(Photos by Robert Martin, words by Darr Hawthorne) Few drag racers in Mopar history are of the stature of “Dandy” Dick Landy. In addition to an endless line of Super Stocker, Pro Stockers and Hemi performance revolution, Landy’s Automotive Research shop helped make the Hemi the engine of choice for decades on the street and strip.
Landy’s Dodges were, arguably, some of the highest profile Mopars of the time and the ’65 Coronet was a pivotal transition in the evolution into the funny car. Posters of that car were found in speed shops, home garages and boy’s bedrooms all over the United States and Canada.
Landy’s racing prowess at SoCal drag strips like Riverside, Lions, Irwindale, Pomona, San Fernando, Fontana and later at Ontario and Orange County International Raceway would solidify his place in drag racing history.
While helping clean out a garage and environs, about twelve years ago for the late Chris Martin, who was a longtime writer and pundit for NHRA’s National Dragster, there appeared a dusty manila envelope in the bottom of a box filled with old drag racing magazines and a couple of VHS pornos. Having heard rumors of a legendary Chrysler publicity shoot at Fontana Drag City, this could be it.
Chris Martin’s pops was Robert Martin, a Pulitzer Prize winning photographer for the Los Angeles Times; he was also a freelancer – picking up assignments around southern California in the 50’s and 60’s. Who’d have thought that on a May 20, 1965, one of the iconic shots in drag racing would come out of that Chrysler publicity shoot for the Mopar Drag Team.
Landy’s brand new, radical, altered wheelbase, injected ’65 Dodge Coronet, from his Automotive Research shop in the nearby San Fernando Valley was just off the trailer. Of note are the posed shots of Landy drinking a Coke with a bag of Bell’s potato chips, probably a promotional attempt at outside sponsorship for the popular class of the period.
So this is what remains of that shoot, the negatives were professionally drum scanned and the clarity is awesome of a long gone LA area drag strip with a plywood Drag News stand, those Goodyear Blue Streaks and that bitchen Dodge wagon towing one of the coolest Mopars on an open trailer. Oh yeah, and that trademark Dandy” Dick Landy cigar.
I was one of those kids who had the centerfolds plastered all over my bedroom walls. I was maybe 14 but my buddies and I couldn’t get enough of this stuff. We didn’t know it but this was the advent of the funnycar and that guy on the radio shouting “SUNDAY NIAGARA”!
I was only 5 in 65,but I dang sure have a big picture of that car on my shop wall now. Men like Landy were the people that really got drag racing going .The altered wheel base AFX cars were unreal at the time Yes called ” funny Cars” we all know that story. I once spoke with Bill Maveric (Little red Wagon) .He said that’s how his famous truck got its start . Chrysler wanted a truck with a Hemi to compete with these cars,He said all it would do is a wheely. This Landy car along with Color Me Gone were experiments gone write, very very cool .Its real fun to go to a drag strip and see something that someone has built that is different.And when that something that is different works ,that is way cool .This would have been unreal to see in person.
And I almost forgot .”Sunday Sunday Sunday at smoke’n US 30 Dag strip . Where the great one’s run run run run “. Coming from WLS am Chicago
Awesome car!
Gotta love watching the old videos of cars like this running pass after pass, all day long well into the 9s on drum brakes.
Now if you watch any modern car repair show on TV all those “experts” act like unless you run 4 wheel disc brakes you’re gonna die immediately. Seems like they worked fine for 100 years to me.
Towing 5,000 of car/trailer w/ single axle behind a passenger car, pouring gas with what appears to be a lit cigar, rebuilding drum brakes on the ground wearing white pants and loafers…all normal enough at the time as I recall. 🙂
I vividly remember as a 10 year old hanging on the fence at Lion\’s Drag Strip and seeing Dick Landy do his 7 grand neutral starts in this car!
You could even be spared the flood of the web age by helping a kindred Corvette proprietor by assisting on the web! Simply peruse the points and offer any data you may need to share by clicking and posting. Don\\\’t stress we survey everything and ensure it meets fundamental guidelines for those that stress.
Bring back gold dust rosin!
Landy’s cigar was never lit. The Grumps were always half smoked . Isky’s & Clay Smith’s were just stumps. Smart guys right there. I think I need to start smoking cigars.