2024’s Mooneyes is a faithful replica of the 1963 original, now housed in a US museum. Its methanol-burning engine is a 350-cubic-inch/5.7-litre Chevrolet V8 boosted by a front-mounted Potvin supercharger, a relic of the era. The car’s 96-inch-wheelbase chassis was built by Dode Martin of the Dragmaster company who constructed the original model. It’s expected that Mooneyes will be fired up during Dragstalgia and may perform burnouts. Today the Mooneyes Speed Equipment & Custom Accessories company is headquartered in Tokyo and Los Angeles and owners Shige Suganuma and Chico Kodama will attend Dragstalgia.
Dos Palmas, on the other hand, is the original vehicle. The Goodnight/Keith/Williamson Dos Palmas Machine Special has a chassis built by early drag racing legend Tommy Ivo and was brought to England for both the 1964 and 1965 Festivals and driven by Bob Keith. Bought thereafter by a British consortium, the car was then acquired by a US Air Force serviceman, Bill Weichelt, who campaigned it at Santa Pod during the early 1970s under a new name, Asmodeus. Posted back to the USA, Weichelt took the car with him and it vanished from sight for 40 years.
