Original Little Red Wagon A-100?
The 1960s found drag racing exploding in a number of directions. From hot stockers out of Detroit to the gasser wars to streamlined dragsters, there is good reason why the sixties have and always will be considered the sports Golden Age. And few vehicles that came out of that fertile era could equal the Little Red Wagon.
This was a project that went astray from what was first intended. Dodge had actually been offering a standard size D-series pickup with a 413 cu. in. (later, a 426) Street Wedge engine option installed on the assembly line, and a version with some special parts had even been racing in the B/Factory Experimental class during 1962 and 1963. Jim Schaeffer and John Collier of Dodges Truck Divisions in Detroit had gotten the job of taking the new 1964 A100 Forward Control compact truck and putting a 426 Hemi engine in it for A/FX and exhibition drag racing. The 90-inch A100 model, brand new for that year and available in van format as well, would certainly be a hairy ride with seven liters of NASCAR-designed lung in it.
To mount the engine in the truck effectively, it was set back 20 inches using a custom sub-frame that housed the entire driveline, resulting in a 48-percent front, 52-percent rear weight distribution.
It used the drag racing intake with cross-ram carbs and S&S headers. The transmission, a Chrysler 727 Torqueflite automatic, was coupled directly to the differential. Weight was removed throughout the truck so the final effective weight was less than 2,700 pounds even with the heavy hemispherical engine. The final work was done by noted subcontractor Dick Branstner, who had won the U.S. Nationals in the Color Me Gone Dodge super stocker with Roger Lindamood driving. Jay Howell, an associate of Branstners, was tagged as the driver and the truck began its shakedown runs at Cecil County, Maryland on September 19, 1964.
Howell would be noted as a serious funny car driver in the latter part of the decade, but the little truck did not want to handle at all, and after a couple of scary runs at speed, he decided to call it a day (though Super Stock and Drag Illustrated got a feature for its second ever issue, and it ran in the centerspread). Continued testing showed that the truck still wanted to pull the nose in the air, so Dodge PR rep Frank Wylie, who had helped push the initial effort, called a noted West Coast driver named Bill Maverick Golden to drive it during an upcoming Dodge Tough Trucks commercial.
Maverick, a former Marine, had become well known for the Dodges he had been running for the West Coast Dodge Dealers Association during the early 1960s and had set several records that had helped make Dodge competitive in a sea of 409 Chevys and tri-power Fords. Regarded foremost as a quiet thinker, Golden was credited for advances in Super Stock racing during those formative years that allowed him to often stun the competition; he and Wylie had built a strong working reputation during those years. In his new 1964 Hemi Charger, he had won the local but hot Super Stock class at Pomona for several consecutive weeks before heading out on his summer tour on the AHRA circuit in Ultra Stock trim. In the late fall, he agreed to drive the truck for the ad. After a couple of passes at Motor City Dragway, he brought the truck back to California for filming at Fontana Dragway and came away with stunning results the nose rode in the air a full 600 feet before he bounced it to the ground!
The adage that racing evolution is written in blood proved true in the wheel standing business as well.
The original 1964 truck was destroyed in Albuquerque in 1969, its replacement (supercharged with center steering and the first hydraulic rear gate) was wrecked in 1971, and a third Little Red Wagon built from those remains almost killed Golden in a high-speed flip in Canada in 1975. Once he recovered, he took the show truck out of mothballs and converted it to active duty. This would be the truck that raced as the Little Red Wagon for the next three decades.
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