For general information, I bought the Belly Tank off of Tom Beatty back sometime in the mid 1980’s. I bought it to put a Flathead Ford V8, and other motors into it and run the car at El Mirage.
When I got the car it was complete with trailer and had the Oldsmobile 302 cubic inch motor in it and the hydramatic transmission. It also had a four port Hilborn injector on top of the blower.
The car had not run since 1963 so I took the car apart down to the frame. I took the frame to Hambro Industries in Sun Valley and had them sandblast the frame. This showed some places in the frame that needed to be replaced as they were rusted through. I looked at the rearend and axles and all the other parts of the car and figured out how much money it would take to upgrade all the existing parts for a motor that would put out 1000 Horsepower, as I was only going to run the Ford Flathead for a short time.
Also I would have had to make a new canopy so I would be able to get into the car. Tom B. was very slender and could somehow manage to get into the car by just taking off the Plexiglass windshield, which by the way was held in place by masking tape. The car also needed to be equipped with a parachute, which it did not have installed, and a new roll cage.
After assessing all of the above, talking with SCTA members, and not wanting to change the car a lot just so I could drive it. I decided to sell the car and find a car more suited to my needs. I would have loved to keep the car but I could not buy another car without selling this car first. So by word of mouth I told people that the car was for sale.
Two people expressed an interested in the car. Don Ferguson Sr, and Mark Dees. Mark was the first to come and look at the car. He was not interested in the motor or transmission. The car was still all-apart, and I asked why he was interested in buying the car. He told me he had Tom Senter’s famous Ardun motor and wanted to put it into the car and on the side put in memory of Tom Beatty and Tom Senter. He did not want to change the car other than that. So walking back to his car he asked how much I wanted for the Tank and I told him a price. He offered me half of what I wanted for it. I told him thanks but no on the offer, and that Don Ferguson Sr. was interested in it also. When I said that Mark reached into his shirt pocket and wrote me a check for the price I was asking. Said he would be back in a couple of weeks to pick the car up. I asked if he would like me to put it back together and the answer was no. A few weeks later Mark brought over a trailer and we loaded all of the parts on the trailer and that was the last I saw of the car until Mark died.
When I bought the car I did not buy the other two motors Tom B. ran in the car. Sometime after I bought the car Tom B. died. I went and bought the other two motors off of his Son. One motor was based on a 371 Olds and he ran it mostly in his pickup truck and it had a wristpin score a wall pretty bad but was complete. The other motor was a 303 Olds motor, which was destroked to 258 inches and only ran once in the Belly Tank. The last time the car ran Tom ran the 302 Olds motor which was a 303 Olds block .030 over, destroked using Potvin full floating bearings, which yielded 302 inches. He had the small 258 inch motor with him so he decided before he left Bonneville he would change the motors out and run the 258 incher for the first time, so he took the manifold, blower and injector off the 302 inch motor and put it on the 258 inch motor. He told me he never changed the jetting and that the motor never cleaned out. It just gurgled through the gears and he shut if off, packed up and went home.
I eventually sold all three Oldsmobile motors(258,302.400) to Adam Wiesman out of San Diego, Ca. I could not give the hydramatic transmission away for free, so I eventually took it to the scrap yard.
When Mark died I got a call from Bruce Johnson asking me if I could come up to Marks ranch and ID parts from the tank. I said sure, so I met him up there and we could only find a few of the parts. Then I remembered I had asked Mark where he was going to take the car, and he told me a yard in Saticoy, CA. Bruce went down there and sure enough the car was there in pieces.
Bruce also told me he had purchased from Mark the new Firestone Bonneville 18 inch rear tires mounted on Halibrand Mag wheels that came on the Belly Tank. Bruce told me he used them on his streamliner.
Someone by the name of Dave on the East Coast bought the tank. I eventually got a call from Dave asking me if I had the motors. I told Dave I sold them to Adam and to contact him. I still had the original Hilborn injector and fuel pump off the 302 motor and Dave bought that off me.
If it means anything the car as pictured was not the way I bought it. The wheel discs are from the Flathead days of the car, before it was stretched for the hydramatic. The car had Firestone Bonneville tires on front, and on rear mounted on Halibrand mag rims with a steel center for lugnuts. I still have the rear Moon Discs and that is the only thing I have left from the car. The car was last run with Fuel Injection and not carbs. It does not have the original transmission as I scrapped it.
At El Mirage one day Jim Miller came up to me and said it sold for $464,000 at an auction. Later it sold in another auction at the Peterson for around $200,000 and went to the Henry Ford Museum. They contacted me and asked about the tank and I told them what I have written here.
Tom G.
PS. Somewhere I have pictures of the tank when I brought it home. If I find them I will post a few.
