Funny Cars originated in 1960s America when venturesome drag racers began merging nitro-burning dragster powertrains with passenger-car bodies and created an instant sensation. Originally dubbed Factory Experimentals, their altered wheelbases and protruding engine parts made them look ‘kinda funny’, commentators said, and the description stuck. The emphasis lies firmly on ‘funny peculiar’, not ‘funny ha-ha’.

Modern Funny Cars still share the same engines as Top Fuel Dragsters, nitromethane-fuelled powerplants packing an 8,000-horsepower punch. Funny Car bodies sit on tube framed chassis and hinge at the back to allow access to the engine and drivers seat, their composite-material bodies might nowadays bear just a slim resemblance to the production cars on which they are modelled, but production-car bodies are not designed to hit 300mph in five seconds flat from a standing start. Channelling such groundshaking force through a short wheelbase makes a Funny famously hard to handle – the racetrack may be straight but the cars often have other ideas.