There have been hundreds if not thousands of HAMB members mentioning Holman-Moody in their posts in various topics but I have not found a topic devoted to their history. I am sure some of you diehard H-M will not gain much knowledge from this topic but I hope you will enjoy this refresher course. First, I will go back to before there was a Holman-Moody. The first picture is from the early '50s when John Holman drove the parts truck ahead of the Mexican Road Race. This was no easy task considering the Mexican Bandidos knew of the valuable cargo. Their means of transportation, however, was no match for the supercharged Chrysler Hemi under the hood of this Studebaker truck. The dashboard looks more like a jet fighter than an earthbound vehicle.
This race was at the Winston-Salem NC Fairgrounds (I believe) in 1956. Ralph Moody (number 12) was a star driver for the Peter De Paolo Engineering NASCAR team.
This is Ralph Moody and Pete DePaolo in 1957 around the time of the manufacturers ban on racing. DePaulo had been wanting to retire and when Ford cut the funding to his team it gave him his reason. John Holman had quit the Bill Stroppe operation in 1956 and moved to Charlotte to manage the DePaulo team of drivers Moody and Marvin Panch. Since they were both working for DePaulo at the time they got a sweetheart deal to buy him out.
I will happily subscribe to your thread and look forward to seeing how it develops. The contributions to racing world-wide by Holman-Moody are nearly immeasurable and are sadly not frequently recognized today. With possible exception of Roush, I cannot think of another racing organization that has won in so many forms of motorsports, built so many innovative engines, cars, and they even won in offshore powerboats. In their heyday, they were a one-stop-shop to purchase a winning racecar right off of their storage racks...maybe someone has that pix they can share?
The #98 Battlebird '57 T-Bird and it's restoration has recently been featured here on the HAMB. Here is a picture of the #99 car. You can also see the #98 car behind it.
If you have a 60's ford it HAS to have a H-M decal on it! I've got an autographed Lee Holman license plate on mine.
The Holman-Moody SOHC Mustangs were some of the coolest Funny Cars of their time. Those injectors sticking up just said it all. This on top of their NASCAR accomplishments which are many. I can still remember going by the the old Holman-Moody-Stroppe shop on Signal Hill. They always had plenty of bitchin' cars in they yard.
Looking forward to development of this thread. Have been familiar with the H/M name since their beginning days, though I didn't know a lot of detail about the behind the scenes stuff. I do remember one car featured in a mag, Hot Rod IIRC,......it was a Falcon built for road racing........body was sectioned (!), exhaust dumped mid-rocker, full cage etc. A really muscular compact that very much appealed to my taste. Some years ago I attended some metalshaping classes at Ron Fournier's shop in the Detroit area and in conversation I learned Ron had worked for H/M in those days. The really Good Old Days! More recent Nascar stuff has not held any interest for me whatsoever for at least 20 years, but the days when Nascar racers were crafted from real production cars, though heavily modified, they were far more interesting to me than the Jelly Bean formulaic crap they run now. Ray
This is close. A late '50s Thunderbird being converted to a race car. The worker is installing a floor shift.
One bit of information I should acknowledge. I turned 16 in 1960 the same week my family moved about 1 mile from their old shop. I could actually hear them running engines on their dynos. Here is John and Ralph standing next to the stock parts that came off a '60 Starliner (pictured behind them) after it was stripped in the shop.
Probably the biggest reason Holman-Moody was so succesful was their abiity to find extremely talented people and nurture them with the already veteran employees. One example is engine builder Pete Taylor seen on the left of this photo in the mid '50s. Taylor was working for the DePaolo team when it became H-M. Here, he is seen in the engine room building another potent race engine. Taylor would leave in the late '50s and open his own race engine shop and became one of the premier Hemi engine builders. He is still doing work for Lee Holman. Pete is the guy who Lee contacts when a customer's Y-block Ford engine need attention. Oh yeah, another young unexperienced engine builder H-M hired was Robert Yates!
I am currently building a 56 Ford in this exact era. Every time I see old pictures like these, I wonder what did the helpers drive to the shop that morning? What did their parking lot look like? I bet there were some kick ass street machines in it. I hope that when I get finished with it, that it would have fit in well in the employes parking lot. That's my goal anyway. Looking forward to more pictures and information.
I am sorry that I don't have anything to add but I will be following this thread with great interest. I recommend this book to anyone interested in the subject, what a fascinating read; http://www.amazon.com/Holman-Moody-Legendary-Race-Team/dp/0760308756#reader_0760308756
Hey Frank : Great H-M thread..Thats a great pic of Pete Taylor,even back then he had those "Mega Eyebrows" !!! In the Fall of '56 ,I started junior high @ the old AG Junior High on Morehead street in Charlotte. There was a new kid in class who was telling everybody that his Dad built race cars...that afternoon his Mother picked him up in a blown T-Bird.. I knew right the I wanted to get to be friends with this kid...Turned out to be Randy Holman...We hung around at their house on Romany Rd, rode go-carts in Latta Park and occaisonally would get his mother to ferry us out to H-M..Talk about being in Heaven!! Thats back when they were moving shops all over Douglas Airport ,before the final move to Wallace Neal Rd.I remember watching Lujie Lesovsky (Sp?) doing the tinwork on the '62/63 Falcon Sprint they ran @Daytona. Willie Thompson was there and his son Kenny was just a youngster. If I had realized how much history I was witnessing,I would have taken a ton of pictures.. Stan
Stan, We all took for granted the unbelievable dynasty that was unfolding in our neighborhood. Like you, I would occasionally drive my '51 Chevy over there to see what was new and at 16 or 17 I didn't expect much courtesy. But I always was treated with respect. Maybe they thought we would be interested in working there soon. We would often see "stuff" the public would not see for months. I knew I was in the midst of something special but had no idea how much of an impact H-M would have on me......and the world. There is soooooo much to talk about.
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