The NHRA California Hot Rod Reunion is right around the corner and already we’re getting flooded with news and information about some of the awesome iron that will be running at the race. One of the cars we are most excited to see is the Swedish nostalgia nitro funny car called “Tre Kronor.” The car has a great history and was a strip shredder on the European scene back in the early 1980s. The car has been recreated by Johnny Nilsson and it will be run at Bakersfield with Erik Wallinder turning the wheel and Jeff Gaynor turning the wrenches.
This car was originally owned by Ed “The Ace” McCulloch and after changing hands once, was purchased by a man named Knut Soderqvist. Soderqvist had been in the sport for some time at that point, and decided that he wanted to own a flopper outright rather than teaming up. The original driver of the car was Harland Thompson, a hot shoe who had established himself driving cars for Herm Peterson and others through the 1970s.
In 1980, Soderqvist offered Thompson the Tre Kronor seat and the two hit east coast strips like Maple Grove in Pennsylvania, Lebanon Valley Dragway in New York state, and others. After clocking elapsed times in the mid-to-low six second range, Soderqvist decided that it was time to take their show on the road.
Thomson and Soderqvist packed up all their stuff, moved back to Sweden and proceeded to kick everyone’s ass from there to Siberia. They won the FIA World Finals that year, beating American Gene Snow in the finals. For the next decade and a half, through a number of cars, Thompson and Soderqvist were the team to beat on the European funny car scene.
The car is being shipped over from Sweden and will be ready for action in October at the CHRR. We’re working on finalizing our plans to provide a live stream of the event and will hopefully make a official announcement about that later this week.
It’ll be great to see this car shredding tires at Bako. Like they in Sweden, “Lycka till!” (good luck!)
