The Story of the Anteater: Art Arfons’ First Green Monster for the Salt

The Dream

By the late 1950s, Art Arfons had already carved out a reputation as one of the wildest
and most inventive hot rodders in America. He and his half-brother Walt were running
Allison-powered dragsters that weren’t just quick — they were traveling roadshows,
filling dragstrips with excited crowds and setting speed records wherever they went.

But the Bonneville salt flats was lingering in the back of Art’s mind. He knew that if he
wanted to be more than a dragstrip side show attraction, he needed to point one of his
“Green Monster” race cars across the salt and chase John Cobb’s world land-speed
record of 394 mph. This wasn’t about building another quick car for paying crowds. This
was about building a machine that could launch a backyard hot rodder into history.

Building the Beast

The choice of powerplant was obvious. Art had been running surplus Allison V-1710
V12s since 1954, but for the salt he found a rarer variant: one equipped with a General
Electric turbo-supercharger ahead of the Allison’s own centrifugal blower. In aviation,
that setup gave the P-38 Lightning a fighting chance against the enemy at high altitude.
On the salt, it meant dense air, relentless horsepower, and a fighting chance to beat the
Brits to a 400 mph record.

The chassis was welded up at Art’s Akron home on Pickle Road. Heavy tubing,
straightforward geometry, a driver’s seat stuffed in front of the monstrous motor, that
almost looks like an afterthought. The suspension was crude — leaf springs and big
aircraft shocks — and the steering was as basic as it got. Out back, a truck-style two-
speed transmission was coupled to the Allison. Art wired a Rube Goldberg system of
solenoids and linkages that would shift it into high at an unthinkable 300 mph.

As for the body, Art needed help. Mechanical he could do; sheetmetal he could not. So
he hauled the nearly finished car out to Los Angeles and left it with Lujie Lesovsky, the
master fabricator best known for pounding out bodies for Indy cars. Lesovsky spent
weeks hammering out an aluminum skin that managed to be both sleek and strange,
with a nose that jutted low and forward like a snout. That’s of course how it got its name:
The Anteater.

Bonneville: 1960

Art and his crew arrived late — too late, in fact. By the time the Anteater reached
Bonneville for Speed Week 1960, the event was already winding down. They had one
day left to prove the car even worked.

Art made three cautious runs that Saturday, topping out around 200–250 mph. Hardly
record-breaking, but these were shakedowns: proof that the car could steer, stop, and
stay in one piece. For a man who had never pointed a car across salt before, it was a
win.

But the real drama came a week later, when Bonneville hosted one of the greatest
showdowns in land-speed history. Four men, four utterly different cars, all chasing
Cobb’s 394 mph. Mickey Thompson showed up with his four-engine Pontiac-powered
Challenger. Donald Campbell brought the multi-million-dollar Bluebird turbine car from
England. Nathan Ostich rolled out the jet-thrust Flying Caduceus. And there was Art
Arfons, with his homebuilt scrapyard misfit, Anteater.

Mickey Thompson Challenger 1

 

Nathan Ostich's Flying Caduceus

 

Donald Campbell's Bluebird

 

For a week, they took turns hammering down the endless black line. Ostich’s jet sucked
its own ducts flat and went home. Campbell crashed the Bluebird at nearly 360 mph.
Thompson stunned the world with a 406 mph one-way pass, only to break his driveline
before he could back it up. And Art? He managed 249 mph before his clutch let go for
good. Not a record, not even close, but he had survived in the company of giants.

The Daytona Detour

Back home, Art’s ambitions took a strange (left) turn. Bill France was offering $10,000 to
anyone who could lap Daytona International Speedway at over 180 mph. For a man
used to building cars on scrap budgets, that was life-changing money.

So, Art pointed the Anteater toward Florida. It was a mismatch from the start — a car
designed for five-mile pulls on salt wasn’t built to cling to high-banked asphalt. Still, he
had to try. His best laps were only around 118 mph. He handed the car to British driver
Brian Naylor, who managed 134 before the Allison overheated, blew a water line, and
filled the cockpit with scalding water. Naylor ended the day burned and furious, and the
Anteater ended its brief Daytona experiment as a disaster.

Bonneville, 1961

Back on the salt in 1961, things finally looked brighter. The clutch and transmission
problems were sorted. Art was ready to see what the car could really do.

But, as it often does, Bonneville had other plans. Rain had shortened the course, and
the salt was soft. Even so, Art managed run after run: 289, then 304, and finally 313
mph. That last pass was the fastest of the meet. The car was alive, and Art was in the
300 mph club.

And here’s the kicker: according to Arfons, the Anteater never shifted into high gear. At
313 mph, it was still pulling in low. In his mind, that meant the car had another hundred
miles per hour in it if only the salt and the machinery would cooperate.

The End of the Anteater

By 1961 the world was changing. Walt’s jet dragster was stealing headlines at strips
across the country. Craig Breedlove was working on his Spirit of America jet car. The
future of land speed wasn’t piston engines. It was thrust.

The Anteater went home to Akron. Art stripped what he could, repurposed parts for
other projects, and left the car to fade. Years later, he told reporters he still had the car
in pieces and dreamed of putting it back together for a shot at the wheel-driven record.
But it never happened. The car never returned to the salt.

Legacy

The Anteater didn’t break records. It didn’t beat Campbell or Thompson. However, what
it did do was prove that a feed-store mechanic from Akron could build a car with his own
hands, haul it to Bonneville, and run 313 mph alongside the best-funded racers in the
world. Something that remains true on the salt today.

It was Art’s first real taste of the salt, and it was enough to set the hook. Without the
Anteater, there are no Green Monster jet cars, no 576-mph record runs, no immortal
duel with Craig Breedlove.

The Anteater was ungainly, awkward, and unfinished — but it was also brave, original,
and unforgettable. It was the last piston-powered land-speed car Art Arfons ever built,
and the first that carried him into legend.