Gas Ronda was one of the pioneers of the Funny Car, and this 1966 Mustang is his first. Now it’s going to auction and if could be yours.

Ronda wanted a Funny Car in 1965, to compete with Dodge and Plymouth entries. Ford told him they would give him one for 1966 if he finished 1965 in the less radical A/FX class. He finished the year and this is the car Ford gave him. A 1966 Mustang that’s been very, very stretched.

Out of the box, it ran in the eights. Until a friend’s accident made him tune it back to run more safely in the nines.

This car was built by Holman-Moody, the race team that put Ford at the leading edge in NASCAR. But in 1965 and 1966, the team built drag racers for the Blue Oval. This was the first of six built.

Under the fiberglass hood–the whole body is fiberglass, actually–is a 427 cubic inch Ford Cammer big block. The massive overhead cam V8 that was banned from NASCAR but delighted on the drag strip. Behind that is a three-speed automatic that could stay in one piece where the four-speed stick couldn’t. It runs nitromethane and hit trap speeds of 174 mph when it raced.

This car won the 1966 AHRA Championships. Later, it was renamed the Lady Bug and was raced into the 1970s. It was later found, restored, and is now going up for sale.

[Source:Mecum]

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