NASCAR IMPALA

Well today was an amazing day. SpeedTV interviewed me for a featured spot about the car during their coverage of the event (should air in a week or two, I will update the site as soon as I have more details). I was also interviewed by about 6 different magazines over the past 3 days! The most important thing was the car finished the race today!

Interest in the car and this journey has been truly overwhelming. Thank you to everyone who supported us during the restoration.

Below are some photos of today, as well as video a friend of mine took of us running through the corkscrew– more to follow soon – we had a camera malfunction so no in-car video 🙁

Heading home.

Here are some photos from today — there were tons of people and lots of interest in the car. I also got interviewed by Classic Cars Magazine a UK Print and online magazine today, super excited about that….

On track tomorrow at 3p. I’m going to skip the early session to help save the motor. Hope to see the checkered flag tomorrow !! keep your collective fingers crossed for me 😉

Check out the third photo, she’s in good company I think 🙂  ( photo is of me during Friday practice)

Thanks to Paul Aleman for this amazing painting!

Chris Maune, the #2 man behind the scenes (helped finance the project with me)

Hi guys, drove the car today and had a little bit of an issue with the cam, looks like driver error (mine) on breaking the cam in I let it idle too low (1000rpm) on pregrid before we went out on the track and it looks like I flattend it on one of the exhaust valves —

Car started to overhead on the last lap and dropped 20psi of oil pressure. we are going to work on it tomorrow and should still be able to make the Sunday event.

The car handled remarkably well though, and had good power. I had to use the throttle quite a bit to get her to turn in but besides that its a great handling car. The brakes on the other hand are something to be desired 🙂 It sorta slows down but I’d hate to have to actually STOP quickly.

Photos tomorrow, internet access here is very sporatic. Video on Sunday incar I promise. thanks

shaun

Made it to the track OK— sorry no photos yet at the track (been working on 30mins of sleep here 🙂 ) more tomorrow I promise and a video or two if I can show my Dad how to use my camera 😉 — hoping to have my “Go-Pro” working so I can post an HD incar video of her first time out.

Its amazing to be here, so many great cars —

Thanks guys for all the support and kind words, couldn’t do it without you!

Some photos below of us last night (~3:330am or so!) corner weighting the car. She is a heavy one! 4156lbs without driver and dry (no gas)! Should be close to 4400 with me and gas!

shaun

Whew! Its 5:21am and the crew and myself have been up more then 24hrs finishing the car, but we are DONE! — Its been an amazing journey — so many folks to thank! I’ll have to do that in a follow up posting. Right now I need to get 30mins of sleep before I leave for Monterey 1 1/2 hr drive and a 7:15am Drivers meeting! Yikes!!! Unfortunately I wasn’t able to drive the car around the block like I had planned (we finished her at 4:45am!!) but below is a video of me loading the car up onto the trailer.

More videos/updates to come from Monterey. Wish me and the old girl luck in her first time out in 40+ years!

shaun

Paul Aleman painted this incredible image, inspired by this restoration project. Thank you Paul! This is amazing work

Today we lowered the car off the jackstands for the first time in nearly a month. Man she looks good! –

Things to do still: 1) fuel system 2) grill/misc. trim installation 3) finish brakes 4) run her around the block a few times make sure nothing falls off! 🙂

Me Shaun… aka the man behind the scenes 🙂

The doors are on, cage is back in the car — if all goes well we should have a ready car by Sunday!

The day you’ve all be waiting for — today we started the Chevy Big Block 427 and Roy Mayne’s 1965 Impala came to life for the first time in over 40+ years!

We are making steady progress — Today the custom made wheels came, thanks to Stockton Wheel they exactly duplicated the original wheels and color. We also installed the radiator and front supports today.

I keep promising a video of our engines first start, I will soon I promise — we’ve been waiting on some parts to make this happen — we’ll even have a cool old oil can as our overflow catch-can just like they did back in the day! (just picked that cool piece up on ebay).

Jason hard at work putting the dash back together.

Sign painter Phil is nearly done. He finished the first coat for the sponsors, he comes back tomorrow to finish up shadowing everything.

Red is actually a really cool color combination — good thing I got the DVD of the 65 Agusta race or we would have never known they were red! — BTW Hoosier HOTD Tires, spec tire for our group .. I have these cool stencils with “FIRESTONE” I’m going to paint with ruberized paint on the tires so they look period correct.

Cool oilcan I’m going to use as our radiator catch-can just like they did back in the day.

shaun

Today Phil painted the first coat onto the right quarter; finished the roof and we installed the trunk lid. Finished installing the clutch and flywheel.

Tomorrow will be the day for the first running of the motor, install transmission and reinstall the cage.

Today we got the body and doors back from the body shop, installed the body onto the frame and Phil was able to paint the doors, and put a first coat of paint on the roof.

Tomorrow Phil should be done sign painting and we just might have a running motor; keep your fingers crossed! More photos and maybe even a video tomorrow…

Body on the car! Note the new wheels will get here early next week; these are the old original ones which we are going to sand blast as a backup pair later.

Restored dash and original gauges ready to go into the car tomorrow!

Today Phil Manning the sign painter came by and painted the 427 and “Giddy-up Go” (a famous Roy saying I’m told by Veronica Mayne his daughter) doing an amazing job duplicating every stroke of the original letters. We also finished putting together the motor and installed it in the chassis.

Early tomorrow morning the body goes on the car. Saturday Phil will come back and finish lettering the car including doors and roof. Its reeeeeeeeeaaaalllly close now.

Phil Manning at work — he is amazing to watch

Cool tool Phil uses to steady his hand while he paints the shadow on

Restored “NASCAR” license plate

Veronica this ones for you! 🙂

Pure beauty….

Its been a long few days — The car got tied up in paint for a few extra days, we have to do it right after all.

Check out the *original* 60’s banjo matthews seat I got with the original seat cover still on it! Thanks to Tom Ramey in N.C. for selling this to me.

Today: hood, deck lid, front valance and trim came out of paint, finished building engine up

Tomorrow: Doors, fender, and remainder of the body is out of paint and is being installed on the chassis. Engine also goes in tomorrow. Fingers crossed I should have a video of a running motor by middle of this week!

Its such a cool color! you have to see it in person.

Hard to believe guys drove 180mph in these seats.. whew!

Muncie M22 Rock Crusher tranny with competition plus Hurst Shifter just like it ran in the day

427 just itching to be started. Notice Big Block Corvette manifolds just like the car ran.

Chassis ready for a body — cool shot from the engines point of view (3rd member will be in tomorrow).

Got some great new photos of the car being built by Roy Mayne and Tom Hunter in 1965. Also a shot of the car running with Wendell Scott, in I believe 1967.

Hi guys, quick update — not a lot of photos for Days 7 and 8 since the car has been in the body shop. We should get her later this afternoon in primer to then merge the frame and body, install misc. mechanicals and then its back to the body shop for an Evening Orchid makeover. Sign painter is coming on Monday — lots to do still but its all starting to fall into place.

Oh by the way the car is officially accepted into the Monterey Sportscar Reunion! I was able to swing the car-swap of my 1973 Cougar for this car (thats my other project in the corner of the shop in case you are interested, http://NASCARCougar.com [easy to guess URL 🙂 ] ).

Here is a photo I just got in email of Roy and I believe Tom Hunter with good ol’ 46 — Roy was a Vietnam era fighter pilot (as was Wayne Smith, his friend and the guy I purchased the car from on Ebay).

Since its the weekend and the guys are off today I figured I’d post something not about the restoration to pass the time.

I have received several comments (some negative) from folks regarding the validity of Grand National Stock Cars running at this years Monterey Motorsports Reunion. I pose a question to you; what makes a car worthy of being at the “Monterey Historics”?

I’ll put forth my own definition: It should be a car (or group of cars) which have significant historical importance to the sport of auto racing. It should also have been a car which could have, or did race at Laguna Seca back in the period the cars ran in.

Now then I would challenge anyone to say that NASCAR and Stock Cars in general have not had a significant impact to auto racing in the United States, and to the point that Stock Cars did not race at Laguna Seca? Don’t forget your history 🙂 — The NASCAR Grand National West series raced at Laguna Seca several times in the 1970s as a regular stop on their schedule. I’m a huge sports car fan don’t get me wrong, but these old girls deserve to be there as much as any Can-Am, Trans-Am or GTP car does. See below.

Today we picked up the 427 big block from the engine builder. We should have a running motor in the chassis sometime early next week!  Another friend from the wild kingdom of Georgia reared its head today. A Georgian Red Wasp! The chassis and the cars inside was filled with what we thought were old wasp nests, turns out a few still stuck around — we have about 10 of them in the shop now (along with their friendly Georgia gopher snake) — yikes!

427 Waiting to be installed….