Barn find .. TWO cars ..once in a lifetime

The car in Hot Rod magazine, March 1966.

 

Sure..Dave Libby with the car. He worked for Dick.

 

Valerie Harrell in the car.

 

The car and the crew at Englishtown. Dale in the car, Valerie, Dave and my friend Mo.

 

Tom
Car looks great. Was it hard to document the car or did the previous owners have all the paperwork?
A local guy has a Vega body 72-74 ish and is trying to find previous history.
Do these f/c have titles?

 

I'm glad you came on an posted this ..typically the crowd
would consider it TOO NEW ..


I thank you for perserving history ....If someone does not step up
its all lost and what good does that do anybody ?

 

Sorry about bringing this "late model" stuff to the board.

I agree, we need to be preserving all of the old stuff, while we can. I for one enjoy reading about all of it, such as the '55 and Nova at the beginning of this thread. Both really neat cars that would be a blast to play with. BTW, all of our cars, including the two racecars pictured on here, see occasional use at the track. IMO, that is what they are for.

 

The fake cars are ruining the hobby the real ones are getting lost in the shuffle.Why use a famous name on a fake car if only for financial gain.

 

Well don't be a stranger ..

I'd like to klink beer bottles with you , old is relative IMO
Those pics, that story belongs right here ..


I'm sorry for all involved at the legal level ...There is no real winner

My take on it is ..Drag racing as I KNEW IT ..is over -Period
Are there heros on the sport ?..Yes but far and few

I hope that people can learn to enjoy what the people did back in those days as amazing .. I for one never want to forget nor will the
people I speak to

I hold those feats on the highest level ..No matter the brand

 

Your exactly right those people should be honered with REAL cars and real history not with people who want to make money and make their own history off of what those people did and built 40 years ago..

 

I spent some time looking over other parts of this web site, very cool. Wish I had known about the HAMB Drags at MOKAN sooner. Being only about 4 hours from us, would have been a neat event to attend. I have known about the track forever, and been by it several times.

Somebody give us a shout next year and we will do our best to bring a car or two, and of course a few cold ones.

At the end of the day, it is about enjoying the time with the cars and the people, all the other is just BS.

BTW, the trip will be on us. Contray to what some people post, we PAY to play, loving every minute of it. Well, almost every minute. LOL

 

This may be way too new, but here is what got us started, and the car that is raced the most, our 1969 Yenko Camaro. In Pure Stock from, my son has it going 12"0s at around 118 mph.

 

Have you restored a old race car lately ..I mean a real race car ?
Its not cheap by no means "small fortune"

Without people having a chance to make a little money..If thats the case here and it seems they still own and race them ?

They are just junk ..And if those so worried about protecting that
memory , I'm sure they can find, restore said pieces of history and
preserve them .. See, thats not happening UNTIL they run, drive ,etc.

Then becomes a issue ..Bull shit

 

A group of us are currently restoring the ORIGINAL 1969 Dick Harrell funnycar.I know the cost.I've been doing this for over 30 years.If a guy buys an original DH car restores it and flips it for profit thats part of the business.But this thing of building fake DH cars,fake Tasca cars,fake Mr. Norm cars,Fake Yenkos or any other fake isn't doing it for the love of it their doing it for the love of the profit.That nova you posted would have attracted just as much attention without all the lettering.

 

I like the Nova, but that intake would have to go. That is a pretty easy change.

 

To the right Valerie Harrell,Dale Pulde and Connie Gibb.This show is where Valerie Harrell honors people that were involved with Dick Harrell racing and influential people in drag racing over the last 40 years.

3 of the best people I know.Ask anyone in NHRA!!!! Even Dales competitors in Nitro funnycar will tell you how respected her and Dale are.I'm not here to fight or argue just to tell another side.

 

You lost me here. If a guy restores an orignal car, and flips it for profit, that is Okay, as you say, part of business. So why were the owners of the Lead Sled (which is no doubt real) asked to pony up a percentage of the sale to the Harrells?

BTW, I like the way the Nova is lettered, and it states several times in the thread, not for sale. So where is the foul?

Have to agree with Bonesy, the intake needs to go.

 

Huh, well you must of missed the part that I said
it was done at least 15 or more years ago ? ..And it SAT in a shitty old garage for almost all of those years ..

Pretty dumb way to profit on a name ..IMO

And the person that owns it , I'm sure has no intention to even
attempt that .. Lady could care less about them , her husband
built and or owned them since early 90's And he has been dead
over 10.. if I'd never of poste the pics ..No one would be none the wiser
and its just another unicorn

 

I've seen that Nova in person and it a very neat piece.
It funny to actually 'read' all the way through the post he clearly states its not the original and the injection is a Gartlits unit yet some of you still feel the need to sh!t on it...this place has gotten retarded!

Too bad you didnt videotape the 56 coming out of its resting spot...That would have been neat to hear!!

Congrats on your find and enjoy them.....

 

Tom. Its a fact that the Lead Sled was once a Harrell team car, As with most subjects you seem to turn things around. The car was not sold with the name and the name is and has not been part of the car.You not seeing any paperwork or knowing all the facts have made your obsevation on just stirring the pot.
I am glad you have posted the pictures of Val and I with the car. Now that you have done this and called Val greedy. I will bring up the fact at the time of these pictures. We took you at your word. its our nature to believe people If your word was no good. what good are you? I must say Val and Dave were just glad to see a car out there. That week end we felt something was not right.Not long after that we had been looking at more pictures of the car and putting thoughts together. You should remember this time. it was when you were trying to get Val to merge her site with yours. Also it was when you sent the email telling her how much money she should get from others using the Dick Harrell name. REMEMBER? If Val is so greedy. She was taught by you.
You are the ENRON of the muscle cars.
Lets see, what would Dick Harrell think of what Val has done. I would say by bringing the whole crew together (with help of others) and making them still remember their friend getting them to The Forge Muscle car show to present them with Dick Harrell awards and jackets. Some bring out memerobilia and are restoring their old cars. They all tell stories and laugh till they cry. some just walk in the door and start cying.I would say he would be pleased. Dick was a man of friendship and honor.But he took no crap.
Now for the so called tirute car Nova. It is a pretty car.Having a car built in honor of someone is not an honor if the person is dead and the family was never even told about it. It also dilutes the real car.Just what Toms 68 does. Speaking of that car.
Tom. your 68 handout card says ORIGINAL BODY and CHASSIS. How can that be? Don Hardy only built 1 car for Dick in 68 and in 69 he changed the body. The original 68 had a door that worked and went to a group in Chicago around March of 69. If you would have ever even called Don Hardy he would have told you. Had you not gotten so arrogant I would have never started looking into it. I didnt even have to . You POed so many others they did all the comparisons of the car. BTW. A friend of ours still speaks with Bill Thomas. Have you ever documented any of your Nova with HIM? Not according to them.I would think a man who registers super cars would have all documents and pictures of all cars he does.
My offer still stands to debate this at the SEMA show. I will even get a few magazines to cover it. I am taking Sunday off have a good one everyone. Dale

 

wow, interesting..

 

Hey Dale ..
As I told you in PM's .. big fan ..You lived it , I respect you and what you did and put your life in danger over ..You are a hero to me
I'm not a "casual fan" I am a life long fan of drag racing ..well, enough that a person of 49 years can attach himself to ... But no, never been in the "heated battle"...

To imagine and or guess how someone would react to his long lost memory is pure speculation ..But I think I can guess just as well ..
And I would "guess" that he would be suprised at all these year later
that he would want people involved in the hobbie to fight over it ..

Again I want to type .. The car was done AT LEAST 10 years ago
It could be as much as 15 years ago?
as a TRIBUTE nothing more

The man that put that name on THAT car ..died quickly due to colon cancer ..I'm sure (yeah I'm guessing ) that some 10 plus years ago
knowing that ...helping a non-car person rid herself of a burden
that I'd start a firestorm over a good deed that my friend did
He would of never done it but then ..it wasn't a issue then right ?

Again its vinyl and I'm sure we can just peel ,scrape ,etc, that name
off it .... IF you want to fight with someone else over past problems

Since its not really you place to say , really ...

Use the legal sysem Your GF has used to fight about someone that is dead and burried ..Then attack them

My friend is guilty of one thing .. Being a nice person
if you can take him to court for that well , fine
but I'll be there every day fighting for his rights ..

 

Big Dad ,you sure opened a 'pandora's box ' here didn't you!.
This is a situation repeated all the time in the vintage racer world and Art world.
Vintage Buggattis have been cloned for 40 years and why not? .Much research went into discovering surviving cars and as the chassis numbers etc of all Buggattis built are known it was open slather to anyone who wanted to turn a big profit by recreating a car around a number.
Racing porsches ,XKS jags,Racing cobras,Ferraris,et al ,all have been cloned in one form or another.
Famous Rallye cars is yet another.'Ever wondered about Antique Furniture? .Faking has been around as long as the interest in old furniture.
Fake paintings? The subject can be studied at any University.

What V. Harrell is alleged to be doing by asking for a cut in a car(lead sled) which is no longer in her possession has legal precedents in the Art world where Artists have sold an art work for $X. Time passes and the same art work may appear in an Auction and sells for $XXX. The Artist then feels that as they are the creator of the said art work they have the belief that they should get $X too.
It's not my place to voice an opinion on the morality of such a stand,but any good lawyer would advise taking such a case to court.

I too have been a fan of Dale Pulde back in the day...but his thinking is very skewed here.
My own thinking in this Is ..." In every town in Australia is a monument to the fallen of WW1 and WW2.These monuments 'Honor' some dead people who would never know the 'respect' to which their 'memory' is held .The Families of those dead soldiers will never know me,and there is no way I can tell them that I hold there memory dear to me but I marched every year when younger to Honour them as my Demonstration of "Tribute". The Fact that the Fallen or their Families never knew me in No way Diluted any Tribute made by me or millions of others in the last 62 years."

So,with this in mind ,This Nova appears to me to be a Heartfelt Tribute to someone the builder may have seen racing ,possibly even met.It was never meant to be a clone or even a close copy of a car raced in the 60's. So what if it is painted to look like the original? .What better flattery than imitation?.
Mr Harrell passed away in 1971,Many of the persons who visit this site weren't even Born in 1971. Would Mr Pulde be happy if Know- one of the younger generation had never heard of him? or would it be better that someone kept his memory alive?

 

Dale, why does it not surprise me that you would attack another one of my cars. As you have done in this thread, attacking my cars and the Nova tribute car, that is all you seem to do. I have never known you to add anything postive to discussion. Who knows whay you are so bitter towards the world. Jealously, or maybe because your day in the sun has come and gone, whatever, get over it, and quite blaming others. Of course, that has become the American way, "its not my fault I am in this situation, so I will sue".

 

I don't think building a tribute car dilutes the real thing in any way. As long as it's not being promoted as something it isn't.

There are thousands of fake Cobra's but it sure hasn't hurt the resale of the real things.

I have a feeling that too many lawyers have been involved here between a couple parties which only causes bitterness. I certainly hope that nobody is representing something that it isn't but really, I have no dog in the hunt.

Thanks Big Dad for the pics and the story. Very cool.

 

I had the priveledge of attending Mr.Puldes induction into THE DRAG RACING HALL OF FAME.There were people surrounding him before and after the event wanting to speak and take pictures
and have him sign autographs.Some big people in the industry were all making their way over to Dale.The next day we attended the Gatornationals in Gainsville.As we walked thru the pits not
only most of the big name dragracers were coming over and congradulating Dale AGAIN but I noticed alot of the 25-30ish aged guys coming out of the pit area and walking over to Dale and
congradulating him and showing their respect.We spent time in Schumakers tent and Dale spenttime talking to Don,Scelzi,Capps and team members and it was like that everywhere we went.
Jegs pit and on and on.He was even in one of the dragster pits talking to the tuner about tuning the car.The one thing that stuck in my mind was that numerous people were discussing the
chance of Dale getting back into a funnycar with a team owner that could provide a winning car.Here was a comment from one of the biggest editors in the racing mag world today.
"Give Dale a car he can work with and I gaurantee he could probably win another title".Thats 40 years later.Jealous no,washed up no,disgruntled no just one of the greatest dragracers of
all time trying to help Val protect her fathers heritage from people like you.

 

Is he trying to protect her father's image ot make a quick buck. Reading how he attacked the tirbute Nova and the deceased owner who built it many years ago, as well as the owners of the Lead Sled, pretty well answers that.

Interesting that you would bring up the HOF. In the beginning the plan was to get Dick Harrell into the HOF. The sYc, the Camaro and Chevelle sites, all got behind the effort, until Dale Pulde put a stop to it. Since then he has hammered every car and every body remotely associated with Dick Harrell. Why..once again, I think that is obvious by who got into the HOF and who did not.

Heck, even Val's '02 Tribute DH Camaro is painted War Eagle colors, not Red as were most of Dick's race cars. If nothing else, even the owner of tribute Nova got that right.

 

You know, I cannot believe that this feud has now expanded to this web site. I've been coming to the HAMB for a long time to avoid hearing about this crap. I think both Tom Clary and Dale Pulde both need to go back to your own respective web sites and hash this out. What a God damn shame Dick Harrell's (one of my all time heroes)legacy is forever smeared because of this bullshit. If Tom's '68 Camaro is not the true DH funny car because of a non-operating driver's door (a major clue) than it should not have been endorsed and photographed so much with Valerie and Dale standing around, smiling with it. Dale, I respect you much as driver and appreciate everything you've accomplished in your career, but seeing Valerie's 2002 Dick Harrell Tribute Camaro painted in your War Eagle colors made me and several others very uneasy. That one act spoke more about what's going on behind the scenes than several pages of web forum. Red was her father's color and the color that particular car should be. Not siding with anyone here, because there's plenty of blame enough to spread around.

 

This site is absolutely retarded. Jesus Christ, guy posted some pics of two very cool cars, and look what happens. All the car Nazis jump all over it. It's obviously a tribute car of sorts, get the hell over it.

 

SOME RANDOM THOUGHTS:

Regarding the paint color on Val's car. Dick's original super cars he sold were all colors-blue, red, green etc. Why does it matter if it's not red? What happened if a customer of Dicks wanted a blue Camaro? Would Dick have not sold him one. No. Ray Morrisons 427 Fathom Blue Nova is a perfect example.

Regarding Kim Howies car. The paint color came out dark purple on the restored car. The original color of the car was candy apple red. There are hundreds if not thousands of photos showing it in red but how come none in it's current purple paint scheme?

Tom, regarding your comment about Dale trashing cars. Your web site and some of it's members are the very worst on trashing cars. Every car that is listed on ebay or for sale somewhere is picked apart to death. Not everyone has deep pockest like you and your members and can afford a $1500 or $3000 date coded distributor or a $100k plus restoration.