Today’s Nice Price or No Dice Logghe dragster was built not to barrel down the quarter mile but for “cackling” car meets. That’s a unique and specific role, and it will require some novel thinking on our part to decide what it might be worth.
With over 317,000 miles in its rear-view mirror, yesterday’s 2009 Mercedes-Benz E350 wagon certainly takes the prize for durability and stick-with-in-ness. At just $5,900, it also won our vote, earning a solid 69 percent Nice Price outcome.
Today being Friday the 13th—a notoriously unlucky day according to certain cultural norms—we might want to address the expected bad juju by stepping out of our comfort zone and looking at something way out of the ordinary. I think this 1967 Loogghe AA/FD dragster qualifies as both discomforting (the driver does straddle the potentially explosive differential) as well as pretty wild.
First, though, just what the hell is this thing, and why would someone build a vintage-style front-engine dragster? According to the ad, the car, dubbed ‘Angel’s Flight,’ is “a recreation of a car my friend drove in ’67 with a great history as well as the story of the donor car which had its own great history, racing into the ’80s.”
The build was completed just last September and is based on a vintage tube chassis manufactured in 1967 by the Logghe Brothers’ Stamping Company in Detroit, Michigan. Atop that is a NOS fiberglass body by Kellison, into which has been wedged a 1957 Chrysler 392 Hemi. That’s finished with a de rigeuer Roots-style blower and Hilborn injection. The under-butt rear-end is also out of a vintage Chrysler and is fitted on either end with disc brakes. An ass-mounted drag chute is ready for when those prove not enough.
The result is not street legal—or even road capable—nor would it be track competitive in anything other than vintage exhibition events. Instead, the seller says the car was built for cackling events. These are shows where vintage racers are pulled out, dusted off, and then fired up so that a bunch of old guys in Jorts and tucked-in T-shirts can stand around and listen to them idle and rev so they might enjoy the “cackle” of the unfettered exhaust. And yes, that is totally a thing.
The car seems to fit the bill, either for a static event or for giving the engine a smidge of exercise. The body appears beautifully finished in candy apple red gel coat with white and gold flake accents. Even the under-body is show-worthy, having been sprayed with bedliner for what the seller claims is a “clean appearance.”
None of the ad’s pictures show the car with either the blower belt or high-tension wires from magneto to plugs in place, so apparently it’s being sold with some assembly required. That’s minor stuff, and all the heavy lifting of the car’s build and the engine’s rebuild (professionally done, according to the ad) have been completed.
As this is not a street car, mileage and title matter not. Per the seller, it’s a “beautiful piece of Automotive History and Automotive art.” At $31,000, they say, it could be had for the “price of a cheap Camaro.”
That’s a pretty specific comparison, and few of us would likely consider a $31K Camaro particularly cheap. That being said, we now need to address the question of this dragster’s value. What do you think? Is it worth $31,000 in light of its intended purpose and fit for that purpose? Or does that price leave you cackling with disdain?
You decide!
Phoenix, Arizona, Craigslist, or go here if the ad disappears.
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