One of the neat things about nostalgia drag racing is that it actually has a weird middle layer of its history. You have the initial events that spawned the love for “looking back”, you have the modern version of “nostalgia” drag racing, and then you have the middle piece which was created in the 1980s when this whole thing first started to form up. Back then guys ran the actual cars that were the foundational vehicles of the sport or cars that were 100% exact copies of them. Don’t believe us? Watch the video below with the famed 554 Fuel Coupe hauling down the track and running an 11-second run at over 160mph! It is sideways, it is tire smoking, and wow is it cool!
The Mooneyham and Sharp 554 was most famously driven by “Jungle Larry” Faust back in the day and it was originally powered by a 390ci Gen I hemi that typically swilled 70-80% nitro at a whack. It competed at all the big meets through its life from the March Meet to weekend battles at San Gabriel. It ran against dragsters, fuel altereds, and whatever else showed up. It was an outlaw in drag racing before such a thing actually existed. The car made it to the top of the Drag News Mr. Junior Eliminator list, thereby making it the gnarliest thing this side of a top fueler back in the day.
We love this car and we love this run. Sideways, engine screaming, tires smoking, the driver getting his licks in behind the wheel. Big time fun!
Has to be one of the 2 baddest 34 coupes on the planet.
50 oz coupe being the other.
Direct drive smoking them along the way pure history amazing.
THIS drag racing is more engaging than todays fuelers.
We have 8 mm video from San Gabriel when i was in a stroller of the REAL DEAL. This is NOT the real deal.
I went to nostalgia drags in the 80’s and was at the 1st Fremont Reunion held at Sacramento after Fremont closed. Steiner was driving the 554 there and the fuel dragsters all smoked the tires .
The modern nostalgia racing is mostly missing the nostalgia part nowadays.
Correction its the 15 oz coupe.
Is the other one