One of the great names in 1960s Chrysler drag racing history has passed. Bud Faubel’s passing marks the latest in what has been a tough year for the history of drag racing. We’re losing legendary players in the formation and early growth years of the sport at an ever advancing rate as logic dictates would happen as these people continue to advance in age. Faubel was known for a series of “Honker” Mopars that ran in Stock, Super Stock, and then in match bash form with altered wheelbase examples and at least one experimental car that wore twin turbos in 1966. That oneprovided some fantastic performance numbers during its relatively short performance history.

More important that his drag racing career, Faubel was an Air Force fighter pilot who had flown combat missions over Korea and Vietnam before retiring from the service. With an obvious knack for going fast, Faubel soon found himself in the car business back around the Chambersburg, PA area he had grown up in an called home for the majority of his life. In 1961 he went to Daytona and ran a specially prepared Chrysler 300 to a terminal speed of 156mph, resetting the marks for his class and causing quite a stir as that speed was one of the fastest ever recorded on Daytona beach for a stock bodied car. It was on the sands of Daytona beach that NASCAR great Marvin Panch dubbed his car a “real honker” and Faubel liked the nickname so much he decided to carry it forward on his lineage of race cars that followed the 300. Bud Faubel would become one of the most famous dealership general managers in America due to his prowess and success on the drag strip. We’re sure that Shivley Motors benefitted from the attention as well.

While Faubel was not known as a guy who dominated competition at the few national events that existed in his era of the early and middle 1960s, he was a factor at events like the US Nationals and he was a stalwart and unrelenting match racer at all of the hot button doorslammer tracks in the east. Capitol Raceway, Cecil County, York, and the list goes on and on. He was the first guy to receive and run a Chrysler hemi drag car with an automatic transmission using the famed “Pushbutton” selector. The transmissions had been modified with a manual valve body according to interviews with Faubel and he punched the buttons to shift at about 6,500 rpm heading down the track. Through the early and middle 1960s Faubel ran a bunch of factory cars and was an important asset to the engineers and sales force that were reaping the benefits of wowing crowds with amazing performances and win lights at strips across the country.

The craziest “Honker” of them all came to be in 1966 under somewhat cloudy circumstances. The folklore story is that Faubel once saw a guy with a turbo slant six in a Dart at a drag strip and that got his wheels turning on providing some boost to a hemi machine. The end result was an intercooled, twin turbo hemi monster that reportedly turned trap speeds in the 160mph range which was absolutely mind blowing at the time. AiResearch provided lots of help on this project and that has us believing that the factory was involved in seeing this monster come to life. The scene in 1966 was rapidly changing with Chrysler AWB cars dominating on the match bash circuit to the point that guys running virtually every other kind of car were applying the treatment to their own rigs. Looming on the horizon though were the flip top Mercury funny cars that would completely change the direction of where Bud Faubel’s type of drag racing was headed.

A multi-time national record holder in many classes, a highly successful racer that was able to adapt to the times and ever changing equipment, and by all accounts one hell of a guy, Bud Faubel will be fondly remembered. Those memories are not limited to only the local Chambersburg, Pa area where he is revered but all over the country in the hearts and minds of anyone who loves the distinctive sounds of a tuned up hemi roaring to life or the classic looks of a Chrysler stock/super stocker from the early 1960s.

We wish we didn’t have to deliver this sad news so close to Christmas, but such is life. Bud Faubel may well by lining up the “Turbo Honker” right now and staring down the big christmas tree in the sky before dropping the hammer on a 160mph lap across the horizon.

THANKS FOR THE TIP ERIC

(photo credit: Beaver Springs Dragway)