[bill dedman]

>>>>>"before that the old hydros were outlawed for P/Glides."

Just a note of clarification for anyone who was not around NHRA drag racing back then, and might not know:
Chevrolets were and always have been VERY popular in NHRA drag racing for a variety of reasons, but the early Powerglide cars struggled, The had a very tight torque converter (1,400 rpm stall?) and there were virtually NO hi-stall converters on the scene, yet. Marv Ripes at A-1 was about to change that, but it hadn't happened yet, in the middle '60s.

As I remember it, (maybe Tony Janes knows this story better than I do, since he was there), some guy who was a buddy of one of the higher-ups at NHRA tech, had a 1959 Chevy El Camino that he ran in "Stock" and, since it was licensed as a truck, this tech guy let him use a truck transmission (Chevy trucks had Olds/Pontiac-style 4-speed Hydra-Matics, back in the fifties, not Powerglides.)

Because of the torque converter stall speed "problem," the hydro was somewhat faster than the Powerglide of the day. Having seen this El Camino perform, somebody built a hydro-equipped Chevy sedan delivery (also licensed as a truck in CA at the time), and the race was on... People started to build these things with every conceivable engine combination from 1955 four barrel 265's to Fuel injected 283's. Undoubtedly, there were also some tri-carbed 348's running, as Chevy was still building sedan deliveries in 1960, I believe.

By 1970 or '71, every stock class record from E/SA down as low as they went at that time (N/SA?) was held by SOME permutation of a Chevy sedan delivery with a hydro.

Be that as it may, the emperor was naked as a jaybird; the open secret was, the Chevy factory never EVER put that transmission in a sedan delivery. I built one of the first wave of them in 1965, and when it came time for rear motor mounts, I had to fabricate them myself. The Powerglide mounts wouldn't fit the truck (hydro) bell housing, and the truck mounts wouldn't fit the automobile frame. No go!!!

By about 1972, however, the party was over, and NHRA decreed that the 4- speed Hydra-Matic was personna non grata in ANY Chevy "passenger car body" (which a sedan delivery was) in Stock Eliminator.

However, by that time, Marvin Ripes ( and some others, Paul Rossi, among them) had learned how to make a Chevy Powerglide fly, and in short order, those 2-speeds were faster than the Olds/Pontiac Hydros, anyway.

This was not one of NHRA's shining moments in history...