Dirt Late Model Chassis by decade.........

[Henry Every]

Custom Chassis (Frank McClendon was early 80's)

[zyoung25]

https://www.dirtfans.com/JonOsman.html

The story on the first Rayburn car ever built is at the bottom. Jon is a personal friend of mine.

[Morgs153]

Right around 1980 there were still guys running chassis brands that were also selling to asphalt racers. There was still just a little crossover going on but that was pretty much gone by 1982 and the specialized divergent pathways were shaping up.

Howe was a very big seller both ways. Ray Dillon built the Tri City Aluminum cars that were run by Buck Simmons and Larry Moore besides a whole slug of asphalt cars (many in ASA). Mike Randerson had success with his Randercar chassis with Pete Parker. Dennis Frings was a low volume but very meticulous builder of asphalt, dirt, and even Trans Am type cars back then. Bill Beminster had the BEMCO brand cars. Boyce Trackburner Chassis was popular in the Illinois region on both surfaces as well.

Around that time as well, WRC by Rodney Combs.

[dirtcrazy4u]

Martz chassis out of bedford, pa. Zemakis, east coast builder. I no I have that name wrong hopefully someone can correct.

This exact reason is why I give a tip of the hat to that little shop up on the hill in W.V. The guy keeps putting out cars year after year. He has definitely been doing it longer than anyone.

[dirtybird73]

A few more to add to the list:

Buschwacker/Walter Newman
Trak-Star(2006)
Swartz(1987)
Stinger
Club 29
Warrior(1984)
Victory Circle(2005)
TNT
BMF(2022)
Bernheisel(1978)/Lazer(1988)
Punisher(2018)
28Special
Double Nickel(2022)
Killer Chassis(2011)
Scorpion

[EvelB7]

Midwest had Ed Sanger in the 70's; also (not a nice word)(not a nice word)(not a nice word)(not a nice word) Schiltz (father of Dirtwrap owner Jimmy Schiltz) built chassis as well. 80's had Zip Lekander building Zippo Chassis (Johnny Johnson set fast time in Florida with one).

[ride height]

Wasn’t there a Jig-A-Lo chassis ? I want to say in the 70’s.

[84wedge]

Early 80s Jr. Hanley was making them as well.

[over4T]

Casey's Auto Salvage, in Iowa, built some pretty nice cars in late '90s-early 2000s.

[PAR]

Add:

Roughrider out of Southern Ohio, if memory serves, believe the Cline family??
FAST by Jeff Treece, late 90's early 2000's. The one I had was around a 2001
Port City Race Cars was doing a dirt version of their chassis in the 80's, and early 90's. Pretty certain none ever went out of the state of Michigan. My dad drove them, and I took one to rookie of the year at my home track in 1993.

[zyoung25]

Cheetah Race Cars.

MB_Racer might be able to give the story on those. I think they got tangled up in a lawsuit with one of other chassis manufacturers. I was too young to remember what the rise and fall of those were.

[HoosierDirtFan]

Original post has been updated.

[bleedblue55]

Rocket Chassis was started in 1986

[LugNutz]

Gary Oliver Tri-City Buggy

[MasterSbilt_Racer]

Cheetah Race Cars.

MB_Racer might be able to give the story on those. I think they got tangled up in a lawsuit with one of other chassis manufacturers. I was too young to remember what the rise and fall of those were.

I don't really know a lot about that deal. They tried to get me in one, but I bought the proprietor's mastersbilt instead. They started out buying unfinished chassis from Rayburn. I'm assuming that arrangement went south.

[Morgs153]

MB Customs came out in 2008

[foxfire2dirtracing]

Still hoping someone will post who the very first custom ( non-factory) Chasis builder was?

[TowerView]

Tucker 1980/81 started

[Henry Every]

Still hoping someone will post who the very first custom ( non-factory) Chasis builder was?

When you say "custom", do you mean just a modified frame or a full tube chassis? I think either Ed Howe or Rayburn were the first full tube, but I'm not sure. Jig-A-Lo by Jimmy Thomas was pretty early with his chassis, 76 or 77.

[KTMLew]

When you say "custom", do you mean just a modified frame or a full tube chassis? I think either Ed Howe or Rayburn were the first full tube, but I'm not sure. Jig-A-Lo by Jimmy Thomas was pretty early with his chassis, 76 or 77.

Believe both Rayburn and Howe were building Asphalt chassis first and don't believe Howe ever built a dirt specific chassis. The OG Howe were designated as X-design. 1/2/3 were cages built on Chevelle stock frame. 4th design was what is now basically a mod chassis but used Camaro front stub. 5th was optional fabbed/Camaro front clip. 6th was 100% fabbed. Last one i am aware of, that followed that path, was 6th design. Once Rodney Combs moved South, taking Mark Richards with him, WRC was the "dirt division". And I haunted the WRC shop a ton back then.