While cruising through the swap meet in Bakersfield, I happened upon the contraption below and it stopped me dead in my tracks. It appears to be a propane draw through carb and turbo setup that is on a Ford small block intake manifold CORRECTION: THANKS TO BANGSHIFT READER BBR I HAVE BEEN INFORMED THAT THIS IS THE TURBOCHARGER AND INTAKE SETUP FROM AN OLDS JETFIRE TURBO ENGINE. Frankly, if I had room in my bag I would have bought it just to stick on my desk as a conversation piece because it is weirder than all get out.
I looked all over it for a make, or serial number, or something that I could identify it by, but there wasn’t much of anything on it that told any sort of a story. The turbo is absolutely minuet and doesn’t seem to be much bigger than the turbos used on Ford’s Ecoboost engines currently. The side draft carb almost looks like a modified Stromberg WW, but again, I’ve got nothing.
Outside of this thing, there were lots of rare and weird intakes, sheet metal, and patina’d doors and stuff for sale. I saw two guys nearly come to blows over the price of a carb about 20 minutes after the gate was opened on day one! Ahhh, the one thing that eBay will never have is the charm of a drunken swap meet vendor.
We want to know what the coolest/weirdest thing is that you’ve seen at a swap meet lately! Did you buy it? Mock it? Tell anyone else?
WHAT’S THE WEIRDEST/COOLEST THING YOU HAVE SEEN AT A SWAP MEET LATELY?
A set of headers of a Detriot Deisel.
Olds Jetfire!! Not a Ford!!
A slant six hyperpack intake at the Mopar Spring Fling.
Was that a real pig in the first two pictures? And was it for sale? That’d be wilder than the intake.
Bob Chiluk and I talked with a guy who all kinds of neato speed parts at the Long Beach Swap in January. One that nearly caused me to run for the atm was a pair of aluminum Buick heads, shaft offset roller rockers, matching valve covers with a blower manifold. They had sbc bolt pattern and were real trick. I was thinking how wild this setup would be on my car with a 6-71 huffer on top.
Saw a crank driven blower at Good Guys but was not smart enuff to snap a pic….