Hell on Wheels: Bob Perry Builds a Wheelstanding Tank
A Corvette Wheelstander Wasn’t Strange Enough Anymore
Bob Perry already knew how to build a wheelstander. His Fugitive machines included a Chevrolet Greenbrier and then a Corvette with the engine moved far enough rearward that the front tires had been demoted to occasional participants.
He won wheelstanding competitions, toured the country and learned how to make a vehicle run hard while looking thoroughly unwilling to obey normal traffic laws.
Then came the problem every successful exhibition racer eventually faces.
What do you build after the crowd has already seen the Corvette?
Another car would work. Another van would work. Another pickup would certainly be easier.
Bob Perry built a tank.
Not an Actual Tank
Hell on Wheels looked like a tank. This did not mean Perry had talked the Army into loaning him an M60 for Saturday-night dragstrip duty.
The military appearance came from a lightweight fiberglass body. The tracks along the sides were part of the illusion, while underneath sat purpose-built wheelstander machinery designed to do things a real tank had never been asked to attempt.
That distinction was useful. A genuine armored vehicle carries enough weight to make a ten-second quarter-mile difficult before anybody gets ambitious enough to put the front end in the air.
Perry wanted the audience to see a tank.
He did not need all the tank.
The Army Helped Make the Fake One Look Right
Perry received technical help from personnel associated with the 2nd Armored Division at Fort Hood, Texas, which saved him from inventing military details from memory.
The finished body carried the important visual equipment: turret, gun barrel, simulated tracks and enough armor-shaped fiberglass to make the joke obvious from halfway up the grandstands.
Then Bob put drag-racing machinery underneath it.
Once a fiberglass tank arrives at the starting line with a blown Chevrolet engine, subtlety has already missed the event.
A Blown 454 Did the Fighting
Hell on Wheels used a blown and injected Chevrolet 454 fueled by nitro and alcohol. Period descriptions credited the combination with more than 1,000 horsepower.
The fake tank was considerably lighter than the military version and considerably better prepared for quarter-mile duty. The result was a machine capable of running in the ten-second range at speeds beyond 130 mph.
Shaped like a tank.
With the front wheels in the air.
There are race cars that require several paragraphs of explanation before the impressive part becomes clear. Hell on Wheels did not suffer from that problem.
Steering Became Interesting Once the Front Tires Left
A steering wheel works beautifully while the front tires are touching pavement. Once a wheelstander raises those tires several feet into the air, turning the wheel mostly determines which direction they will be pointing when they eventually return to useful employment.
Perry needed another way to guide the machine.
Independent rear brakes provided it. Drag one side and the vehicle could be nudged that direction; use the other side and it could be brought back.
Perry had already developed sophisticated braking and steering arrangements on his earlier wheelstanders, and Hell on Wheels needed all of that experience.
Because Bob had added a new handling feature.
A tank body.
A Tank Is Not Famous for Aerodynamics
Race-car designers spend enormous amounts of time persuading air to pass around a vehicle without causing trouble.
Perry built a large fiberglass box with a turret.
Then stood it nearly upright at more than 130 mph.
He later compared driving Hell on Wheels at speed to carrying a sheet of plywood in a strong wind. The comparison does not require much engineering analysis to appreciate.
The body presented a tremendous amount of side area, so a crosswind had plenty of fiberglass to shove around. With the front wheels hanging uselessly above the track, directional corrections had to come from the rear.
The braking system was not merely part of the stunt.
It kept the tank from invading the next lane.
Jack Ehrmantraut Got One of the Better Job Descriptions in Racing
Perry built Hell on Wheels but did not remain its only driver. Jack Ehrmantraut became closely associated with the machine during its early career, and others would handle it later.
The assignment required more than planting the throttle and admiring the scenery. The driver had to raise the front end, balance the machine, correct its direction with the rear brakes, manage the blown Chevrolet and then return everything to earth without converting expensive fiberglass into confetti.
All while running quicker than plenty of legitimate race cars of the period.
Some racing jobs are easier to explain to the insurance company than others.
The Thing Really Did Run in the Tens
The tank body can make it easy to dismiss Hell on Wheels as a slow parade act. It wasn’t. Perry’s machine could cover the quarter-mile in the ten-second range, approach 140 mph and carry the front tires through most or all of the run.
Picture what the grandstands saw.
A tank rolls toward the starting line. A blown big-block fires. The nose climbs, the front wheels stay up and the whole military-looking contraption heads down the quarter-mile at well over 100 mph.
The promoter did not need much additional copy for the poster.
Being This Ridiculous Wasn’t Cheap
Perry reportedly spent around $35,000 building Hell on Wheels in the early 1970s. That was serious money for a machine whose first responsibility was convincing spectators they were watching a tank perform a wheelstand.
Exhibition racing had become serious business. A memorable machine could be booked repeatedly around the country, and the stranger it looked, the less work the promoter had to do explaining why anybody should buy a ticket.
A conventional race car could be fast.
Hell on Wheels was a headline before somebody unloaded it from the trailer.
One Tank Led to Another
The formula worked well enough that Perry went back to the military catalog. He later built Hell’s Fire, a self-propelled-artillery-themed wheelstander that added another useful exhibition feature.
The gun could fire blanks.
Now the machine could make noise from both ends.
That is a respectable improvement in showmanship efficiency.
Years Later, the Tank Became More Tank-Like
Perry eventually built Hell on Wheels II, which pushed the concept farther toward an actual tracked military vehicle and included working tracks for monster-truck-style appearances.
The original remained the cleaner gag. It did not need to prove that a genuine tank could wheelstand. It only needed the crowd to believe, for ten seconds at a time, that one had.
The fiberglass supplied the illusion.
The blown Chevrolet supplied everything else.
The Body Was Fake. The Wheelstand Wasn’t.
That is the useful distinction with Hell on Wheels. The tracks did not need to propel it. The armor did not need to stop anything. The gun barrel did not need to win a battle.
Those parts only had to make the grandstands see a tank.
Underneath, nothing was pretending. More than 1,000 horsepower, independent rear braking, ten-second elapsed times and speeds approaching 140 mph were doing genuine dragstrip work while the front end stayed in the air.
Perry had already proved he could build a fast wheelstander.
The next improvement was not more speed.
It was a tank.
There are worse ways to keep a crowd interested.