Old 1:1 Car I.D. - Please

[Ralphthe3rd]

Can any of you Identify the Year and Model of this Old (I believe?) Chevy Coupe Drag Car> Mister Irish. This was a car I grew up around as a kid and teenager in my old Hometown of South Plainfield N.J., as a local body shop(R&C) near me built and raced it. I always thought it was a Beautiful Car, but I'm NOT THAT OLD, and never knew the year and model, and only think it's a Chevy ? BTW- this is the only surviving photo of this car, and I actually emailed the Original body shop to get it.


BTW- this is an earlier photo of the car, and later in it's life, it was rebuilt faster, and featured a Blower and much larger rear tires. This car was a Beautiful Metalflake Shamrock Green Color. And it used to Race at Englishtown Raceway Park in N.J.

[Ralphthe3rd]

PS- *Note the lack of side windows behind the doors. What old Chevy Model was like this ?

[BRP32]

Looks like a '40 or '41 chevy.....

They were 5 window coupes.

Looks like someone made a phantom here(a car never made factory this way) by welding the rear side windows closed to make it look like a 3 window.

Cool pic!

Thanks for sharing!

Wayne (Bolton's Speed Shop and Paint Works) :D :D :D

[Ralphthe3rd]

Yeah- It looks like this '40 Chevy coupe, but it's lacking the extra windows...

I cannot remember if the original body(before it became Mr. Irish) had those windows, as I used to sit in the car as a pre-teen and pretend I was a Race Car Driver... :D

[waaytoomuchintothis]

[Ralphthe3rd]

In conclusion to the Original topic, I contacted the original car owners son- Carl, and he has Confirmed it WAS a '40 Chevy Coupe, that Was Customized and had the extra side windows filled in....afterall they WERE a Body Shop - LOL :D

Anyway, now I'm off to start planing to build a model of that car in HO. I'll be using Tyco's old '40 Ford as the body basis, but will change the nose to -(If I remember?) a plastic diecast body that was a '40 Chevy Sedan/Wagon....at least I Hope it was a '40 ? I'll go check my archives...

[Ralphthe3rd]

Woohoo ! I found MORE Pix Online, as well as info of what became of Mr. Irish...

FYI- they are pix of it's final incarnation in the early 80's right before it was sold.

Don't ya just LOVE Old Gassers- Before they had Narrowed Rear Ends !

http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/show ... stcount=50

[DAVE]

Yup. Gassers are a gas. Them and the altereds were spawning grounds for all sorts of crazy
ideas. And many even worked. One of my favorites is Wild Willy Borsch's Winged Express.

[dreinecke]

Those are seriously cool pics. I love the old Gassers and some of the vintage stuff is just the best. I know if you do a search of Continental Divide Raceway, you'll get some good pics due to the dragstrip being very popular.