Image credit: Mike Ditty

There was a time in drag racing annals when the wild, wacky, and downright entertaining short wheelbase fuel altered’s weren’t just a booked-in attraction at match races and reunions, but rather a legitimate eliminator with some heated competition amongst some of the wildest creations the sport has ever seen.

As the Funny Car movement began to gain traction in the mid 1960’s, many competitors in the wildly popular AA/FA class who had cars that, like today, weren’t much more than Funny Cars with roadster bodies atop the chassis, began to gradually shift over to the full bodied concept. Among those to make the switch was the team of Ralph Snodgrass and Pat Mahnken, whose Larry Barker-driven altered  sporting a Fiat Topolino body was replaced with a ’66 Mustang Fastback body atop the very same chassis.
With backing from Tom Sherlock’s Southern California-based Ford dealership in 1967, the ‘Psycho’ Mustang captured a win in

Image credit: West Coast Altereds

Competition Eliminator at the ’67 Hot Rod Magazine Championships, entered as a AA/FA. Originally powered by a 427 SOHC “Cammer” as an altered and later a 427 Ford Wedge after the makeover, the Psycho Mustang recorded laps well into the 8’s. After replacing the car some time later with a Gas Ronda piece and subsequently pulling the Psycho back out of retirement for battle, the car was finally sold to an Australian racer and to date, no records of the cars’ whereabouts or condition are known.