Do all Gassers have straight axles? Fact or Fiction?

The true gasser crowd knows the answer to this question and the newbies to the gasser wars should be informed. So what makes a gasser, a gasser?

I run a Nostalgia gasser class, and our car does not have a straight front axle.....

http://www.gasserracingseries.com/

The other week I was up at Beaver Springs and was talking to a gentleman who runs in pro-stick. Also works on lots of cars. He told me that gassers were not allowed to change the front-end until 1964,5,6? (not quite sure exactly). He said they had to run a stock front end. Plus alot of other stock stuff. Shocked me. I always thought gassers had straight front axles from the start. Learn something new every day.

I remember the straight axle front ends as replacements around 1961. Before then, early fords(32-48) had learned they could change the original front axle with a Model A axle to raise the front about 2". They also used spacers between the front spring and frame mount for even more raising the front end.

Why did everyone want to raise the front of a car? Back then many gassers used recap slicks. The recaps had hard rubber----we used to kid that they were hard enough to strike matches on. Even the first custom slicks (M&H) were very hard compared to today. So we raised the front end to gain forward bite. Raising the front end got to be carried to the extreme and some dangerous cars resulted. NHRA finally mandated the crank centerline could be no higher than 24". Even at "only" 24", there were some hairy rides in the altered and gas classes----especially with superchargers.

Many of the lower gas classes (heavier cars) never changed to straight front axles----just raised the front end as much as possible using longer springs. Some raised only the engine leaving the front end alone.

That was the neat thing about the early days, everyone had a free hand to do what they wanted(within reason) to get their car quicker. Their were very few guidelines in the NHRA rulebook. I don't remember roll bar specs until about 1961----and then it was only tube diameter/thickness and clearance above the driver's helment.

This lack of rules also led to very long times in the tech inspection line especially at Detroit and early Indy events.

Ah, for the good old days---especially since I was much younger!

Oh, you got me started now-----

The first altered I drove was a flathead Ford powered Crosley. The steel body sat on a Ford Model T frame, Model A front end, solid mounted, narrowed Chevrolet rear. The roll bar was fabricated from a steel bed frame. The tubing was 2" in diameter and had nice large radius bends. The only supports the roll bar had was two tube supports going forward to the frame. The center steering(Crosley) was mounted to another loop also made from a bedframe. To get into the car you opened the driver's door and crawled between the bars into the surplus P51 fighter seat. The belts were also surplus airplane harnesses.
The car I describe had run at the 61 Indy nats as a A/Altered coupe with a 402" small block chevrolet. The 402" was obtained by boring a 283" block to 4" and using a 4" welded crank(from 3"). The bad boy had six Strombergs and a Vertex mag on top. I got it and installed the flathead.

BTW, only "rich" boys back then had trailers-----we used a tow bar and pulled the car with a 54 Ford four door sedan with a bumper mounted trailer hitch.

Fiction

Fiction,ran altered and gas class with many of my Mopars,a few did have straight axles but most were conventional suspensions.

As the other guys have posted, there were plenty of cars running the Gas classes with stock or stockish IFS; 2 that I crewed on & 1 I helped build ('57 & '63 Vettes) come immediately to mind.
Late '50s/early '60s a lot of guys felt that the noses had to be high and the rears low to place a static weight bias on the rear because of the hard/narrow rear tires of the time. Around '65-'66 guys were moving away from that, for the handling reasons stated, as well as improvements in tires & suspensions.
On the '57 Vette, before we got to it someone had used spacers to jack up the nose; we un-did that, got the nose back down, and the car improved a bunch.

I remember a lot of cars running the local tracks that had spacers or heavy coils to raise the independent frontend to get better weight transfer, but the willys,anglias and austins all seamed to have an axle under them and were raised for the same reason.

but as the 60's progressed and tires got better and speeds increased the nose of these cars started getting lower as the car got faster and a lot of people switched to Opel's,mustangs and even a few 68-70 cudas started showing up in the GAS classes and most of these cars had an axle under then to keep them light.

as the early 70's came and the gas class was eliminated a lot of the 60's gasser became street rods or street/strip cars.

I had a friend with a SS chevelle and another with a 65 GTO that had their cars really high with the use of a ball joint space and air condition BB springs and their cars looked like the early 60's gas cars,

I had my 63 max wedge car jacked up by the torsion bars and extra leafs in the back and we all had a blast crusin' the streets for hours.


so to answer the qustion:
"Do all Gassers have straight axles?"

No they don't and they really don't have to sky high either. but they do look COOL like that. just my opinion. Ron...

Trailer built to fit.......1968

thought I would post some pics of some gasser.

and I believe all these cars had an axle under them...













This was my street car in 1976, it was Jim Oddy's BB/GS car through the 60's.

Thanks for everyones input on this thread. I have come across a few people that have said that a true Gasser has an axle, and I keep looking at the Chrysler powered Willys Aero that I retired in 1968, (and hasn't been touched since ), and I have yet to find that straight axle.Again, Thanks guys.