This Guy’s Garage – Don Garlits

How do you introduce a garage like this? Everyone knows who “Big Daddy” Don Garlits is, and, as you may guess, he has a monster collection of vintage goodies to go with the 250 cars on display in the multi-building Garlits Museum of Drag Racing near Ocala, Florida. Right after the Gatornationals, your author, who is working on a Race Hemi history book, set up an appointment to sit down with the man they were already calling the “Old Man” back in the ’60s. As it turned out, Garlits and a couple of the guys who had helped him make history (in the ’80s streamliner era) were in the process of doing a valve job on Swamp Rat VIII, which is a period-correct replica of the very first dragster Garlits installed a new, blown 426 Hemi into back in late 1964. It is also the car Garlits is planning on “cackle touring” in 2014. With an easy thrash on compared to today’s “big show” cars (it took three hours instead of 75 minutes), Garlits expertly hand-lapped the valves, screwed the engine back together, loaded it up with 92 percent, and cackled in the tune-up while sitting in a museum parking lot within 200 feet of I-75 at 9 p.m. that night. How cool is that?

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Photo Gallery: This Guy’s Garage – Don Garlits