Greg Rourke’s photos from High Speed Welding in Illinois and their work on the restoration of Grumpy’s Toy X got us to thinking about restored race cars and which one we’d like to own the most. There are a million different cars, genres, and reasons to make your choice on this question and in the end it boils down to personal preference. For us it would be a car that had some personal meaning more than something that was known around the globe. There’s certainly nothing wrong with choosing one of The Intimidator’s Chevys, or a Don Prudhomme flopper, it just isn’t the direction we would go.
We think that it is important that old race cars get restored and saved. More so than street cars, race cars provide a direct link to the evolutionary history of motorsports. To reference the Grumpy Jenkins car again, that was the final Vega he had before the full tube frame machine that completely changed the class and set it on the course that led us directly to modern Pro Stock. Having a dead nuts accurate, original, pristine version of the car allows dorks like me to gawk at it, regular guys to admire it, and perhaps kids of tomorrow to be inspired by it. While we’re not nut and bolt restoration muscle car guys, we wouldn’t bat an eyelash at a guy dropping huge coin to save or restore an old racer. Those cars are living history.
Question of the day: What’s the one restored race car you would want to own?
