‘

:beers:

.

‘

:beers:

.

Heavy's orange car has the belt reveal molding that came on the 68 RS Camaros.

Toy IV had that molding even when Bill ran it in Pro Stock.

The white Heavy car does not have it.

That doesn't prove anything but that is odd to have the RS belt reveal molding on a race car.

In the pics of grumpy holding the box of parts and the trophy he looks like a short, young Bruce Willis.

These pics are AWESOME!!!!

No doubt!!

This is the 1969 Toy VI

IV

To me, the vinyl top is still a confusing mystery. Supposedly Brooklyn had it added to match his other cars, yet the Algieri car has no VT. Which owner, after Brooklyn had it removed ? Carmen told SS John, the car was white, painted orange, supposedly the vt was added but then Carmen painted it green. Did he, then, remove the top ?? the one pic on here, the green car has no vt. Are there pics of it with a vt ? To me, this whole thing still gets lost while in BH's possession.

With the addition of Pete's pics, I believe Bill's car was a real rs. All those pics show the reverse lights in the valance. It is not just lenses screwed to the panel for appearance. The lenses mount inside the housing and removing the housing would require a filler panel over the hole for the lens to mount to. He may have changed the front valance at the time of the acid dipping, or fender change, to lose the 3-4 pounds the signal housings weighed.

I'm with RichSchmidt, without a positive vin verification, I wouldn't know which vehicle to believe to be the original T-4.
If Joe Algieri has pictures of Bill's lettering on the car he stripped, it would be conclusive that, at least, he owned the real car and the trail could lead from there.

Don't get me wrong, this is one of the most intriguing threads going and I'm sitting on the edge of my seat, hoping it can be tracked down, but there just seems to be more questions about which car to pursue as Bill's original car.

I wondered that but just too cool not to post.
Same w/ the top shot of Bill carrying the boxes which is actually the ‘67 but great pic too.
:beers:
~ Pete

.

Really enjoying this thread. Incredible read and the pictures are awesome. Best of luck in your searches for Toy IV.

Mitch, I totally hear you. Maybe I'm a being a little UofC ish, but for me truth is truth until it is or isn't lol.

There were a few things that bugged me before doing any research and the vinyl top was one of them. But we have Carmen who graciously took some time out of his day yesterday to let me pepper him with some questions. I think to be fair, we need to go by his comments that they added the vinyl top. Now, Richie pointed out in a call we had yesterday that if this potential candidate for IV and if the black car he's got a line on is able to be seen at some point, one of the first things he'd look for is filled in holes where the vinyl top moldings were screwed in.

If I ever have the opportunity to meet Carmen in person, I have 5-6 other questions I would like to ask just about IV but also the '69 and some other cars too.

If any of you are buddies with him and happen to see him, please tell him thank you again from me. It's rare when older folks from that scene are comfortable and chill to share details. But I also encourage you if you see him maybe to think of key questions that have always come up about IV. One of them would just be to see if he knows anything about why the front valance is not the RS style. To me at this point it's not plausible he asked Chevy to make it that way. It's most plausible that he simple changed it around the time it got painted white. Given all the looks of III it's safe to speculate he had a lot of parts lying around the shop.

While I'm sitting here chilling out on a Sunday, I wonder about other things... What happened to the body panels Bill would have had around, did he just sell them over time or did any folks from the community buy some of them and hold onto them?

Another good question to ask Carmen and I'd love to ask him sometime in the future, what was the chassis configuration of IV when he sold it.

Another one I think would be if IV's body was acid dipped. My belief as of today is that it was not given the type of racing he was doing. Again if you guys actually know please share.

I noticed a couple of things. The Jenkins car had the rear tailpanel RS lights in all the pictures and they look to be in the correct location. The Jenkins car has the front side marker lights in some pictures and they are missing (along with lettering near the nose on the fender) in other pictures so something changed in the front end at some point. The Jenkins car has the non RS valance in all the pictures I think. The Jenkins car has the rear side marker lights in all the pictures.

The green car has no side marker lights at all or rear RS tailpanel lights and non RS valance. The white Heavy car has no side marker lights either (could they be the same car)? Could that actually be a 67 body with 68 doors?

Edit: The Algieri car has no side marker lights and no RS tailpanel lights and no RS valance but Joe said he removed the lights.

The Wild Pumpkin has side marker lights with the vinyl top. That seems more like a chance to be the IV.

The rear side marker lights might be the key unless the quarters were replaced with 67 quarters at some time when Heavy had the car.

Jeff, Joe Aligieri shared that he shaved the rear lights when he redid the car. I did not ask him about the marker lights in the fenders but people think he put fiberglass fenders on it.

Carmen had two Camaros and said he had a preferred green scheme, but I didn't have time to nail down more details about the other car, when it was painted, were they similar, and what happened to that car.

Rotonda

Was he referring to the rear tailpanel lights or rear side marker lights or both?

Heavy

Jeff he said "took the marker lights off the side of the car, took the side chrome off the car and also the back up lights off the car and also the gas tank filler neck off the car"

Are there any pictures of the green Rotunda car(s) with the side marker lights? If he had 2 similar cars and traded one with Heavy and repainted IV in green and removed the vinyl top, there might be pictures with the marker lights. I still wonder if Rotunda had a 67 body with 68 doors that he was racing and traded that with Heavy hence the white Heavy car having no marker lights. It's still kind of confusing between Rotunda and Heavy but it sounds like Algieri got the IV car and changed the front end and shaved the lights. Definitely and interesting trail to try and follow/verify.

‘

Few pics known w/ Rotonda paint but again, the more posted the better for ID comparisons.
Seems like a lot of great info coming together in this thread, hope it all leads to something new being learned including cars better defined also of course, found or ultimate fates verified.
:beers:
~ Pete

.

Okay guys, here is some more insight from the man himself Carmen Rotonda. Some of us, I'm in this group, don't know which cars I'm looking at.

He told me we need to look at the car numbers on the glass.
-829 was his Camaro
-1018 was IV's numbers
-His pro number was 146 for his Chevy's and Mopars.

Thank you Carmen!

I asked Carmen about this car, and he wasn't sure. He said it could have been Heavy's Motion car he bought or maybe even Carmen's green one later in life....

Heavys Motion Camaro was a 1969 Camaro RS

the car Heavy bought from Motion was an orange black top 1969 SS RS 427 Camaro.

Heavy's 66 Chevelle orange with black top

Its not hard to believe that Heavy would paint Toy IV orange with a black top so he can have a 3 car Wild Pumpkin drag team in the same colors.

That RS Belt Reveal Molding on Toy IV and Heavy's orange car keeps jumping out to me

Yeah he just took a quick look at the white Camaro pic.

What's the story on this car, is it a tribute or?

I notice that the '69 orange Camaro at times is also numbered as #1055 which is the same as the white one (pictured next to that Maverick).

Isint that the number of the Driver?

That's not how Carmen said it was the car's number but I dunno.

Happy to see you posting Carleen everything I've been sharing pretty much jibes with the things you have said about '68 Pumpkin so you should be kinda liking that.

Anyway, I'm happy to go down history lane and love this stuff but the main focus in this thread was to figure out if (a) the Algieri was indeed IV and (b) where the car is now. No disrepect meant to anyone around this stuff but with all the theories folks have had about IV I just wanted to see if the research and conversations could take the credibility to a higher level.

Also the 1970 Harrell Camaro

I think we can put the vinyl top debate to bed, Carmen indicated it was a black vinyl top. Heavy had the green to do whatever he wanted.

I think this is some sort of tribute car owned by Bob (Bobwop), an old HAMB guy.

If I look at Draglist and on the Cars that Carmen Rotonda was driving they all have the same number 146

Heavys Vega
Heavys Challenger
Carmens Duster

1055

Okay but I shared what he said about the car numbers pretty much verbatim, texting back and forth people might simplify what they send because it's on a phone.

Back to IV, that's the point of this thread. We await to see if the lead pans out.

The belt molding is also part of the Style Trim package, not just RS.

I try to get a better copy of this picture

Carleen, I've seen this pic once or twice before, I think maybe you are the only one who has it?

I thought it was interesting Carmen did not know the car.

One thing I had heard during the research was that Heavy and Carmen drifted apart at some point but without confirmation it's just a rumor at this point. But it could explain why Carmen did not recognize this car.

There are 1-2 rumors I've heard but I don't want to promote them unless they really focus on the IV.

I'd still like to get a handle on IV's 1980 chassis configuration, don't have that. Joe said Bill of Auto Weld did a round of work on the car, and I have not been able to find any contact information for him or the company. Maybe one of you guys might have insights?

The roof drip molding on Toy IV is not there so it might be that Grumpy added the RS stuff and belt reveal molding because he liked the look.