Back before the John Force era of Funny Car Racing there was Jungle Jim and Jungle Pam, and below is this cool video of some of there wild creations burning up the quarter mile.  They put on a great show and Jungle Pam was an absolute crowd favorite – a long smokey burnouts and an almost fearless style of driving made him famous.

Match races were big in those days and Jungle Jim always brought in big crowds to see him race, which lead to Revell producing a model of the car and a sponsored Jungle Jim.  Those models were excellent sellers and that lead to more fame for the “Jungle Jim” funny car.  Lieberman had driven many of these early funny cars including Lew Arrington’s “Brutis” Pontiac GTO, Arrington’s “Hercules” Chevy II, and the “Gypsy” Corvette.  Jungle Jim only won one NHRA national event in his career, the 1975 Summernationals at Englishtown New Jersey, though he was still considered to be one of the best funny car drivers of his time.   Due to all of the match races they had lined up, Leiberman hired drivers that raced his “Jungle Jim” cars all over the country, which lead to Jungle Jim becoming one of the first drivers to have a multi-car team.  One of his team cars won the 1969 Winternational with driver Clare Sanders behind the wheeel.

Before Funny Car there was A/FX.  Altered Factory Experimental was what became “Funny Car.”  The way they moved the driver, the engine, and transmission in the car and the altered wheelbase made the cars look “funny.”  Notice the driver in the backseat and the way the body was mounted on the chassis.