whats this??

[whitetop]

Kevin
Bill H. owned all his cars. The Mr. Bardahl name came from Bill H. selling the Bardahl oil products and additives. Of course Bardahl Oil also gave him money in form as a sponsorship abeit small as it may have been. I'm taking this from a SS&DI mag that said Bill was one of the larger dealers for the Bardahl products back in the day-hence the nickname-I'm thinking he received the name out of reverance or people could not pronounce or remember his last name.(kinda like how Joe Hrudka was nicknamed "Mr. Gasket" when he was selling his home made gaskets from the tailgate of his station wagon at the drag strips way way before the business was born) The article said this was how Bill received his sponsorship from Bardahl- by his connections as being one of the top dealers. Remember these were the days when the car owners name/nickname on the door was bigger then the sponsors (Grumpy's Toy, Ronnie Sox etc). Most sponsors were lucky to have small decal on the front fender in those days.

Bill still owned some of his old cars well into the early '80's and had them displayed in a special room at GV raceway along with all his trophies/memorabilia etc.

[copo9566aa]

Mr. Bardahl II [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/biggthumpup.gif[/img]

[JoeC]

There was some type of deal with Yenko and Dana or at least they planned something. They ran a full page ad in National Dragster Dec. 66. announcing that Dana and Yenko "have joined forces" to offer a Dana 427 Camaro and a Yenko Stinger both with racing options. The drawing of the Dana Camaro looks like simlar car in the picture of the Bardahl car. Both have same wheels and both have "Doug's Headers" on front fender. ad attached

[SuperCars]

From the ads and pics it appears that Hielscher could've owned all the race cars. But on the other hand, it is also possible he owned all except the 67's with "MR BARDAHL" and "MR BARDAHL II"; especially "MR BARDAHL II" as it appears it only says Hielscher racing engines in small letters with a "Harrell" badge on the front fender.

Joe C, your attachment lead us to believe that a Yenko 427 Camaro never existed prior to a DANA 427 Camaro.

HA-HA Mike, I can see this would get me a response from you. No, don't have any literature to prove it, so it could've been one way or the other. But I'd have to think that DANA as only a few miles away from Bill Thomas, was first in the 427 Camaro program ahead of Nickey which was 1500 miles away. With both DANA and Nickey's first cars as SS350 to 427 transplants, shows both must have started in 1966

[Denis]

Wasn't the Butternut Yellow 67 Yenko a conversion from an SS350?

[sixtiesmuscle]

I know someone here remembers the relationship better than I do, but, didn't Dick Harrell & Bill Thomas have some things going, and, then they both got together with the Nickey folks? The proximity of Thomas to Dana means nothing. I will give you one thing though. IMO, Bill Thomas was the pioneer of this whole concept, and, provided the engineering knowhow to get it done. His influence on the 427 conversion programs, as well as, big block development in general with Chevrolet gets lost in relation to those people who might have been better marketers, or, "tooted their own horn" better.

[JoeC]

Yes Keith H has a BY 67 Yenko Camaro that is a 350 conversion. He showed me the Yenko paperwork that listed it as a Yenko Stomper.
If you believe the articles on the red Hot Rod Camaro, this was the first 427 Camaro and was built by Bill Thomas. This may be true since Hot Rod had this car very early and Bill T. had the shop and talent to fabricate all the needed parts.

[sixtiesmuscle]

In all the articles I have seen that were done in late Summer of '66 for magazines printed as early as January of '67, the Thomas built red car has Nickey, Illinois dealer plates. I know we're getting off of the Dana subject, but, I think we should give credit where credit is due, to Bill Thomas. It's just a nice sidebar that the first car was built by him, and, as the prototype for his partnership with Nickey. Just MHO, of course.

Nothing against the Dana program. They are certainly cool cars. Both of them. It's neat that Kevin has perhaps the only two known to exist, or, for that matter, the only two ever made.?

[camarojoe]

For what it's worth, When i purchased a large lot of Don Yenko's personal photographs, within those was a sleeve of I believe 3 promotional photos from DANA Chevrolet, which were apparently sent to Don Yenko personally from someone at Dana. I don't have them in front of me, but i believe they are of a 67 427 car, with the Dana hood, sidepipes, and Cragar G/T wheels. There was also a photo of the Dana dealership itself. All were 8x10 Glossy B&W pics. (more stuff I i need to dig out to bring to SCR7!)I found it odd that Don would have been sent these pics, and there DEFINITELY was a connection between Yenko and Dana... to what extent I am not sure. Tom, do you have any correspondence between Yenko and Dana in any of your original Yenko paperwork and documents? By the way Frank, cool pics you posted, where'd you ever get those? [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

[55chevy]

Since we're on the subject of Mr. Bardahl heres a little trivia for ya. Does anyone remember Mr. Bardahl's 15 min of movie fame?... I'll give you a minute........
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Ok. Thumbs up to the first person with the right answer. [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]