Initial tests of the Little Red Wagon proved frustrating, regardless of whether Jim Thornton, Roger Lindamood, or Jay Howell drove. Initially, they ran the truck on gasoline with carburetors. The Little Red Wagon had a solid-mounted rear axle, along with the stock Dodge A-100 buggy spring and straight-front axle suspension. When they got the truck up to speed, more than 120 mph, the rearend would start hopping around, and it would want to trade ends in the lights.
Somewhere around mid-1964, the truck was sent back to Dodge's Product Planning Garage where a leaf-spring rear suspension was attached to a pivoting rear subframe. With handling problems solved, Howell and company were able to start drag-testing the truck. According to Howell, "I was hot to get the truck running as good as I could, and I was playing with neutral safety starts. Things were really starting to go our way. The next thing we did was install an injected 426 Hemi, and just for the heck of it, we put in 30 percent nitro." As Howell would soon discover, the added horsepower produced a decidedly different beast. They took the truck out to Motor City Drag Way and rosined the track. Obviously, what happened next surprised them. On the first run, Howell stood the truck straight up on its back bumper, producing the famous picture that was run in all the magazines. The Little Red Wagon's wheelstanding antics sent spectators running to the fences. Driver Jay Howell also got an eyeful, but from an entirely different perspective. Howell told us, "That day, we stood the thing up on its back bumper maybe 10 or 15 times. The truck always had a tendency to drift off to the right whenever I had the front wheels up in the air. On one particular run, there was a local guy with a GTO running in the right lane. The very moment the truck went up in the air, it immediately hooked a right turn. I was deathly afraid to let off the throttle because I was well aware that the GTO was somewhere under the front wheels. I couldn't let off the throttle for fear I would drop the truck on top of him. I had to wait until I saw the GTO drive out from underneath the front wheels of the truck!" Dodge News Bureau photographer Thomas E. Bedford was there that day to record what was going on, and his jaw-dropping black and white wheelie photo made the cover of Drag News. Once Frank Wylie realized the Little Red Wagon's publicity value (gauged from the overwhelming public response), the Little Red Wagon's future was guaranteed. Dodge Division was very committed to the Little Red Wagon project. Besides drag racing, there were also plans to run the flying mile with the truck at the Bonneville Salt Flats.