How Drag Racing Influenced Detroit

At one point in our youth we have all done the “run what you brung” thing: drove your folks’ car or wagon to the track, made a few passes and (hopefully) got it back home in one piece.

In the ’60s, it was not unusual for a family ride to be fitted with a mild version of what powered a performance hardtop, such as a Plymouth Satellite or Fury wagon with a 383-ci and 727 TorqueFlite or an Impala Sport sedan with a 396. Even the lowly Rambler brand could be had with a fairly potent small-block V-8. How and why did that all happen? The answer could be found at any of a thousand drag strips that dotted the American landscape.

Detroit automakers have always had a love affair with racing, beginning in the ’30s when Ford made an effort to dominate such venues as Indianapolis in the U.S. and Silverstone in England. World War II put the brakes on automotive competition worldwide, but manufacturing ramped back up in post-war America, which became the dominant force in automotive production. Once the focus shifted from military to civilian concerns, U.S. automakers redirected their efforts to meet the pent-up consumer demand for new vehicles.

With a new feeling of optimism and a booming economy, America’s love of auto racing was rekindled. Sensing this, Detroit automakers, whose product lines fit neatly into stock car racing (especially the nascent NASCAR), opened their coffers to promotors and participants. The on-track exploits and victories of this colorful form of racing helped boost the performance images of Mercury, Ford, Oldsmobile, Hudson and Plymouth.

Meanwhile, the resourceful youth of the country had found a use for all of those obsolete and discarded cars of the ’20s and ’30s. The term “hot rod” was born, and the streets of America became the playground for energetic teens and their hopped-up, stripped-down machinery. This junkyard mentality was, for the most part, overlooked by Big Three executives, but that changed once Robert E. Petersen began publication of Hot Rod magazine, a periodical that defined this automotive niche. While drag racing was happening on old airstrips and newly constructed tracks, Petersen turned Wally Parks, Hot Rod magazine’s editor, loose on bringing order to this rapidly growing motorsport. His efforts eventually lead to the birth of the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA). Going fast in a straight line was the kind of racing that could be done by anyone with a desire for speed. Classes were set up to allow everything from factory stock to wild, multi-engine rails to run at the same event. It was exactly the formula that eventually made auto executives stand up and take notice.

Drag racing had created Detroit’s perfect storm. The teens of the ’50s were now the young adults of the ’60s. As the generation that created quarter-mile excitement, they were not about to surrender to the under-performing sedans that their parents had settled for.

John DeLorean and Jim Wangers were among the first to take advantage of drag racing’s appeal and marketing potential. Both worked for GM’s Pontiac Division and answered to Bunkie Knudsen. Pontiac was stuck behind Cadillac, Buick and Oldsmobile and suffered from the public image of being a bigger, more expensive Chevrolet. Knudsen insisted that the brand needed its own identity, and DeLorean and Wangers pointed to drag racing as the ideal avenue to capture the youth market and leverage its spendable income.

It didn’t take long for Pontiac to be a major force at strips across the land. Special “dealer” plans with “heavy-duty” factory parts were available on an over-the-counter basis. Chevrolet and Oldsmobile picked up on the idea as did cross-town rivals Ford, Mercury, Plymouth and Dodge.

As desperate as times had become, drag racing still supplied Detroit with an unbreakable link to its performance past. The flame was kept alive until the time was right for a second coming of the muscle car.

Drag racing had created Detroit’s perfect storm. The teens of the ’50s were now the young adults of the ’60s. As the generation that created quarter-mile excitement, they were not about to surrender to the under-performing sedans that their parents had settled for. Combined with the teens of the ’60s, who were being raised by hot rod enthusiasts of the past decade, drag racing had dropped into the laps of the Big Three the formula that would produce the most important time in American automotive history, the muscle car era.

While many will argue that this era really began in the late ’50s, the first truly engineered muscle car can be linked to DeLorean’s and Wangers’ brainchild: the Pontiac GTO, a lightweight, sporty car with a big engine, manual transmission and a limited-slip differential.

In the blink of an eye an entire industry changed direction. In the ’50s it was luxury image with opulent sedan and wagon styling; big vehicles with lumbering engines. That gave way to drag-racing-inspired 0-60 performance with smaller, lighter coupes and hardtops fitted with four-speed transmissions and tire-smoking acceleration.

Bigger, faster and louder were the new standards. When Pontiac marketed the GTO, Olds introduced the 442. Chevy transformed the Super Sport from an Impala option into the SS program, which included Chevelle, Nova, El Camino and Camaro. Ford countered with bigger engine options as well as the specially optioned Thunderbolt, labeled “for competition use only.” Chrysler allowed Plymouth to go completely over the top with Max Wedge and Street Hemi engines and its ubiquitous Road Runner. Dodge created an entire Scat Pack performance marketing campaign pushing variants of the Dart, Coronet and Charger. No one was shy about advertising straight-line performance.

In contrast, stock car racing was influenced by Detroit, and the Big Three changed its product engineering and marketing strategy because of drag racing. Despite Detroit’s publicized racing ban, by the mid-’60s drag racers, including Chrisman, Nicholson, Thompson, Sox & Martin, Landy and Garlits, enjoyed some sort of factory support. When McEwen and Prudhomme put together the game-changing Mattel Hot Wheels deal, Plymouth was right there to have the two biggest names in the sport promote its ’Cuda and Duster models.

When the oil embargo of 1974 and changing auto insurance industry attitudes signaled the end of factory muscle cars, Detroit still relied on drag racing to help maintain its image. Also under attack by Japanese brands, GM, Ford and Chrysler continued to use the recent past to promote the immediate future. This was especially evident in Pro Stock where models like the Mustang II, Monza, Vega and Arrow became the new race platforms. Although the Pro Stock versions shared no driveline components with their factory counterparts, it was the idea that speed still lurked within the nameplates’ image that sold cars. In the end, even the powerful appeal of drag racing could not save the damaged business model that had once overtaken the American auto industry.

As desperate as times had become, drag racing still supplied Detroit with an unbreakable link to its performance past. The flame was kept alive until the time was right for a second coming of the muscle car.

Drag racing once more directly impacts how Chevrolet, Ford and Dodge market their cars. Today’s muscle cars once again battle for performance supremacy, albeit the selections are a far cry from past decades. Still, with the Camaro, Challenger, Charger and Mustang, there are strong connections to a time when asphalt-eating, tire-smoking, torque-twisting street performance was directly linked to the golden age of drag racing; when Detroit power managers looked at what was happening on the straight and narrow and adapted its products and marketing structures to fit our lifestyle. As drag racers, we can look back and remember there was a time when the tail wagged the dog.

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