The ''Panorama City Special'' is a pioneering streamliner dragster. Believed to be the first "slingshot" dragster, the ''Panorama City Special'' (designed by hot rodder

Mickey Thompson Michael Lee "Mickey" Thompson (December 7, 1928March 16, 1988) was an American auto racing builder and promoter. A hot rodder since his youth, Thompson increasingly pursued land speed records in his late 20s and early 30s.

) had a full body, including skirted rear wheels, and a cockpit windshield wrapping around and over the driver. The steel front wheels were covered by

lakester alt=photo of a drop tank on a P-51 mustang, An example of a drop tank on a P-51, though it is a 75-gallon tank, and mounted on a wing hardpoint. A Lakester is a car with a streamlined body but with four exposed wheels. It is most often made o ...

-style wheel discs (

Moon The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It is the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System and the largest and most massive relative to its parent planet, with a diameter about one-quarter that of Earth (comparable to the width of ...

discs). The car debuted in 1955, at the first

NHRA U.S. Nationals The U.S. Nationals (commonly The Big Go) is an NHRA-sanctioned drag racing event, generally considered to be the most prestigious drag racing event in the world due to its history, size, and purse, held annually at Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway ...

Great Bend, Kansas Great Bend is a city in and the county seat of Barton County, Kansas, United States. It is named for its location at the point where the course of the Arkansas River bends east then southeast. As of the 2020 census, the population of the ci ...

. The

wheelbase In both road and rail vehicles, the wheelbase is the horizontal distance between the centers of the front and rear wheels. For road vehicles with more than two axles (e.g. some trucks), the wheelbase is the distance between the steering (front ...

was only . In its initial outing, it proved much slower than the competition, hitting only , when others were reaching almost . Later in 1955, however, it became the first single-engined fueller to exceed , recording a speed of .Taylor, p. 31.

Notes

Sources

*Taylor, Thom. "Beauty Beyond the Twilight Zone" in ''Hot Rod'', April 2017, pp. 30–43. 1950s cars Drag racing cars Rear-wheel-drive vehicles {{auto-stub