AA/Fuel Dragster "Moonburst" Found - Parked in Trailer 43 Years

my great uncle they thought that was that the trailer was the car they said well how do you see to race that thing robert i said no no that's just a trailer that's not the car the car is inside the vintage mr ed trailer that has become well sort of the barn for the barn find inside that hadn't been out since 1977. this is a famous car that's been lost for almost 50 years and it's coming out today i wish you guys would have come by in january what was overcooler i think this is a major find right like yeah this is definitely one off there's only one of these that makes any sense yeah where do you meet bob driving south out of el paso beyond those mountains is mexico headed to fabins texas a lot of people have been looking for it for years michael lightbourne famous old car hunter you know he found orbitron on the streets of mexico chalk up another big fine for him he's been trying to buy this car for 20 years when i first met bob and i came over he goes let me go show it to you so then she had to chop all of this out and the trailer was sitting under this bush bob's waiting for us right yeah i hope so man his farm looks kind of like a salvage yard march 2013 trying to make a deal december of 2018 another visit to bob's farm can i back up my truck here hit shop and we can go ahead and take it right now bob and michael have become good friends over the last 20 years that whole time michael's been trying to buy moon burst it's been nice been after it it's just persistent you know got a bunch of old pickups june of 2020. michael's teenage sons both have muscle cars tony on the left matthew on the right not even born when michael first tried to buy this car bob what do you say oh you got help good yeah i got my two boys okay is today the day a deal gets done i hear the junkyard dog over there moonburst has been brought to public attention through an inquiry on facebook asking whatever happened to moonburst oh yeah i see it sticking out of the corner there the car is down there i have to round up some tires it doesn't have tires and rims on the front axle and everything else so bob's daughter-in-law answers the facebook question outsiders learn what's inside moonburst a double a fuel dragster from the golden era of drag racing featured in the july 1971 issue of hot rod magazine nitro methane burning double a dragsters be there no cars more dangerous than these front engine dragsters they've become popular at cacklefest [Music] and bob's received a substantial offer so how much was that but first what'd you pay for it i paid 1200 for the car dig a little deeper 43 years so when did you buy it give me the year probably 73.74 bob lived in ohio and found the car in an ad in a cincinnati newspaper brought it home and and all just like everything else i didn't even know anything about it and he says oh that by the way that was featured in some magazine or whatever yeah yeah and the trailer wasn't included yeah it took me about five six seven years i guess to to actually buy the trailer what'd the trailer cost i i think i paid 13 or 1500 for the trailer so this thing hadn't been out of the trailer since when the 70s really yeah bob almost converted moon burst to a rear engine dragster instead he moved to texas and he pulled moonburst in that trailer with a 66 gto tripower kind of about time it came out though in it well yeah it needs to get out and see the sunlight we took a little time out to go see the gto so how many cars you got on the farm here uh probably 30. who knows what else we'll find okay jerry [Music] a goat or two around hello a group of goats is called a trip what's a group of cars called ants are coming up and what's goat stand for when you're talking about gtos greatest of all time bob's gto turns out to be the 66 389 tripower some people think is the goat wow you know what that is a vintage mr ed drag trailer like we just saw somebody will know this name dick gallagher right these trailers are highly sought after notice how that body is shaped like a dragster very cool looks like a 56 cadillac and yep a four-door 76 or 77 grand prix wrecked too bad to mess with that hood we just wanted to kind of run through some of these old cars and see if we could find another gym here's an old sprint car so bob's into more than drag racing bob if there's any snakes out here i i may have snakes here but there's no rattlesnakes here that's the important thing okay i feel a lot better oh there's the ranchero it's a 57 model with a 58 door so we got cooled off from 105 degrees looking at that fleet of cars get it so let's go back and pull the moon burst out of that trailer next question is that 0 4 to have enough power to pull this thing out oh and is he going to clear that old dodge can't wait to see the car but what else did he put inside over 40 years ago like i said i got a bunch of early model heads in here and blocks and don't be surprised what comes out of this trailer so time to drop that tailgate and look inside whoa so what all we got in here looks like a battery charger blowers uh motorcycle engines 392 block long lost double a fuel dragster moon burst slicks inner liners can't see the body yet except it's part of the belly pan right there this is the underbody piece original dean moon goldenrod yellow is that the original 392 block they had a lot of them this is just one that's uh it's a good block hemi spark plug tube oh wait this could be important what's in there bob old cups and sausage for my great amber this is the scatter shield and the block plate that goes onto the chassis and the clutch can to drive the rear axle flex mckay he was the owner jack mccain clayton harris is a driver but that was his uh sticker right there dragster headers big tube front engine dragster headers and these are a set of smaller rear engine texture headers this is a part that goes right here between the driver and the motor and you know they're little the zeus fasteners are a little worn from where but i don't even think you'd have to mess with that that's a magnesium hologram right yes sir one of these wheels probably worth as much as bob paid for the whole car that is a 2500 set of wheels right yep how many wheels does he have i've got a few in there you can't go racing with just one set here i thought i lost the steering wheel to it but here it is so rockford and then here he'd have his uh kill switch club wheels from a modern dragster these are parts to an old sprint car mine super modified 43 years of west texas does 392 heads i got i don't know how many sets i'm in here there were four on this side 331 blower pistons they're used michael what are you thinking this is pretty neat here's one of the axles out of the car believe it or not this is a non-floater car you break an axle and you're into the wall now is that the original blower on top there that thompson no no no when when they bought the car they bought it without a motor in it when hilton bought the car from him meaning from original owner jack mckay and the funny car and all that they bought without a motor because they actually put the motor out of this right in their rear engine car bob said we'd be surprised here are the side panels for the car all these are extra pieces that go on there put the steering wheel on it the car is ready to come out the steering is hooked up it's supposed to have a little bracket here but this way they can steer it if they need to this just goes on over the spline see it's already see i'm turning it right there i'm just gonna pick it up okay and maybe pull it back a little more let's pull down a little more and i'll take that transmission out of there before we get do what what'd you find oh just a muncie 220. i pointed out the sema stamp verifying this is a woody gilmore chassis and then you want to get in there you're better firings and racers sit in there the driver's weight provided traction sitting over that rear axle like that your legs go over top of there like over here if you think you're uncomfortable now wait 6.6 seconds when you achieve 227 miles an hour and your parachute pops over wow they would actually sit like that that's it god can you imagine oh i could imagine yeah in my wildest dreams you'd get in it well sure in a second why wouldn't you this is this is what the good lord intended you to be in top field get this up here your bricks on here and away you go it's just sort of a shame that they stripped the body the paint off of but don jones he was going to race a car instead don sold it to bob i was a heliart welder and i was going to convert the car to a rear engine dragster but how much work would that be especially with a new design when did you buy it 73 rear engine design was replacing front engine design so that aluminum body made by master craftsman tom hanna is cherry except for this dent in the nose when they were done with the car when they took the motor out they pushed it into the wall they're 17-inch tires especially for dragsters it has a volkswagen torsion bar in here that's what everybody used to use bob had stored the seat pod and even the upholstery and this body panel in his house oh what about the parachute i've got them in with the my sprint car cushions and stuff i think there could be in here these are the originals yeah what about value dude what do you think it's worth what have you been offered for what do you think it's worth with all the parts and stuff i think i've been offered 90 000 for maybe that's too much maybe i should have taken it and run but did you ever think about you might let michael buy it well if it goes for sale he'll be the first one to have dibs on it bob didn't want to let go but a deal was about to be made first it started as you know stopping by wanting to buy it then talking to him more and more i realized it's like part of his family and if anybody should know that would be jerry heasley the cars do you know you get a personal attachment to them and it is really hard to sell a lot of them when i was a kid i grew up at the drag strip i had gassers and alderds and dragsters if you've ever been around a top fuel car at night you can't breathe you can't see there's no nothing like it [Music] [Applause] my idea is let's get rid of a bunch of his junk a bunch of it not junk bunch of the treasures and get the carry done and that way you can keep it all it has to be is is the the nose has to be beat out a little and uh primer and paint it and it's good to go i think it's harder to restore the trailer than it is yeah well to restore the car we could just go over and see what you want to get rid of what's not on the bucket list the other mr ed trailer well that wouldn't be it's hard to part with it it wouldn't work but you would sell that yeah you'd never want to get rid of your gto huh no is that on the bucket list yeah yeah you know me i know what i've got there just a matter of getting it done dragging burst back inside i got to thinking no not another 43 years or i might just start drinking and then i asked him if he wanted to sell it in 20 years later no you're right well yeah the rest was history i became a stalker after that trying to buy it [Laughter] once you sell it you're gonna have a soft spot in your heart forever yeah you could do the motor huh yeah and all the motors and you just get a good fiberglass guy to fix the cracks where the doors are and the the tailgate's coming apart look at the 280z right there and then the 320 bmw those are actually getting desirable now station wagons four doors nobody wanted them now they sort of yeah so we could go out here and find station wagons old station wagons we can find anything you want i bought it in high school my father said that i could work all summer on a farm and i could buy anything i wanted all right so i i had 800 so i had a c dragster i wanted no you can't have a sea dragster all right so then i found an a gas anglia no you can't have an a glass angler so he let me buy the 66 tripod gto and it's a four-speed cartoon huh yeah it is factory but his passion his love is the drag cars but we could sell a few of his cars

Channel: Jerry Heasley

Views: 4,039,283

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Id: a2xIPFV3NwE

Length: 15min 38sec (938 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 10 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/Nine4Three]

That seating position is something else.

Your ass behind the rear axle with your legs going over top of the axle.