Dad's '39 Ford Deluxe business coupe, a very cool ride for a "square" guy!
(He bought a new '41 Ford 4-dr after I was born, in February of that year.)

Various (very) early Wheeler wheels...

My first car, an ugly 2-tone green '52 Ford Customline V8.
(With girlfriend Carol, summer 1958.)

'57 Chevy Bel Air convert (blueprinted 270/283)
Photo taken at Ocean City, Maryland.

At "Ma" Lyon's house, Bangor, Maine. Summer of '62 (Mrs. Lyon was an elderly woman
who sort of "adopted" a bunch of us Air Force gearheads, and treated us better than
our own mothers at times. My pal Kirby's '59 Impala is in the background.)

'62 Chevy Impala SS (300/327 4-speed, 4.11 Posi) I really wanted a 409 Bel Air "bubble
top" but no 409's of any kind were found when I went looking for a new set of wheels.
(Behind the chapel @ the former Dow Air Force Base, Maine - now Bangor Int'l Airport.)
Roy Wells photo

14.70 ETs @ 99 MPH in the 1/4-mile (Atlas Bucron 8.50x14's with stock headers and dump tubes).
Roy Wells photo

'54 Chevy 210 "rust bucket" (1962/63) The front wheels and
tires are from the '62 Impala (in storage for the winter).

'64 Pontiac GTO 2-dr coupe. (348 HP/389 V8) Silver gray w/ a red interior, a truly great car!!!
(One very much like it sold for $45K at the 2007 Barrett-Jackson winter auction!)
Roy Wells photo

13.54 ET @ 105+ in the quarter mile (Goodyear Butylairs, stock headers, etc.) and 23-mpg on the open road, too!
Roy Wells photo

National Dragster

'67 Corvette Sting Ray (435/427 Big Block) It's not my car in the photo, but, except for the lack of a hardtop, it
looks nearly identical to the one I had. (I haven't any pictures of mine, not one!) Anyway, and coincidentally, I
took delivery of my 'Vette the day I purchased the first Wheeler Dealer dragster. Price paid for the Corvette?
$5500, the dragster; $7,000. (It ran a 13.10 @ 110 on its only timed, 1/4-mile pass...with recapped snow tires!!!)

License plate from my Vette...if you don't know what it means, don't ask!

'67 Chevy Suburban, originally the push truck for the
Wheeler Dealer. After I quit racing, I turned it into a
camper, and took it to the Woodstock music fest
in '69. I also drove it across the western U.S. and
Canada for three months the following summer.

'68 VW 311 fastback, delivered brand new in Nice, France, and driven
across much of Western Europe for two months that summer.
(Photo taken on the Mediterranean island of Sardinia.)

'69 Kawasaki 500 H1 Mach III  Again, not my bike in this pic, but close enough.
Mine was totaled when I collided head-on with a neighbor's Ford Pinto on a
mountain dirt road in rural Virginia, in May of  '70.  (I was beat up pretty
bad, but I was still able to walk away...)

My first "San Francisco" car, a '65 Volvo 544
(As seen from my Union St  apartment window, 1974)
Click on the picture for a funny anecdote!

After a drunk all but totaled the Volvo, I purchased this 1969 Toyota
Corona from noted Rolling Stone photographer, Baron Wolman.
The PLUS ONE license plate relates to then-girlfriend Kolleen
always being my "plus one" on guests lists for concerts
we would attend together.

'78 Toyota Celica GT at Sears Point Raceway, Sonoma, Calif. This car came with
us to Maui in '83. We kept it until 1991 when we purchased a new Mazda van.

Funny story; this tag saved me from an expensive parking fine
in San Francisco. The bust was really unfair, so I went to court
to protest it. The clerk told me the ticket wasn't valid because
in place of the tag number on the summons, there was only a
"description" of the car; BEIGE GT!  She tore the ticket up,
and I walked away with a very BIG grin on my face!

1986 Jeep CJ7, the very last new CJ7 sold on Maui. We had it for nearly
15 years before selling it to a farmer in Kula (who only wanted it to drive
around his onion fields). It was a very nice Jeep up 'til then!

1991 Mazda MPV minivan, purchased new as a delivery vehicle for our fledgling gift
basket business. It had 232,000+ miles showing on the odometer at the time this pic
 was taken. We finally junked it in mid-2009 (I won the Street Bracket category in it at
Maui Raceway Park, in Oct. of '91 - with nearly perfect lights and no wheel spin!)

Without a much needed second car (after selling the CJ7), I bought this '86 Toyota MR2 on a
whim, from a friend who was desperate to sell it just before his moving back  to the Mainland.
I had the car for over four years, and paid through the nose to keep it running that long!

In need of a more trustworthy (air conditioned!) vehicle, we took this '06 KIA Spectra5
hatchback home with us in October, 2006. It was the Sports-Compact money winner
at Maui Raceway Park on 11.14.08 (with steady 18-flat ET's @ 76+ MPH). Whoopee!

*    *    *

Back to the Wheeler Dealer Fuel Dragsters Main Page
.
Maui-Angels.Com

This page created January 17, 2007

ALOHA!