Tom Hanna
Tom Hanna is best known for the superb race-car bodywork that came out of his shop between 1962 and 1975. However Tom was also and adept chassis fabricator and all-around enthusiast. In the mid- 1950s, long before he started fabricating top-quality race car bodies, Tom was driving a Competition Coupe at such storied strips as Great Bend, Kansas, and other midwestern tracks. In addition to being a driver, Tom also crewed for Jim Meyer and Lloyd Davis on the classic machine they purchased from Cook and Bedwell and campaigned. In 1959 Hanna attended the inaugural U.S. Fuel & Gas Championship meet in Bakersfield, California, and not long afterward made his way to the west Coast with a newly completed full-bodied slingshot fueler. Tom campaigned this car under successive partnerships with Terry Galt, Bob Mayer and Byron Blair. During his racing years, he won a few meets and set a couple of records. However, Tom’s future was not as a racer, but as a metal craftsman. Setting up shop in Byron Blair’s shop in Chula Vista, California, Hanna was soon turning out full- bodied cars as fast as he could. The list of customers who came through his shop included nearly all of drag racing’s stars of that day. Among those stars were Jerry Baltes, Connie Kalitta, Don Garlits, Don Prudhomme, Jimmy Nix, Bob Creitz and Marvin Shwartz, took Bill Tidwell and Danny Ongias to record speeds in a machine owned by Vince Rossi and Tom Lisa. And the wedge machine he built for Harry and Maxine Lehman, The American Way, is widely considered even today to be one of the most beautiful machines of its time.
In 1976, Tom sold his business to associate and innovator Nye Frank and returned to Kanasa to pursue other business ventured. In fact, today Tom is one of the leading manufactures of Horse Tack in the world. His success in this industry has allowed Tom to become involved again in drag racing, and he is presently building a new slingshot dragster, what would have been considered state-of-the-art in terms of aesthetics in the mid-1960s. You can also find Tom at a race or two during the year, including the Hot Rod Reunion in Bakersfield, California, every fall.