All kinds of crazy stuff can be witnessed in the ads found in old dragzines. This one dates back to 1966, from the pages of Drag Racing, a copy of which was lent to us by Ed Rachanski in Nevada.
It’s an “after” photo of Roy “Mr. Pitiful” Drew, an exhibition racer from Kansas City, who concocted this sort-of Volkswagen called the Black Widow. No 36hp mouse, it instead got its motivation from a rocket-engine rear axle produced by a once-infamous Florida company called Turbonique. Here, essentially, was how it worked: Turbonique geared an acutal rocket to a quick-change rear axle – you can see the Black Widow’s monster rear hubs – using a Borg-Warner sprag clutch. The whole thing was engaged by a flip switch, the driver holding a panic fuel-shutoff cord. It advertised an instant 1,000 horsepower, apparently truthfully – Drew, whose major claim to fame was beating Tommy Ivo’s four-engine dragster with this thing, launched it in the lights on a test run, flying inverted through the beams at 183 MPH. Another early Turbonique ad identified a young Evel Knievel as a customer. The Orlando firm went kaput, allegedly, after people began creating rocket-powered go-karts with its products, resulting in at least one ghastly fatality.
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