I'm 64 years old and Dick Landy was and has been my favorite drag racer over all these years. When I was a kid (teenager) I would go to the Fontana (California) Drag City and watch Landy's Dodger in 2 out of 3 match races against Gas Ronda or Tom Mongoose in the Hemi Cuda, or Arie the Farmer Beswick GTO or Tempest cars. He ran several different cars and classes, carbrated, injected, or blown. Less than a year befor Landy passed away I was able to meet and shake his hand at Pomona's Winter Nationals in the pits. I had...and still have photos of his cars on my walls. Thanks Dick Landy.
Steve Portias
Inland Vans Berdoo
San Bernardino, California
buffaloportias@aol.com

Wow, what a great collection; this man one of many drag racing heroes to me; and believe me, I had a few. I remember seeing his photos in different Hot Rod Mags of the time; his pro stock cars were glued to my bedroom walls. Maybe, just maybe, that is why I also have 3 humidors and love a good cigar...RIP Dick.

My name is Clifford W. Baughman, I live in Wamego, Kansas. My father is building a Dodge Dart to resemble the one that Dick Landy drove, and I am trying to find some things for him for a christmas present, and if anyone can help me it would be greatly appreciated. The objects are a diecast model of the car, and if possible an 8 by 10 photo of the car or possibly a poster. Again, any help would be so much help... Thank you all. Please feel free to email me at Landy_fan10@hotmail.com Also if you know of anyone else that could help feel free to give them my address. Thank you again.

The benefits of weight transfer to get better traction was a developing concept in '64. The Ramchargers conceived of the concept during the construction of their first club car the High & Mighty that set a speed record at the '59 NHRA Nationals at the Detroit Dragway in its first competition. The wheel base of the car was shortened 10" by moving the rear axle forward, the engine was elevated so the center of the crankshaft was 3 feet off the ground and the engine was set back to get the weight transfer necessary to get increased traction. The car could be considered the first funny car with an altered wheel base and it had probably the first sonically tunnel ram intake manifold and eight tuned exhaust pipes. The contributions of the Ramchargers to Chrysler's success in stock car and drag racing has been written up in an autobiography by David Rockwell titled We Were The Ramchargers and published by SAE for those interested in the fascinating story from those that lived it with lots of previously unpublished photos. Its all about drag racing in the 60's plus a couple years on each end and the racers and companies involved.

Awesome find! I love the 60's era racing; that was REAL drag racing. Not the Chevy-biased nonsense we have today. Dandy-Dick was the man back then and a real innovator. What a great loss to all of us when he passed. My dad raced Plymouths from when he bought his 63 Belvedere new in 63 until about 1968 when he got out of it. He always had a lot of respect for Landy and so do I .
Thanks for the photos!

From the MoparMax Archives
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Remembering 'Dandy Dick'

The era of the 1960s bred some big names in the sport of drag racing. Outside of the dragster and gas classes, these were the innovators who made the transition from Stock to Super/Stock to FX to Funny Car, then often transitioned from the new-for-1967 Super Stock Division to Pro Stock to match racing, basically reliving that first period all over again. Dick Landy, who died January 11, was always in the thick of it.

But Landy was more than just another racer. For those of us who were Mopar loyal, he was a driving hero, the big All-American guy who beat non-Mopar people like Don Nicholson and Bill Jenkins on the racetrack. Like Ronnie Sox and Buddy Martin, he was among the first to associate class and style with the performance business (though Landy might be found in a T-shirt on occasion). Never really a tough guy, images from the early days, with his crew cut and unlit cigar, still made a vivid impression to younger enthusiasts of "that's who I want to be when I grow up."

Then there was that totally nasty '65 Dodge, a car that really put the Landy name on the map. Built by Amblewagon under factory direction, there can be little doubt that the experiments Landy had performed on his 1964 Hemi car after Indy that season had a bearing on those first "funny cars." The '64 car, now owned by Mopar enthusiast Pete Haldiman, featured an adjustable suspension that could let the wheelbase be reset at will. The factory took notice that the benefits of weight transfer and traction could be advantageous, and tossed away the FX rulebook for the next year. This radical departure from stock basically outlawed "Landy's Dodge" from NHRA stock competition, but Landy's hard launches and wheelies made that moot; he was featured in Hot Rod magazine with the reworked car early in 1965, his first big exposure to the nation. So, when the new silver and black '65 car began dragging the back bumper at Lions the following spring, the resultant photos immediately made Landy "the guy" in what was perhaps the most pivotal year in the history of doorslammer drag racing.

Read the rest of this story at:

http://www.moparmax.com/features/2007/ii_1-landy-1.html