Let’s say that you have at least $15,000 bucks in your pocket and you are desperate to buy a really cool piece of drag racing history. We found it for you! An eBay seller has listed Kenny Bernstein’s 1985 Ford Tempo body, signed by Bernstein and Dale Armstrong. It can be argued that this was the body that started the period of absolute and complete funny car domination that Bernstein and Armstrong had going for them during the middle 1980s. 1985 was kind of their coming out party and the Tempo body was a favor that every other person at the ball hated to see.
Unlike the infamous 1987 Buick LeSabre “Batmobile” that the team unveiled and pissed off the entire flopper universe with, the Tempo was just a tad different than everyone else’s bodies in looks, but scads better in aerodynamics. The nose was stretched and a couple of other dimensions were altered and all of a sudden, Bernstein and Armstrong were qualifying number one with regularity and during the 1985 season this body found its way to the winners circle at six of the 13 NHRA national events that season. Yeah, they won nearly half the freaking events in funny car that year. Jim Head was next closest with two wins. Even more laughable? The season ending points total. Remember this was long before the NHRA “Countdown” existed so it was simply the guy that racked up the most points at the end of the year who got the big check and trophy. The drama was out of the race by June and it was literally locked up by August. The final tally was hilarious. Bernstein finished the year with 12,652 points and the immortal Rick Johnson from Crowley, Texas was runner up with 7,734. Not exactly a nail biter.
To us, this is a really neat piece of drag racing history to own because it really represents a couple of things. The first is the true recognition of how important aerodynamics are for this class. The second is the representation of Bernstein and Armstrong really hitting their stride and getting their collective act together.
The body appears to be in pristine shape and as we said above, it carries the signatures of the two guys that made it so famous…or infamous depending on whether you were on the other side of the fence or the other side of the tree at the starting line. We already tried to convince our better half that the body would look boss in our house but she wasn’t into it.
If someone had some real sack, they buy this thing, have a period chassis built, call Armstrong up, and make a couple hits. DO IT! You know you want to…
SCROLL DOWN TO SEE A FEW PHOTOS OF THE BODY AND THEN CLICK THE LINK FOR THE EBAY AD –
This was the last IMHO that funny car bodies looked somewhat like production cars. After that funny car went downhill starting witb the ’87 Buick ‘batmobile’.
The antithesis of an actual Tempo. I wonder how “insiders” who favored more product identification in motorsports, such as Bob Tasca, Sr. viewed it.
It’s being sold by the Darrell Gwynn Foundation…Bernstein must have donated it to them as a fundraiser (which would explain why the LeSabre body is sitting there as well)…
Kenny donated EVERYTHING racing related to the foundation to auction off and raise money for their wheelchairs……..i was at the gators when Kenny made the announcement…..truly a stand-up legend!