[JoeC]

I been doing some research on Nickey. In my opinion Bill Thomas most likely did the first conversion cars. Bill was directly connected to Chevy Engineering and the Nickey Dealership and had his own engine building and fabrication shop in the early 1960s. He worked on many special cars for Chevy's underground road racing projects including a 1963 fiberglass 427 Nova (3 built). I posted an article on the 62 Nova V8 conversion kit he developed for Chevy to sell through the dealers. He most likely built the first 427 Camaros because he had the facility to do it and the connections to Chevy to get an early Camaro. Dick Harrell worked with Bill Thomas on the drag racing but I believe it was at Bills shop where they were first done. Harrell had Nickey sponsorship in 1966. Not to take anything away from Dick Harrell as he has many accomplishments. He had drag record setting Chevys in the early 60s and a 63 Z-11 then ran his 427 Z-11 motor in a new 64 Chevelle and ran early altered wheel base FX cars that became the Funny Car class. Bill Thomas built many of these early cars and his name is on many of Dick's early drag cars. Yenko and Nickey were involved with road racing Corvettes in the 1950s and getting special Corvettes in the early 1960s. Fred Gibb got involved in 1967 with the Little Hoss Z/28.