Jet-Powered Corvette Funny Car Uses 7,000 HP to Hit 250 Mph in the Quarter-Mile

At its bargain-basement price, we can’t imagine having more fun for the money than in this Corvette funny car.

Funny cars are already some of the quickest machines on earth, particularly when you’re talking about vehicles that have bodies that somewhat resemble road cars. You might have to squint to see the resemblance this 1984 Corvette funny car has to its street-legal brethren, but that’s certainly nothing unusual. What really matters here is the fact that this wicked vintage Corvette funny car is also wicked fast, and it’s currently up for sale at Classic Auto Mall to boot.

The patriotic build, appropriately dubbed “Fireworks USA,” puts on a show thanks to its insane powerplant – a J34/34-A Westinghouse Turbo-Jet engine, originally built way back in 1951 for use in a variety of aircraft including the North American T2 Buckeye, Lockheed P2V Neptune, Douglas F3D Skyknight, and McDonnell F2H Banshee. Maximum thrust comes in at 3,600 pounds, with output settling in at a bonkers 7,200 horsepower.

That is enough to propel the Corvette funny car to 250 miles-per-hour in the quarter-mile, which it did routinely in its heyday competing in the NHRA’s Jet Exhibition Jet Funny Car 102 class. Somehow, the car weighs only 2,400 pounds, in spite of that giant jet engine, and it has a rather large 100-gallon tank to feed the beast.

This piece of drag racing history is a whopping 20 feet long and comes fitted with all the stuff required to keep it glued to the ground, even though its powerplant was designed to propel things through the sky. That includes a coilover and torsion suspension, Strange disc brakes, drag chutes, and Centerline wheels wrapped with Goodyear tires.

Unfortunately, after a few years on the circuit, both the owner and driver of the vehicle became ill and had to retire. Luckily, it’s apparently not that difficult to get the Corvette recertified with the NHRA, so the new owner can actually get out and drive it as intended rather than just use it as a display piece. The car comes with instructions on how to start it and the offer of help from the seller, too. For the bargain basement asking price of $39,500, we can’t imagine having more fun for less money, at least on the drag strip.

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Photos:Classic Auto Mall

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