Grumpy Jenkins, Pontiac had Arnie "the Farmer" Beswick, Mopar had Sox & Martin and Dandy Dick Landy, and Ford's most successful driver of the era was the legendary "Dyno Don" Nicholson.Nicholson's first wins on a national level were actually in the early 1960s in Chevrolet products. He became extremely successful on the match-race circuit. Then, in 1964, he switched over to Mercury with the new Comet after General Motors enacted a factory ban on racing activities. He won 90 percent of his match races that year. He stuck with Ford and Mercury products and won throughout the 1960s and 1970s, even after Ford also pulled the plug on factory team sponsorship. He made it to the final rounds in nearly 50 national events during that period, in addition to winning championships, awards, and match races along the way. If you are a fan of a certain era of racing, a Ford fan, or certainly a "Dyno Don" fan, this book will be a welcome addition to your library.