Back in the olden days, racing slicks weren’t much more than street tires without any tread. Racers had no trouble making more horsepower than the tires could handle. Some racers even tried putting extra weight in the back of the cars to improve traction. But some clever person at Chrysler discovered that if you move the placement of the wheels forward, then when the car accelerated off the starting line, more weight would naturally transfer back onto the rear wheels. For years we heard about “weight transfer” as one of the “secrets” of a successful racer.

Mopar engineers actually took a blank body (called a “body in white) and moved the front and rear wheels forward several inches. At first glance, the cars sort of looked stock, but something was “funny” about them. Thus the term, “funny cars” was coined. And the trick worked! Within months of the first altered wheelbase Ramchargers car, nearly every A/FX racer had made serious body and chassis changes to their cars. Overnight, altered wheelbase cars had the edge over the previous year’s cars.

The trend only lasted a few years, making the altered wheelbase A/FX cars of that time truly unique. “Dyno Don” Nicholson changed everything in ‘67 with the first tube frame chassis “ELIMINATOR.” Tire compounds also improved and it was no longer necessary to move wheels forward on race cars.