[67 Nova Boy]

Nickey in Print

Vintage Motorsports magazine recently ran a great piece on Nickey. VM caters mostly to road racing enthusiasts and that’s exactly what Nickey did in the early years. Its “Purple People Eater” Corvettes were named after a popular song of the time but were a serious threat in sports car racing. While we thought Nickey as known only for their drag cars, this article by Tom Stephani tells us how Nickey went road racing, stock car racing, and drag racing--all before those big-block Camaros ever peeled out down Irving Park Road. Stephani should know; his father was one of Nickey’s owners. The piece also includes how Chevy kept funneling Nickey the good stuff for the purple ‘Vettes even after the announcement of the Automobile Manufacturers Association racing ban in 1958.

And what about that backward K? According to the Stephani, it started when one of Nickey’s owners was in Florida and spied a sign with one of the letters backward in the name. The trick stuck in his mind. Once home, he tested it on one of the placards on the lot. The steady stream of people that stopped in to tell them the sign was wrong was given a coupon for a free upside-down cake at a nearby bakery. With attention like that, it wasn’t long before the big red backward K was on everything and everywhere.

Dave
67 Nova Boy