Tommy Ivo had already become known in the Hot Rod and Drag Racing world for his one of a kind 4 engined, 4 wheel drive Dragster Showboat which he raced for a number of years in the early 60s first competing but after the NHRA banned Tommy from racing it, it became an Expedition only car which was alright with Tommy since he enjoyed running it and it was a real crowd pleaser.
Tommy eventually sold Showboat to his friend and crew member Tom McCourry when he got the desire to race Top Fuel and Funny Car. So in 1965 Tom McCourry decided to rebuild Showboat as a Station Wagon based Dragster which became known as Wagon Master!
To built the car Tom McCourry hired master metal shaper Tom Hanna (OK whats with all the Toms?) to make a Buick Rivera Station Wagon body. The body was hand shaped out of Sheet Aluminum, this was done by shaping it around blocks of wood. The car kept some of its station wagon like features such as the hatch back design and it even had a roof rack! It is said to be the first funny car with an escape hatch.
The Wagon Master was first debuted in 1966 with its four Buick Nailhead 425 motors! One of the things the crowd loved about the car was since it was 4 wheel drive, the tires would smoke all the way down the Quarter Mile that it was like a could of smoke going by! When driving Wagon Master, Tommy couldn't even see where he was going he said when driving it "It was all you could do to point and stab the thing, hang on and hope it went straight."
The Wagon Master eventual became probably the most popular Drag Racing Expedition Car of all time! With its reconizable black and red paint job, its all glass race trailer and the fact that it throw a ton of smoke into the crowd every pass it became a huge favorite!
Now some of you may be wondering, how does a four engined car work? Well I let Tommy Explain it to you with an old quote he us to tell the publications.
"With the tire improvements brought on by M&H, we could use more horsepower, and using two motors was one of the ways to get it. I saw Howard's 'Twin Bear' at Bakersfield in '59 and decided that a side-by-side combination would transfer more of the car's static weight on the rear tires rather than a tandem design. But I did it differently. Howard had simply turned one engine around. I reversed the engine's rotation and ran it backwards. We simply meshed double-wide starter gears on the flywheels together and use a multi-disc clutch to directly drive the car through an offset third member. The engines would torque 'outside-in' so the car would go up and down when I cracked the throttle and not torque steer when I lifted. Better yet, it ran nine-flat the first time out and then became the first gas-burning dragster to run in the eights-and the first to run 170, then 180 on gas. Best of all it handled great and was nearly bulletproof."
The Car was acquired in 2005 by America's Car Collection Museum in Nevada. Originally the Museum wanted to take Master Wagon apart and turn it back into Showboat but Tommy Convinced the museum to leave Master Wagon and build a replica of Showboat to show both cars.
You can see both cars at America's Car Collection still today.
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