"Barn" Find - Vintage Dirt Modified Race Car

[DirtyMax]

Dirt racing is/has been a big passion of my family forever. My brother and I were practically raised at Hales Corners, the same as my dad and uncle before us. My dad and uncle have 2 old Modified race cars already. One of them that they recently restored is a Bill Johnson 3-track championship car from 1963. This was considered one of the "crown jewels" of local vintage race cars and my uncle happened upon it up north completely transformed into a completely different car. What these old timers would do is sell their old cars to racers up north in Escanaba, etc. so thet they wouldn't be competing against their own old cars locally when they built their new ones. That's where so many of these cars ended up but most of them are long gone....

Since then, we've been on the lookout for a project that the 4 of us could take on as a family project. They're pretty hard to find nowadays. They're either rotting away outside or restored and fetching big $$.

My uncle had his on display at the Auto Show and a guy came up and gave him compliments and said he had one of them buried in his garage that was about 90% intact and was wondering if he knew of anyone would have any interest in it. So my dad and uncle went and looked at it for us and here we are today....

This thing is damn near the way it was left the day it came off the track back in 1971. A few pieces were borrowed off of it over the years (dash, seat, floorpan, fuel cell, torsion bars) but aside from that, we stumbled upon a time capsule. The engine is a 1956 Buick 322 c.i. Nailhead V8 with an Offenhauser intake and (3) 2bbl carbs.

The plan... find/make some of the missing parts and "weather" them as best we can. We'd like to try and leave it in this condition versus doing a frame off for the time being, seeing as how this was so well preserved for so long.

http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t227/jdallard/Modified/P1020461.jpg

http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t227/jdallard/Modified/P1020464.jpg

http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t227/jdallard/Modified/P1020476.jpg

http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t227/jdallard/Modified/P1020481.jpg

http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t227/jdallard/Modified/P1020454.jpg

We're really looking forward to reviving this car and hopefully being able to show the former owner/driver (pictured above) the progress at Slinger reunion show in mid-June.

Here are the other 2 "Family" cars as well....

http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t227/jdallard/WOW%20Show%202009/_MG_0452.jpg

http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t227/jdallard/Modified/IMG_06162.jpg

[SmokinRAM114]

wow, thats awesome!! thats a really cool find

[0TransAm0]

sweet find..

id drive them fuckers down the road...that would be fun...till the cops came.. :)

[DirtyMax]

They're pretty loud with the straight headers. If anyone knows of any more of these around, we would love to see them!

[GRAMPS SS]

now that's cool...now you have another project to do as a family....