Classic YouTube: The Last Run Of “TV” Tommy Ivo And The Four-Engined Wagon Master


Classic YouTube: The Last Run Of “TV” Tommy Ivo And The Four-Engined Wagon Master

Far as I’m concerned, there isn’t a more impactful sight that the four Buick V8 engines attached to the four wheels of “TV” Tommy Ivo’s magnum opus. Originally known as Showboat and later, with a Buick station wagon body that was added on by Tom McCourry, who was Ivo’s crewman at the time, the monster that wound up becoming the Wagon Master is one of drag racing’s most iconic bits of insanity and, as far as I am aware, is the final word in exhibition dragsters. I’m sure Lohnes might correct me on that, but seriously, how do you top sixteen cylinders screaming out loud while all four wheels go up in smoke?

The basic premise of the original Showboat was a Kent Fuller frame and four Buick-supplied engines. The engines were mounted into two pairs, with the pair on the right side driving the rear axle and the left side driving the front differential that ran a “reversed” ring gear that had originally been designed for the Novi Indy racers. Tommy then managed to work his way out of driving the car…thanks to his acting gig for the television show “Margie”, the studio wasn’t about to allow their talent to hop into what looked like death arrived. Ivo initially offered a young Don Prudhomme a shot at the car and he did drive it a few times, but when his then-girlfriend shot the idea of touring down in flames, McCourry took up the driver’s slot.

Ivo had driven the car once or twice before he sold the car to McCourry in 1963, who ran the car until about 1968, when he sold it to Norm Day. About 1982, Ivo bought the car back, complete with the Buick wagon body on it, and it didn’t take long for the car to bite the hand that built it. During a run in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, a section of the track had lifted due to frost and when the Wagon Master ran over it, Ivo crushed three vertebrae. His final official drive in the car was at the 1982 World Finals at Orange County International Raceway, when he packed up driving in competition for good.

Or, so most thought. This is from the 1996 Goodguys Hot Rod Nationals at Indy, where he took two more cracks at taming the Wagon Master as part of his 60th birthday celebration. Not a bad way to celebrate the day, we think!


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5 thoughts on “Classic YouTube: The Last Run Of “TV” Tommy Ivo And The Four-Engined Wagon Master

  1. Rock On

    Mathematics was never my strongest subject, but wouldn’t four 8 cylinder engines give you a total of 32 screaming cylinders?

  2. Steve Akker

    Saw this Beast run at Byron Dragway once….way cool !! TV Tommy always a Showman and a class act ! Hope when he passes on to the Great Dragway in the sky , they send him there in this car !!

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