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So the story of this car starts out back in March of 2014. My dad and I were at a local car show when my mom called and said that a older woman she works with called her and said she was looking to sell her late husband's Chrysler. Now my mom's not too much up on her cars and about all the info she got for us was it was a big car and a 1964. But the price was definetly right and we were thinking for that price, if we get lucky and its a big block the car will part out nice, so we made arrangmenets to go look at it that afternoon. When we got there, we were very plesently suprised. Instead of buying something we figured we were gonna have to haul home, we ended up getting a very clean, pretty dang solid 1964 Newport. The woman's husband had purchased the car from its original owner when he lived in California. In fact, the car still wore its matching front and rear California black plates. When they moved to North Carolina about five years earlier, he actually took a week or so and drove the car across country, seeing the sites along the way.
Here is the car the day we bought it.
So upon driving the car home, I realized we had a real gem, I forgot to mention earlier, the car only has 69k miles on it. So this thing drives like a dream, I've driven probably 200+ vintage cars in my short 30 years on this earth from clunkers to triple digits collectables and I've probably never been in anything that drove as good as this. It just floats along, smooth as silk.
So over the first year of having it, I took it to several cruise in's, etc, mostly just enjoyed driving it to town and back on occasion. One day, I got a wild hair that it would look good in two tone, plastidip had just really gotten popular, so I figured, hey, why not?
While I love the two tone look, the plastidip is a little splotchy in places, its definetly a trial and error type deal, but its actually held up pretty decent for being on there for over a year now. But anyway, I quickly grew tired of that look too.
It was sometime before Turkey Rod Run last year I realized I needed to get the car back on the road and start enjoying it again, it sat for the majority of 2015 due to a bad brake hose I took forever to get fixed.
My original plans were to add some cool cruiser item's(other than the few items I've already added) and just drive it, but then I realized I still wanted something cooler. Now keep in mind, being half my dad's car, I can't get away with anything too radical, you know, just in case the market ever goes crazy for a four door newport, we gotta be able to put it back stock! So my idea's are kinda limited. I thought about plastidipping a metal flake roof on it, heck I thought about just doing a metalflake roof, but I just didn't like the idea.
Then my idea turned into building some sort of car that involved some old decals and lettering. I thought about picking a random oval track some where in California and building a "pace car" out of it, but I could just never decide on a cool track. I saw a station wagon at Turkey Rod Run that was a support vehicle for an NHRA team, I really liked that idea, but I just couldn't figure out if it really made sense or not. I felt like it needed to be a push car to complete the look, but most NHRA teams just used an old truck or something, Again, I just couldn't get my head around it. Then I thought, what about the salt flats? What about a Bonneville Push Car? The idea just clicked in my head and I went to town researching.
Now I'll be the first to admit, other than almost buying a one time world record holding '56 Corvette a few years ago at an auction(definetly the one that got away over a few thousand dollars) and watching the Roadkill where they run the Camaro at the salt flats, I don't know much about it. I love looking at the old photos of all the classics and love the whole idea of the salt flat scene, but I'm a rookie. But with the interwebs, you can be an expert and anything right? So I knew the first thing I needed was a car to mimic and latch onto, so I searched for Mopar Bonneville Race Car. After the normal 30's coupe's and Dodge Daytona photos, I came across something that caught my eye, this one.
Now I'm a huge fan of the early 60's Mopar's. We've owner three max wedge cars over the years, one of which is still in the garage. I love the cross headlight look of these cars. So when I saw it, I knew this was the one! So I started to narrow my search, "Norm Thatcher", who the heck is that? Well after a few hours of research, I realized he was someone pretty special. I won't go into many details on Norm because I'm no where near as educated on him as some are, but the short story is he was a shop owner out of California who took some Dodges and Plymouth's to some world record passes on the salt flats. From the late 50's to the late 60's he was the man. Running a variety of Mopar products along the way. A world record holder in many different classes several times over.
If you want to read more about Norm, I suggest this thread below on The Hamb.
http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/bonneville-record-car-need-help.606045/
I'd also like to thank "Hyfire" for all his research and ground work. He's already been a huge help with my little project and I hope to continue to talk with him to keep this pointed in the right direction. He is currently getting one of Norm's original Bonneville cars back on the road now. Its an amazingly original car still mostly just like it was in 59. In fact, here is a photos of it.
And a couple of photos from back in the day.
You'll see more of it later in the thread in some ads.
Here is the car the day we bought it.
So upon driving the car home, I realized we had a real gem, I forgot to mention earlier, the car only has 69k miles on it. So this thing drives like a dream, I've driven probably 200+ vintage cars in my short 30 years on this earth from clunkers to triple digits collectables and I've probably never been in anything that drove as good as this. It just floats along, smooth as silk.
So over the first year of having it, I took it to several cruise in's, etc, mostly just enjoyed driving it to town and back on occasion. One day, I got a wild hair that it would look good in two tone, plastidip had just really gotten popular, so I figured, hey, why not?
While I love the two tone look, the plastidip is a little splotchy in places, its definetly a trial and error type deal, but its actually held up pretty decent for being on there for over a year now. But anyway, I quickly grew tired of that look too.
It was sometime before Turkey Rod Run last year I realized I needed to get the car back on the road and start enjoying it again, it sat for the majority of 2015 due to a bad brake hose I took forever to get fixed.
My original plans were to add some cool cruiser item's(other than the few items I've already added) and just drive it, but then I realized I still wanted something cooler. Now keep in mind, being half my dad's car, I can't get away with anything too radical, you know, just in case the market ever goes crazy for a four door newport, we gotta be able to put it back stock! So my idea's are kinda limited. I thought about plastidipping a metal flake roof on it, heck I thought about just doing a metalflake roof, but I just didn't like the idea.
Then my idea turned into building some sort of car that involved some old decals and lettering. I thought about picking a random oval track some where in California and building a "pace car" out of it, but I could just never decide on a cool track. I saw a station wagon at Turkey Rod Run that was a support vehicle for an NHRA team, I really liked that idea, but I just couldn't figure out if it really made sense or not. I felt like it needed to be a push car to complete the look, but most NHRA teams just used an old truck or something, Again, I just couldn't get my head around it. Then I thought, what about the salt flats? What about a Bonneville Push Car? The idea just clicked in my head and I went to town researching.
Now I'll be the first to admit, other than almost buying a one time world record holding '56 Corvette a few years ago at an auction(definetly the one that got away over a few thousand dollars) and watching the Roadkill where they run the Camaro at the salt flats, I don't know much about it. I love looking at the old photos of all the classics and love the whole idea of the salt flat scene, but I'm a rookie. But with the interwebs, you can be an expert and anything right? So I knew the first thing I needed was a car to mimic and latch onto, so I searched for Mopar Bonneville Race Car. After the normal 30's coupe's and Dodge Daytona photos, I came across something that caught my eye, this one.
Now I'm a huge fan of the early 60's Mopar's. We've owner three max wedge cars over the years, one of which is still in the garage. I love the cross headlight look of these cars. So when I saw it, I knew this was the one! So I started to narrow my search, "Norm Thatcher", who the heck is that? Well after a few hours of research, I realized he was someone pretty special. I won't go into many details on Norm because I'm no where near as educated on him as some are, but the short story is he was a shop owner out of California who took some Dodges and Plymouth's to some world record passes on the salt flats. From the late 50's to the late 60's he was the man. Running a variety of Mopar products along the way. A world record holder in many different classes several times over.
If you want to read more about Norm, I suggest this thread below on The Hamb.
http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/bonneville-record-car-need-help.606045/
I'd also like to thank "Hyfire" for all his research and ground work. He's already been a huge help with my little project and I hope to continue to talk with him to keep this pointed in the right direction. He is currently getting one of Norm's original Bonneville cars back on the road now. Its an amazingly original car still mostly just like it was in 59. In fact, here is a photos of it.
And a couple of photos from back in the day.
You'll see more of it later in the thread in some ads.
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