The tale of the Secret Weapon & the Holy Toledo

[stealthstylz]

Ooops not that one.

You've got to admire some people - most people who decide to build a Fuel Funny Car would start with the most modern body available at the time. Not so for Ed Lenarth and Roger Wolford, they built one out of a Jeep. Called the Secret Weapon, it was very successful in the early funny car wars, eventually leading to Jeep bodies being banned before Funny Cars had even become an official class..





Lenarth then teamed up with Brian Chuchua and built the Holy Toledo. Based on a Jeep Commander, the car was a state of the art race car at the time. The car was used for match racing and open events around Southern California and could match any car in the class in performance terms, running a best of 7.37 seconds and 190mph.









The car was retired from racing in 1971, but has since been restored and is now being raced again.



Matt

[DutyFreeSaviour]

Somewhere - there's a couple of Jago Jeep kits screaming out for this to happen to them..........
Roadgoing version of course - for the absolute end of all time wins! ;D

[Seth]

Don't think I've ever seen that one before Matt, thanks!

However I think there are two different cars in your post. I am suspicious that anything of the original exists in that modern one. The body looks to be sitting on a modern FC chassis, tell tales being the narrowness of the track (especially at the back) and that front end bulge covering up the front of the chassis.




Just found this with this photo at a 2008 event

Ed Lenarth in his unique Holy Toledo Jeep. This is the actual car restored and there is also a new version that runs in Nostalgia Nitro Funny Car.