www.madmaxmovies.com

I have just read a book on Ed 'Big Daddy' Roth that I was lucky enough to be given for Xmas.

I was suprised to find that the superchargers on ALL of his show rods were fakes ... hollowed out and non-functional hiding a carbie ... just like the BoB.





It seems that he wanted them to not have the tempramental quirks of a blown engine as the majority of his show cars were pretty much rolling static displays. He usually left the plaster and vermiculite buck inside the fibre glass of the bodies making them phenomenally heavy. Some ... like the twin engined Mysterion had the internals of one engine completely removed. So it would seem that the BoB builders were following a well trodden Hot Rod path when they added the blower to the Pursuit Special.

This image was posted here a while back ... sorry but can't recall by whom ... and is an example of a local period Hot Rod using the same idea.



Hmmmm .... maybe I shouldn't have sold my blower set up after all!

Pete

edited

Sheeesh you learn new things every day! i may be wrong but i thought a few match box toy cars were designed buy this guy? the bubble car looks familure?

Hot Wheels used a lot of his designs. The bubble car became the Beatnik Bandit.

Hot Wheels did do a series of Roth cars but most famously Revell had Roth on contract in trhe sixties and put out models of his cars and also the monsters like Rat Fink. This was when car modelling was at it's zenith and Roth was making US$30000 pa ... a staggering amount at the time when the average wage was $3000 pa ... from royalties on kits.

It all came to a shuuddering stop with the appearance of the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show ... kids stopped buying model cars and bought guitars according to Roth.

It's suprizing how many show cars there are out there that are trailered and the motors are gutted.
I remember a "rat rod" a few years ago the had the exhust tip pluged with welded on steel plates.
It looked pretty cool, I should do that to my Bob, but I couldn't handle not being able to drive it
how have you been anyway Pete?
Dan

http://www.motortopia.com/album/view/p/ ... /po/2/pl/1

http://www.pickuptruck.com/html/autosho ... oraii.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2KpTJv- ... re=related

The full scale Deora II that Hot Wheels had made...or Hot Wheels made a die cast of has a fake blower...and a fake whole top engine. The visible engine is just a cover for the Cadillac under carriage(engine/transaxle) the car is sporting.