History Can someone explain turning racecars into street car?

Not exactly turned into a street car, but recycled into cool- Jimmie Sills stretched a full-bore sprint car a bit and added a rear seat, complete with another steering wheel to hang onto, and for $130 would take you out for 3 laps, and promise to run within a second of the fastest qualifying lap of the night- and deliver. We had the pit space right next to the infield gate one night with my buddy's car, putting the tires on for the feature, when Jimmie came out of the gate and on the track- with my buddy's daughter in the back seat, screaming her head off lol...

 

Roberts young enough to slide in through the drivers window , me maybe a nice opening door then put on the helmet and goggles. I am glad to to see a young whipper snapper (Robert) with a deep passion for the history of dirt racing and vintage racing .

 

JMO. Take for instance a old 30-40s stock car. Not everyone can aford early iron

Aint Bama GREAT

 

Some people spend way too much time worrying about what others do with their cars.

 

If I had the scratch to buy the Hirohata Merc, I’d drive the wheels off it. One end of the country to the other, stopping at random tire shops as the rubber wore out.

 

If you want to try and save them all, you better sell your house and everything else you own, start a 'go-fund-me' page, find many very wealthy benefactors so you can buy up as many obscure and relatively unknown old race cars as you can............. before us heathens get our filthy little hands on them.

I get your passion, but I think you are tilting at windmills if you see just any old race car as deserving........

 

Everyone keeps talking history and pedigree, but no one wants to take the time to do research before cutting up a car.

Here is a great example of someone cutting up with a history and pedigree, Clay Smith's roadster. I remember reading about it in Car Kulture Deluxe a few years ago.

When found it was pretty close to the way Clay Smith had built it, but the guy who bought it had never heard of Clay Smith and cut up a piece of history and turned it into a Billet laden tech-NO rod!

Vikki Smith-
View attachment 5396328

 

While I understand trying to preserve history, cars are meant to be driven and enjoyed, I’m a fan of cars that get used and enjoyed, historical or not. Street rod or not, change it, cut it up, add all the billet you want…just use and enjoy the damn thing.

 

I personally have zero interest in going dirt track racing.
If I found an old dirt track car, I'd put it on the street.
If the history was significant or the car was special, I couldn't afford the car anyway.

 

Hello,

The storied history of the Grist Brothers goes back to the late 50s early 60s, and into the last era of the real Gas Coupes and their class competition on the Westcoast.

We have had a relationship with the Grist Brothers, when our 1940 Willys Coupe exploded in front of their Willys Coupe coming back on the return road with the Grist Family in their station wagon. In talking with Eddie Grist (many years later,) he remembers the sight of the flames and things coming out of our Willys Coupe. It flew by and crashed into the spectator’s fence on the other side of the dragstrip in August of 1960. His family estimated that our Willys was going about 60 when the door opened and my brother jumped out.

Eddie Grist was a little kid and his family had the ring side seat to the fiery event. He said it was forever ingrained into his mind. He remembers it to this day… just like it was/is for me. Still lingering after all of these years, as clear as day.

Our Willys bit the dust, but the Grist Brothers Gas Coupe was found many years later and reconstructed into a street Willys Coupe.


The coupe ended up looking as mean and aggressive as the original coupe running at the drags.

Sorry, for not showing more photos of the listed, finished coupe, but they are a little street rod in style and not traditional HAMB photos.

Jnaki

There are two camps at work here. What is better, a fully restored race car that sees, perhaps one start up and little to no running down the track for exhibition runs. Then sits in a museum or someone’s garage for a long quiet spell. Or a complete ground up restoration with plenty of power and looks for a clean street coupe, to be driven where there are some events or as a daily driver? Which is better?

Despite the chopped top, a long distance road trip would not be the most fun, feeling like a canned sardine. On the other hand, where ever it goes, it continues to give a long life and continues the rich history of a very popular drag racing car for the new owners and public. We could see the old information posters and display boards at car shows and rod runs to relive its history. That would definitely give the Grist Brothers some notoriety in this day and age.


Grist Brothers 1959 Lion's Dragstrip

So, the controversy continues. If my brother and I had moved on to another Gas Coupe or Altered Roadster for future competition races, we would have made the original Willys Coupe a street car, good for daily drives to school and work. So, those styles of race cars, even though a few modifications were necessary for full conversion to a reliable street driven daily driver, they did have a future. YRMV

 

I have never driven on a race track, however I do drive on the street. As a kid, I would fantasize about all those great racy cars in the magazines being street legal - for example the Chrisman Brothers Bonneville A coupe, even though the visibility through the windows would make it impossible.

 

Yes, it's great to recognize the small time racers as well as the big names. But odds are the small time guys andd their cars don't hold the same level of interest, or value that a big name has. And usually the cars were quite different as far as build levels and quality went too.
I don't personally feel there's much interest in the small time car that saw occasional use at the track, vs. those built for racing competitively every weekend, regardless of whether it's a local or national level. So I see no reason every old race car should be saved as it was, or restored to whatever it was back in the day.
As much as I loved watching all the cars that ran back in the 60's, I wouldn't save all of them just to be equitable, and make sure they each got their history saved. I'll leave that to guys who are more hung up on saving everything, since I don't have the time, space, or funds to save them. And I'd rather get them back on the road and driving, than sitting as static art in my garage.

 

Preserving history?
I wonder if any of those guys gave any consideration to these car's previous history before they delicately cut, torched, gutted and raced them into scrap metal?

 

Yup, all it needs is a horn and a windshield wiper

 

Sure would like that coupe and the coach .

 

I’d drive em

 

I know I didn't. I sliced and diced a few coupes back in the day. Sheet metal's just sheet metal. History is much better remembered than preserved, and takes up less space.

 

Vicki Smith is Clay Smith's daughter. She is the one in the pic standing beside her fathers re-done roadster, and if you read the story, she was happy to find the new owner and have the opportunity to see the car. It may be the case that the history and importance is not lost just because the car morphs and changes over the course of new owners and time.
The soul remains, no matter what the car becomes.........

 

Looks like you aren't the only one that hits cars with hammers...

 

A porta-power and a few swats with a hammer and that one would be good to go

 

Sure is funny to me, that you should bring this subject up Robert. I’ve got this old raspy animal, that I first saw in 1968; and ended up with in 1972. Been trying to find it’s drag history ever since we got her. Just yesterday, @Toms Dogs posted up a video from the 1959 Langhorne speedway drags and I got the old rush to think maybe just maybe a picture would surface…no dice. Definitely she was an also ran… or possibly a competitive entry? Somebody knows? Leigh valley? Allentown?Hatfield? I have had her on the street for many decades, but am fairly certain; she has been down the timed quarter in a prior life…probably I will never find that bread crum , but she came to me with a stout 301”, 5:13 gears and 1/2” stubs where the roll bar was cut off. These pictures tell me , she wasn’t always on the street :

 

Hell, I'm just a rodder.
So I guess it's karma that I can't afford anything I wouldn't change.

 

So, my coupe has no racing background and I pulled the number out of thin air because I didn't want to have someone think it was a replica of something famous. About a year after I put my coupe together I stopped at a Walmart to go in and suck up some AC on a very hot day. From about 1/2 way across the parking lot, some big old guy came towards my on a full trot When he finally got up to the car, huffing and puffing, he wanted to know where I found "Hal's" old race car! Apparently, his long deceased friend used to run a 48 Plymouth on a local track, he had the same number, with the same blue and white paint job my car had at the time. Even the bumpers were the same. He was blown away to see "Hal's old race car" running around on the street, so many years later.
At first I tried to tell him I didn't think it was Hal's old car, but he was pretty insistent it was. I finally agreed with him that maybe it could have been his buddies car, I bought it sitting along a fence line near Woodstock IL He wandered off smiling ear to ear. He didn't care what was under that sheet metal with the paint and number as his old buddies car had. The pic is what the coupe looked like when Hal's buddy saw it across the parking lot.

My only regret was that I didn't find out more about Hal. If I ran into his buddy now, I sure would have asked about Hal.

I've had dirt track cars before, and I have driven some of them myself on a dirt track. I pretty highly doubt anyone would have been stupid enough to restore anything I ever had, (one or two rand on the track after they left me but most were wrecked or junked). Not every race car deserves to be saved. Some are better left in our memories, but a street version of a few of them makes things fun, and different.

 

Race cars, in many instances, were used up street cars given a new life on a race track. Some have been returned to the streets again, but many more were cut up and scrapped after their racing days were over. I see nothing wrong with giving them another life, either as a race car or back to their street car beginnings.

 

And LIKE IT!!!!!!!!!

 

Growing up ,i was always a huge Red Farmer, Bobby Allison, Donnie Allison. fan. Heck am still a fan. But you can bet your ass if i found one of those guys old coupes /sedans, if possible i would put it on the street. Prolly make racing noise with it also, throw it it deep into a turn or two.........................

 

Cool vid.

 

Two of my regrets, were passing up the chance to buy two very different 34 Ford Coupes. The Marty Robbins "Devil Woman", and Gene Mooneyham's 554 Coupe. I certainly wouldn't have made street drivers out of those !

 

@Robert J. Palmer , since you opened the thread, do you have examples,etc about old race cars that were not preserved? And maybe what was done with them?
I’d bet many old cars(race or not) were robbed of parts for other projects.

 

Realistically, how many vintage race cars have been converted back to street? I think it's probably pretty uncommon, especially if it's one of some historical importance.