1967/1968 Dick Harrell funny cars

[markjohnson]

For a site that thrives on paperwork documentation, that is a ridiculous piece of evidence. Anybody else would be laughed off this site if they produced that handwritten Waffle House napkin as a piece of evidence towards a valuble car. Put it back in the safe please. Anyway, maybe this will help, about a year ago while packing I came across one of the east coast magazines circa 69-70 that had a feature on a 67-68 Camaro funny car that was purchased from Dick Harrell and being raced with a new paint job. I don't remember if the car had a functional door or not but I spent SEVERAL hours yesterday unpacking my mags trying to find it with no success. Somebody with a large collection of these east coast magazines needs to read all the funny car features and maybe this wil be the missing link in the disputed history of this car. Good luck.

[kwhizz]

[ QUOTE ]
For a site that thrives on paperwork documentation, that is a ridiculous piece of evidence. Anybody else would be laughed off this site if they produced that handwritten Waffle House napkin as a piece of evidence towards a valuble car. Put it back in the safe please. Anyway, maybe this will help, about a year ago while packing I came across one of the east coast magazines circa 69-70 that had a feature on a 67-68 Camaro funny car that was purchased from Dick Harrell and being raced with a new paint job. I don't remember if the car had a functional door or not but I spent SEVERAL hours yesterday unpacking my mags trying to find it with no success. Somebody with a large collection of these east coast magazines needs to read all the funny car features and maybe this wil be the missing link in the disputed history of this car. Good luck.

[/ QUOTE ]

Tom.....Look under the gas tank for the "build" sheet...............LOL..........That "Magic" moment probably still wouldn't be enough to satisfy ......

Ken

[Belair62]

Mark thats not documentation by any means..it's a receipt for what he feels he bought and how it was represented..no more and no less.

[markjohnson]

I really wanted no part of this debacle and I really DO WANT to believe that the car is the real deal. But far too many unanswered questions have arisen and no concrete evidence or "as found" photos have been produced. If this mess is not straightened up soon, that car's reputation will be forever tarnished and that would be a travesty if it really is the real thing. The car's next appearence will be surrounded by people whispering to their buddies and families that "it's not real" and I would really hate to see that happen to the car. My ex-Braun Bros. '55 Chevy C/Gasser, though in no way in the same league as a Dick Harrell car, even has photos of the car as-found and during the paint and body work so there's no question to it's authenticity.

[Charley Lillard]

Most of the arguements against this car were made by someone going by the handle of USA-funnycar. Who is USA-funnycar ? He also made this statement......


"I know that the guy that sold you the car (M.M. are his initials) told you he did not know if it was the DH funnycar and he didn't think it was, neither did BP. So quit playing your games and that will stop all of the name calling on both sites."

USA-funnycar..You also mention BP as also not thinking it was the Harrell car. By BP I assume you are talking about Bill Porterfield. I spoke to Bill today. Bill told me he had never seen the car or been to the guys place. He said the guy offered him the 67-8 Dick Harrell funny car but Bill wasn't interested because he wanted the 69 Harrell car. Bill said he would like to remain neutral on this discussion.. So Porterfield never saw the car and you claim you know the seller didn't think it was a Harrell car yet it appears he signed a Bill of Sale stating otherwise. Can you explain that and maybe tell us who you are ?

[sYc]

Sorry about taking so long guys, but here we go. For last couple of days I have been searching high and low for any pictures of the car before we sprayed it. During the period we were working on the car, my camera was one of those digital ones that used a 3 1/4 floppy disk. The same camera we used to photograph all of the cars at 2-3 SCRs, so needless to say, I have 100s of disks. But I was able to find this one, while not real clear, I think it does shed considerable light on the body in question. I only found a couple.

Here is a shot of the passenger side of the car. Note a couple of things.

First the angle/size of the rocker. With the absence of Red shiny paint, IMO, does not appear to be my car, even though it is.

Second, and IMO, most important, notice the area inside the red mark. The dark line, which is actually a seam, is repair work. This seam is there on both sides, still visible on the inside of the car today. This was the patch job Dave Libby pointed out to us at Etown, At the time, when Dave said the car had been damaged and then repaired, I thought he meant the usual minor damage. But a couple of nights ago, he told Mo the front end had been “clipped”. The presence of these seams indicate that this body has been “clipped”.

As most of us know, when trying to sort out old racecars, prior damage and repairs is one of the things you look for. If not mistaken, another Harrell car was identified in this fashion, ZL-1 #1, as Fred Gibb know where to look for damaged areas.

I think showing that my car may have been “clipped”, same as one of Dick’s, certainly lends credence to the fact that the two bodies could be the one and the same. And, since it is pretty obvious that my car has been "clipped" at some point in its racing career, makes it tough to try and compare the portion of my car from the seam forward with the same area on any other car, as who knows when, how, where or what parts from what company were used.



A close up.

[sYc]

These two pictures show another interesting part of the car. Note the “trim” pieces around the back glass. When I first got the car and studied pictures of the Red car with the Black roof, I really thought it had a real vinyl roof, but was puzzled how they did it. That was one of the first questions I asked Dave Libby, how did they do the roof. He laughed for a few seconds, then explained. The black was simply spray paint in a can, meant to give a vinyl roof look, and then the area where the moldings are were painted silver. To me, the black vinyl roof look is one of the most unique and interesting things about my car, always sure to draw a comment or two at shows. I know a lot of the cars back in that era have these trim pieces, and on several cars were painted silver, but IMO, they really accent the black top and red bottom. I have had a couple of folks tell me they like the burgundy colored DH cars better, but I am kind of fond of the Black over Red look.

[moparts]

You know Tom when I went with you to pick up that funny car we talked on the trip over that if it turned out to be nothing it would at least be fun playing with.

We picked up the car that day and the fun did begin. Looking over hundreds of pictures and reading tons of magazines before even thinking about what car it was seemed at the time like alot of trouble. When we was looking at all these pictures we kept coming up with the red/black car that just didn't look like all the others. In the end that came to be the deciding factor on which car we decided it had to be, it just didn't match the other cars that the pictures showed as Dick's.

Then we finally started by cutting away years of misuse and abuse and trying to get down to something savable which was quite a job. After several hundred hours of work we had learned how to re-gelcoat a body that some had said was junk. Re-built a chassis that the engine had been moved in at least twice, changed from a auto to a manual, foot brake to a hand brake. During all this time we had kept on looking at all the pictures we could find, reading all the articles possible and talking to who we was told at the time was the best we could talk to for verification and information on what we had.

I remember the day that the lettering was put on the car, we were both speachless when we stood there looking at what had transformed in my shop. At that moment we knew that we had brought back to life a tribute to a great driver and a time gone by.

Now we load up and go to our first show, to where the experts are, nervous yes, confindent no way. We get there, set up in the booth of one of the experts and start asking questions. Is anything wrong with the car, what do we need to do to make the car more period correct and so on and on. Man it felt good to see the hundreds of people come by and look at the car and alot of them tell us the stories they had with Dick and the car.

Next the trip to Englishtown and the meeting with what seemed like everyone else in the world who knew anything about Dicks or anyone's funny car as far as that goes. Still wanting to find out everything we could about the car and if we had what we thought we had, we asked questions. Sometimes to the point of being afraid that these experts and racers and mechanices were getting tired of talking to us. We found out several safety items that needed to be addressed on the car, but all the experts there gave nothing but praise to the car and our hard work.

This goes on for a couple more years. And I will have to say we had a blast.

Looking back on everything now we could have spent a lot less time trying to make sure that we had what we thought we did. Less phone calls and travel time seeking out the experts and getting their worthless opinions and just had more fun with the car. Shoot I should have bought that other car they had for sale. We thought it was just a nobody car but heck if I could have got all these experts out there working on it there is no telling who's car I would have now.

Sell it........Park it.......Set it on fire......it doesn't really matter....Life's too short for this rabbit-$hit....

Let's move on to something else.....Lets have some fun!

[396L35]

[ QUOTE ]

Here is a shot of the passenger side of the car. Note a couple of things.

First the angle/size of the rocker. With the absence of Red shiny paint, IMO, does not appear to be my car, even though it is.

Second, and IMO, most important, notice the area inside the red mark. The dark line, which is actually a seam, is repair work. This seam is there on both sides, still visible on the inside of the car today. This was the patch job Dave Libby pointed out to us at Etown, At the time, when Dave said the car had been damaged and then repaired, I thought he meant the usual minor damage. But a couple of nights ago, he told Mo the front end had been “clipped”. The presence of these seams indicate that this body has been “clipped”.

As most of us know, when trying to sort out old racecars, prior damage and repairs is one of the things you look for. If not mistaken, another Harrell car was identified in this fashion, ZL-1 #1, as Fred Gibb know where to look for damaged areas.

I think showing that my car may have been “clipped”, same as one of Dick’s, certainly lends credence to the fact that the two bodies could be the one and the same. And, since it is pretty obvious that my car has been "clipped" at some point in its racing career, makes it tough to try and compare the portion of my car from the seam forward with the same area on any other car, as who knows when, how, where or what parts from what company were used.



A close up.



[/ QUOTE ]
That is some good reading Tom but I would have to disagree with your "clipped" theory. ALL '68 and '69 Camaro Funny Cars have that section on both sides of the body. This is the section where all Camaro FCs are sectioned together to lengthen them to the costomers wants. As for being clipped the I guess all FC cars were clipped before they were painted and given to the customer. This might even be a safty crash test to see if the car will hold up to being T-boned???

[YENKO DEUCE REGISTRY]

I am saddened that Mr. Libby has now changed his opinion, especially since his memory has been his best asset - your credibility is history. We are now supposed to believe that your opinion now is more reliable than several years ago? I listened at E-town while you reviewed pictures, mag articles, etc... pointing out the smallest of details, but now you change your mind and say that you simply missed an opening door? Shame on you.

Anybody wondering what the 'root cause' is for this issue? You newer guys may not be aware, but this is not the first time for this type of topic to arise. The prior discussion went down with a member making up stories for his car, with buddies who weren't there backing him up. The stories were debunked, the member was booted, and has had an axe to grind ever since. For him, this is Retribution, but if this is all you got for a 'train' - HA

Somebody find that thread about the other funny car at vette fest.