That was rather anticlimactic. After a huge buildup and a massive media scrum, surely due at least in part to a fresh Hollywood movie, the Hot Wheels-branded Snake and Mongoose Funny Cars, which were sold together along with matching haulers, fizzled out at a cool million dollars at the 2014 Barrett-Jackson event.
If you think drag racing is boring, we encourage you to take a closer look at the sport's early days. When Don "The Snake" Prudhomme and Tom "The Mongoose" McEwen were first lining up to shoot down the quarter mile against each other in the '60s, the National Hot Rod Association was still less than 15 years old. Back then, the cars were more dangerous and a driver was lucky to have a local parts store for a sponsor. But Prudhomme and McEwen changed
Nitromethane fueled the funny car battles on the drag strips of the 1970s, and Mattel's marketing money made the sport burn brightly and also changed the face of all sports marketing for good. The rivalry between Don Prudhomme ("Snake") and Tom McEwen ("Mongoose") began in the 1960s and grew more intense as funny cars became wilder and wilder. N
Don Prudhomme's 1974 Army sponsored Chevrolet Vega funny car – Click above for high-res image gallery
2010 Dana Point Concours d'Elegance – Click above for high-res image gallery
