There are restorations, there are recreations, and then there’s whatever this counts as because it is a restoration as performed by the guys who built the car in the first place. Seriously. Don Prudhomme was the driver, Lou Baney was the car owner and because of the Ford connections that Prudhomme/Baney had, Carroll Shelby was the sponsor of this thundering fueler. Don Long built the chassis and he’s the one who received the same chassis back and put it all to the original specs. Ed Pink originally built the 427ci Ford SOHC nitro burner in the front and it was once again Ed Pink who got the call to make the horsepower.
The red, white, and blue striped dragster is one of the coolest cars of the 1960s and ironically almost every photo you ever see of the thing is in black and white. Due to the advance of technology we get to skip right past photos and got into video mode here. The guys at The Rodder’s Journal hooked up with Prudhomme and had him bring the newly restored and running Super Snake to Bakersfield for a photo shoot and some fun. This is a short snippet of both of those things with the final product set to appear in an incoming issue of The Rodders Journal. If you are not a reader of that mag, you should be. Ultra high quality paper, photography, and history, it rules all.
While you may not have 10 minutes to oogle the car in this video you’ll be able to hear just how awesome a cammer sounded on nitro and you’ll also be able to see that The Snake has not lost any of his ability to roast the tires in a slingshot dragster. This is win all the way around.
Equally impressive is that Prudhomme still got the stones to sit in a nitro burning Sling Shot and stamp the go pedal.
MORE PLEASE!