427 Dynamite Chevelle Funny Car

Another car at the 1966 Detroit Dragway Invitational was the 427 Dynamite Chevelle injected funny car.

UPDATE: I owe Bill Harris an apology. I recently found Bill and the 427 Dynamite Chevelle on Draglist. I had mistakenly identified the Chevy as being sponsored by Dynamic Speed Shop. Now, I remember the car was known as 427 Dynamite and had nothing to do with Dynamic.

In my defense, it was an honest mistake, brought on by the fact that more than forty years have passed since I saw the car and I only caught the front clip and part of the door in my photo. I could see the letters DY on the doors and made the assumption the car was backed by Dynamic Speed Shop. Dynamic was a well known Detroit area speed emporium in that era, so it made sense they would have backed the Chevelle.

According to Draglist, the Chevelle actually ran nitro. I’m fairly sure it was running gasoline when I saw the car, but Draglist lists the car’s best times as 10.21 and 129mph on fuel.

Unfortunately, I shot this photo a little too late to get the entire car in the photo. I can read the text “Bill….” written on the Chevelle’s roof. The rest of the name is cropped off because I waited too long to click the shutter. In my defense, the viewfinder on the Kodak Instamatic I used didn’t show exactly what the lens was seeing. So it’s the viewfinder’s fault, not my lack of timing. At least that is the story I’m sticking to…

Since the driver’s last name is cropped off, I can’t tell you who drove the Dynamic Chevelle in ’66. Dynamic Speed Center was a big shop in Detroit, but I don’t have a clue who Bill is. Hopefully a Vintage-Nitro reader can supply the missing last name.

The car itself is fairly stock, the wheelbase appears to be unaltered. There are some light weight components in evidence: note the black bumper. It is not possible to chrome plate fiberglass, the Chevelle’s owner choose black, rather than the usual silver or gray used by most other funny car builders.

The background is pretty smokey, a sure sign a rail just made a run. No one did burnouts in 1966, but the diggers usually smoked the tires for most of the track; the tires of the era couldn’t hook up in a light weight dragster.

Hopefully, someone knows who Bill is and can give us more info on this electric blue Chevelle. If anyone know anything, please leave a comment.

Tom Bonner

Tom Bonner

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