We’ve found several old Mickey Thompson race cars and trucks on eBay over the years but this one may be the coolest yet. The truck you’ll see below is Mickey’s famed “Big Red” 1973 Chevy C20 which was raced in the 2WD Production class from 1972 through 1974. This is a big deal because it is one of the only trucks that Thompson kept for more than one season. That tells us that he was really in love with this tough looking Chevrolet. Weighing in at 5600lbs and packing a 600hp worked up Chevy big block, “Big Red” represents the earliest evolutionary steps toward the insane trophy trucks that dominate the desert today. The truck’s closest brush with real glory was a runner up finish at the 1973 Baja 500 race. One of the coolest stats of the truck’s history came from the first race it was entered in. Thompson ran the first 85 miles of the 1972 Mexican 1000 at an average speed of 109mph. How’s that for guts and horsepower!
This truck has been living up in Oregon for years and it has been kept in enclosed storage. The thing doesn’t look bad for a truck that was literally driven into the ground over the span of the middle 1970s by one of the heaviest right footed guys to ever walk the face of the Earth. The interior of the truck is literally wall to wall gauges and switches. It looks like the lunar landing unit but it is a desert race truck! Being in the production class we’re venturing to saw that the suspension is somewhat close to stock. The interior has a pair of stock looking buckets in it and then all of the instrumentation and switch gear.
We totally dig the fancy pants tube roll bar and other reinforcement work that was done to ensure that this Chevy would make it to the finish line. It is cool that Thompson thought so much of this particular truck that he kept on using it until it was probably ready to give up the ghost from the sheer abuse that it took.
We want this sucker bad so that we could restore it and then pound on it like Mickey did back in the heyday of Baja racing!
SCROLL DOWN TO SEE PHOTOS AND THE EBAY AD LINK!
EBAY FIND: MICKEY THOMPSON’S 1973 “BIG RED” CHEVY TRUCK
Whoever buys that thing needs to send it to these guys http://www.mat.fi/n_index.php
Those guys built a totally bad ass model a sedan some years ago. I’ve got a vid link somewhere of them flogging the shit out of it I believe……………
Ahh here we go,,,,,,,,,http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFSGSL3Nrmc
About the Thompson truck,Poor,pitiful thing.
This thing still looks tough… Beat on and tired… but tough.
It’s begging to be restored and re-released on the unsuspecting world…
The only thing tougher may have been the drivers… compare the seats and driver compartment from this thing to today’s Baja trucks. I’ve seen vid of these things back in the day and I’m surprised these guys are not completely crippled… Tough race, tough trucks, tough men racing them.