Fabulous Floppers: This Excerpt From The Vintage 1980s Diamond P Video Is An Amazing Pocket History Of Funny Cars


Fabulous Floppers: This Excerpt From The Vintage 1980s Diamond P Video Is An Amazing Pocket History Of Funny Cars

Just when you think you’ve seen them all! This is a 10-minute excerpt from a video called Fabulous Floppers that was made in the early 1980s. The best part is that this is the section of the video that they cover the history of funny car development with the likes of Kenny Bernstein, Don Prudhomme, and Steve Evans. The best part of the whole deal is that there is vintage footage in here that we never knew existed. You’ll see cars moving and running that you have only ever seen in still photos and maybe some you have never seen at all. This is truly fantastic stuff.

We’re guessing that all of this footage came from the NHRA archive, which we have visited and it is as big and bad as you think it is. They have material from the earliest days of the sport right up until today but the stuff that you’ll find the neatest here is the action footage of the super stockers, A/FXers, early steel funny cars, and finally the fiberglass cars that came to change the sport in the back half of the 1960s.

Perhaps a shameful admission but I had never seen video of the original Chi-Town Hustler doing its signature monster burnout until this video and once you see it, you’ll watch it like 10 times because this is hero level stuff. The level of smoke generated is just freaking fantastic!

From Jeep funny cars to weidro stuff spinning out in the middle of the track, this one has it all. The language used is fantastic as well. Evans calls funny cars the “Mt Saint Helens of the drag strip”. Artful! This is a must watch for any lover of drag racing history.


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2 thoughts on “Fabulous Floppers: This Excerpt From The Vintage 1980s Diamond P Video Is An Amazing Pocket History Of Funny Cars

  1. Bill Scheuring

    I still have this VHS tape and I believe I bought it in 1986.Lucky for
    me, I have a VCR/DVD combo player and watch it from time to time. Good stuff!

  2. MGBChuck

    Dam I’m old, livin’ on the west coast I saw many of these cars run (Fremont,Champion, SIR, Puyallup, Vacaville, Half Moon Bay, Bakersfield , many while I was VERY young)

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