ZL1 #51 at Barrett-Jackson

[TurboBob]

My name is Bob johnson and I live in dallas,ga If you like a good story here it is. In the early 80's Lamar bought his car back out of a trailer park in Rome,Ga for $700.00 The car had never been titled and somewhere along it's life it was taged and that's how it was found. I know Lamar well and was there when it came home. It was extremely rough and pretty much anything to do with original ZL-1 stuff was gone it was completely back-halfed for racing and had a olds type rear with 14in. wide tires and had a unique fiberglass front end that bolted together in peaces like stock sheet metal did and still had GM part numbers on them. I've never seen another set like them. Ther was a doner car involved and they replaced every bit of the floor from the firewall back and inner structer and used new GM quarters,tail pan and every piece of the front was replaced. I don't know about now but when It was done it wasn't of quality VERY obivice were it was welded together. Thank's hope this helped

[Charley Lillard]

Nuch...I never saw it but COPO had it so he might chime in. I think it is very common for these blocks to still be around because who wants to throw away a aluminum big block ? You can weld up just about anything on a aluminum block and these days it is worth it. I used to have the orig block for # 26 that had been cracked from freezing and it was repaired to where it was almost impossible to tell.

Bob is better known as the real Bob Johnson.

[rich p]

Hey Bobby !! Hope everything is WELL !! We missed you at the PlayBoy Mansion. See ya at BJ"S.

Good luck on the CUDA

[TurboBob]

In the day when it was raced it broke a rod and the dealer that sponsered him sent a all steel 427 to race with and it was faster and contenued to run it tell it was replaced with a new car a vega pro stock

[Charley Lillard]

Rich....wrong Bob......

[rich p]

Wow My Bad !!

[Charley Lillard]

Thats OK,they know each other..That is why this one goes by "The real Bob Johnson" on other sites.

[rich p]

Well I hope this Bobby J is feeling well too !!

The other had quad bypass surgery

TO you the Real Bobby J

[NovaMob03]

I think Lamar owned both #51 and #63 ZL 1's. Lamar got #51 from Cheverolet/Vince Piggens to race & according to Lamar, on the 1st day at the track it thru a valve, he pulled the motor & it sat on a shelf for many yrs. I bought it from Lamar, sold it to Charlie(COPO) & he sold it to Reggie. It needed to be sleeved which cost Reggie some $$$.
I was told that the #63 ZL1 was found in Millageville, Ga. It's now owned by Milton R. & understand that the orig eng to the car is still in Ga.
As far as the Bob Johnson's go...Bobby lives in Dallas-Bob lives in Gainsville. At least that's how I work it out

[Steve Drueck]

"I had often heard that structurally, the original ZL-1
blocks were not nearly all that they were cracked-up to be
( excuse the pun ). So how did so many ZL-1's retain their
original engines? They were all-out race cars and built
for pedal to the medal stuff !

Some day, we may learn how many ZL-1's actually retained
their original engines. That goes for COPO's, Yenko's, etc..

I can't be the only one that finds it odd that so many race cars
would retain the one component prone to failure - the engine.

Steve"




Steve you are totally correct. Most ZL-1 engines were not assembled to last. I was very fortunate to buy #64 in the late 80's from the original owner, Bill Turner. It is an orig engine car, (with 911 well documented miles) mainly because Bill had the foresight to have Bob Tucker blueprint the engine about a month after he bought it. (Have the receipt for the rebuild) Also he pulled it in favor of an iron motor after that. The motor was never seperated from the car, but most ZL-1 engines were blown up and were apart from the cars. Because of the aluminum block, I doubt anyone actually threw one out, and 37 years later, many are now "re-united" with the original car and restored with total abandon to the cost of repair, welding, machining, etc to bring it back. When I bought my ZL-1 only a couple were original motor cars, but now a lot more are thanks to internet and communication throughout the collector circles. As to ZL-1's being "race cars" this car had a set of Hooker Headers added and an MSD and some slicks, literally the day after it was driven (yes, driven) home from indian River Chevy to Ft. Myers . Thus it was a "race car". Not all of them were ripped to shreds like you might think. A lot of cars raced in the 60's had little more than bolt ons, and slicks. Steve Drueck