Norm Grabowski

It has been a unhappy weekend in the recent rod world as many have recently found out that hot rod pioneer and legend Norm Grabowski has died. The news that he had kicked the bucket was received by Norm’s  website Normsnews on yesterday morning October twelve, 2012, he was seventy nine years recent.

I had first heard of Norm many years ago, after I was just a child. He had appeared on an episode of Jesse James’ Monster Garage, were he and a group of hot rod legends (as well as the late Dick Dean) built a sectioned and lowered yellow 54 Chevy. Little did I understand at the time that Norm Grabowski was a hot rod legend who is known for building the very 1st T-Bucket!

Norm Grabowski is known as the Father of the T-Bucket, he  invented the T-Bucket hot rod once he left Military service in 1952.His invention came concerning when moved to Southern California and began attending local automotive shows. Whereas attending this automotive shows he became fascinated with the hot rods that he saw at these shows, he determined that he was going to make one in every of his own.

He soon purchased a Model A truck for $one hundred however the truck wasn’t in excellent condition, thus he then purchased a 192a pair of Model T touring and placed it on the Model A frame. The next he did was he attached the bed from the Model A to the Model T’s body. The solely thing he required was an engine, he decided to borrow a 1952 Cadillac engine from his parents recent car and he place a GMC 3-seventy one blower on prime of it!

The automotive was soon fired up for the first time, with the flip of the key it roared to life and also the T-Bucket was born! The automotive was able to run be Norm revealed that he had to make some changes on the automotive.  There was a downside with the steering, steering that was from an previous milk truck was backwords! The automotive would go the other direction of that method the wheel was turned!

The 52 supercharged Cadillac engine was eventually replaced with a 1956 Dodge engine that was equipped with a Horne intake manifold that held four Stromberg double-barrel carbs. The automotive was then giving it’s famous blue paintjob with the flames on the facet and therefore the pinstriping on the grill! The last detail of the automobile was the shifter, Norm loved to carve and create things out of wood. He wished to create one thing that was unique and would stand out therefore he carved a skull to be used as a shift knob on the automobile!

The car become such successful in the native Thus-Cal scene that it ended getting it’s own half in the hit 1950?s TV show  seventy seven Sunset Strip! The T-Bucket was driven by a character named Kookie, which is why his T-Bucket is nicknamed the Kookie Kar.

The car wasn’t only known for it’s sensible looks but Norm use to drag raced the automobile additionally! This cause the automobile being featured on the quilt of Hot Rod in 1955 plus being featured in an exceedingly story in Life magazine in 1957!

The car was thus influential that Norm came home at some point to search out then hot rodder/actor and later NHRA Drag racer TV Tommy Ivo in his garage obtaining the measurements of his T-Bucket. Tommy asked Norm many times if he might live his automotive however Norm refused. Thus Tommy snuck in Norm’s, got the measurements himself and went on to create a T-Bucket of his own..The two of them would drag race their Hot Rods frequently, this was covered in life magazine.

In the late 1950?s one amongst the actors crashed Norms hot rod whereas film on set, this led to Norm needing to drive his own automobile for appearances TV and movies, therefore he became a stunt driver. Norm also later became an actor where he created appearances in movies like High School Confidential, Darby’s Rangers, Hooper, The Cannonball Run, and several others.

Norm would continue to make custom Hot Rods, remaining a well-known hot rod builder for the remainder of his life. He would additionally continue his second passion of wood carving yet, carving several skull shift knobs, cars and alternative items of art all out of wood.

Norm Grabowski can be missed in the recent rod world but it’s time for him to form Hot Rods for the nice lord now.

The Bronco Buster Funny Car

Yes you read that right, there is (or was not sure of the cars fate) a Ford Bronco Funny Car! Back in the mid 60’s Funny Cars where… well they were funny. They started out as modified extended wheel base muscle cars and factory hot rods and eventually evolved into crazy experimental flip top hot rods! One of these crazy experimental funny cars was the Bronco Buster a Ford Bronco based Funny Car built by Doug Nash. Doug Nash’s Funny Car project was loosely associated with Ford themselves (he only had a little help from Ford). The Bronco featured a shaped body based off of Fords new 1966 Ford Bronco SUV, which was on top of a thin aluminum tubed chassis. The whole car with the driver weighed just an incredibly light 1700 Pounds! When Doug first debuted the car in 1966, Bronco Buster was powered by a Ford 289 Hipo motor with Mechanical fuel injection. At the time the car was described by other racing, the hot rod media and perhaps Doug himself as being “very erratic.” Which probably could be due to the combination of a short wheel base, weighing only 1700 pounds and having the power of a funny car. Despite being “very erratic” the Bronco Buster did have a lot of good 8 second runs (the average time for a Funny Car back then). With just fuel injection Bronco Buster ran its best time of 8.68 in the quarter mile. A few months later Doug Nash added a supercharger to the funny car (which probably made Bronco Buster even more erratic) and it managed to run a best time of 8.33 at 141.45 MPH. Sadly Bronco Buster and SUV/Truck based Funny Cars where short lived. In 1967 the NHRA outlawed SUV/Truck based Funny Cars. The NHRA sent a notice to Doug informing that his Bronco will no longer be able to compete in NHRA events. As for Doug, he ended up creating performance 5 Speed transmissions known as Doug Nash Transmissions.