I scored an original copy of "Callenger" on Abe's books for $17!
Last Sentence in Chapter 8:
I worked and raced harder than ever and it was with a 1936 Ford coupe that
we built together that I first raced at Bonneville.
Chapter 10 quotes:
My first year there for the Nationals was 1950 and I drove up with a buddy only as a spectator.
It was a fabulous show with over a hundred entries and a mob of about six hundred hot rodders.
We continued storming in the drags and as the summer rolled around I built two engines to run in the coupe
at Bonneville. One was for Class B, 183 to 260 cubic inches and the other was for Class C, 260 to 305 cubes.
We started out with the little engine in the pure white coupe and made run after run but for some reason
that we still don't understand the car just wouldn't trip Otto Crocker's photo-electric timer. We talked it over with him and
he suggested that we try a little color on the car and see if that wouldn't break the light beam. We painted big, hairy, purple
flames all over the front end. That cured the trouble but the best time we could get was 122.282 MPH, versus 126.582 of top
man Bud Fox. But this was our first time out on the Salt. We were still learning to tune for the altitude and we felt encouraged.
We got impatient with going slow, snatched the little engine out and dropped in the Class C mill. There were eleven entries in that
class and we managed to to turn the fastest one-way time of them all-141.065 MPH. Our nearest competition was Clark Cagle at
137.614. But I got greedy when I made my record try, tipped the nitro can a little too bravely and dumped the whole bottom end
of the engine onto the Salt.
That confirms that Mickey did race a white 1936 Ford Coupe in the 1948-1951 time period.
However, there are no pictures of this car. The earliest picture appears to be his twin-engine Bantam in 1952.
I did find Mickey Thompson's results in the November 1951 Hot Rod Magazine where he ran a 296" Merc to 141.065 MPH on Page 61.
Does anyone here have ANY pictures or additional information on Mickey's 1936 Ford Coupe?
Thanks,
Andy