Following design cues made famous by such early cars as Junior Brogdon’s “Phony Pony” Mustang, Al Vanderwoude’s topless “Flying Dutchman” ’66 Dart, and Don Garlits’ “Dart 2” ’66 Dart, Randy Winkle’s 1966 Chevrolet Corvette puts the “funny” in Funny Car. As he says, “these are the forgotten art of funny cars…the most beautiful funny cars ever built,” Winkle proclaims.
Winkle’s Corvette features a factory-appearing second-gen body draped over a front engine dragster chassis, replicating the formative years of Funny Car racing, before the high-tech machines we know today we were even a thought. The car, it turns out, is also a vessel for an all-new nostalgia drag racing venture that’s actively taking shape.
Randy’s journey into drag racing is a story that reflects a lifetime of passion and dedication. His earliest memories involve sneaking into his uncle’s garage to play with an injected flathead dragster. “I’d sneak a popsicle and crawl down beside that dragster to eat it where no one could see me,” Randy recalls with a chuckle. This early exposure ignited a fascination that would shape his entire life. As a child, Randy was captivated by slot cars and Revell models, and his allowance was often spent on car models to enhance his slot car track. This fascination wasn’t just a childhood phase; it became a lifelong pursuit.
By the age of 13 or 14, Randy had acquired his first dragster, though it was tragically lost in a shop fire. Undeterred, he obtained another front-engine dragster at 19, and his love for nostalgia cars took root. “I’ve always been a big fan of the old gassers and front-engine dragsters,” he says. “When other guys my age were doing the Pro Street, slammed to the ground with narrowed rearends and stuff, I was more into building old Gassers that people didn’t want anymore.” This passion led him to focus on building and restoring vintage drag cars, a path that distinguished him from the pro-street crowd of his era.
Randy’s Corvette Funny Car is a tribute to the forgotten art of early Funny Cars. The car features a fiberglass 1966 Corvette replica body of factory dimension with a removable hood and functional doors, on a modified dragster chassis, shortened to 100.5 inches. “Everything on that car was available on the shelf in 1966,” Randy explains. The car runs a 400 cubic inch small-block Chevy engine, blown and injected on a small percentage of nitro, with a 9-inch Ford…
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