In Daytona Beach, world famous garage, auto shoppe, has just burned to the ground. 60 years old the shoppe was, and history out the yang, on Beach Street…was lately a scene to some homeless, and now it is no more. Investigations are to follow, but it looks like arson.:mad:
Never saw it and now I never will. It has to be one of, if not the most famous garage in the world. That’s the type of place that could have housed a great little museum. Imagine having a collection of his inventions/designs, etc. all in one location with the story behind them. Too bad.
There really wasn’t much left to the place… was going to be torn down soon anyway and replaced by (what else) condos…
From the Daytona Beach News Journal:
The last remaining portion of legendary race car builder Smokey Yunick’s former garage complex was destroyed Monday night as smoke and flames poured from the building onto North Beach Street. The relic of the innovative mechanic burst into flames about 7 p.m., according to fire officials, and by 8:30 p.m. little of the building remained with the exception of portions of the block walls. Smoke was so thick at times the fire trucks battling the blaze couldn’t be seen through the plumes. Roland Via was mayor of Holly Hill when a portion of nearby Second Street was renamed “Smokey Yunick Way.” – “When you see history going up in smoke … it’s very chilling to me,” he said. “There’s so much history and so much there. That last remaining building, it was the last remaining piece of the puzzle there.”
The age of the building and its former use as a garage made the blaze hazardous for firefighters. “We’re not sending any of our guys in there,” said Daytona Beach Fire Department spokesman Lt. Larry Stoney. “We’re fighting this from outside. It’s going to be difficult to figure out the cause of the fire.” – Yunick, who died in 2001 at age 77, wasn’t shy about his mechanical skills, calling his business the “Best Damn Garage in Town.” There were two sides to the shop. He worked on trucks on one side and race cars on the other. Inside the gray walls of his sprawling facility, Yunick made several significant gains for the automotive industry. Some of his inventions included variable-ratio power steering and the extended tip spark plug, a design utilized in most automobiles today. When Daytona International Speedway opened in 1959, Yunick’s machines made an immediate impact. He built the cars that carried Marvin Panch and Fireball Roberts to Daytona 500 victories in 1961 and '63, respectively.
Yunick was proud of his accomplishments in various fields of automotive endeavors, but insisted he didn’t want his old garage to turn into a shrine. Not long after his death, nearly everything was sold off in the ultimate “garage sale” for gear heads. The property itself was sold on the premise that nothing would be done in the future to memorialize the famous former owner of that property. Monday night, Yunick’s daughter, Trish Yunick, seemed pleased that she’ll never have to mount a legal fight to maintain that agreement. “I said my goodbyes a long time ago,” she said. “You know, he always said, ‘I don’t want no damn shrine.’ I’m delighted it’s not useable now. We didn’t want to defend what he strongly wanted.” The garage sprouted into a truck dealership, but more famously into a racing operation. Yunick’s list of drivers is a roll call of Hall of Famers, from Herb Thomas to A.J. Foyt to Bobby Unser, but he’s most synonymous for his partnership with star NASCAR driver Fireball Roberts. The building that burned Monday night was the original “Smokey’s Garage.”
was lucky to have been in smokeys garage once many moons ago. you wouldn’t belive all the experiments just sitting around. smoky was one unique man.
There are a couple of places in Daytona that symbolize the original days of stock car racing . The Streamline Hotel ( in a assoiciate role ) , Genes Steak House , the Beach itself , the Speedway of course , and Smokeys’ . I was in there many times , including for the original auction , and the last time was for a memorial of sorts that was held there on New Years Eve a couple of years ago . And even though the shop had been empty for years , there was still a very powerfull feeling of racing history there .
Smokey always insisted that there was to be no museum there , or any other memorial site for him or the garage on that property . And the condo developer that bought the land ran out of money and couldn’t build there anyway i heard .
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sad to see it I drove by it today well whats left since most was torn down for condos just a small part was left
Smokeys Garage
What A Shame. I visited the garage during Speedweeks after he had passed away. Saw the “mystery Motor” , the rear of his INDY car with motor, the dyno room, his office, and I remember walls lined with camshafts in boxes along with all kinds of intakes, heads, etc. Unfortunately they were considered “old” technology and had no use in today’s market. In fact a friend of mine who was good friends with Smokeys son was able to go in before the auction and bought some 302 blocks that were not touched/machined since Smokey received them from GM in the 60’s when he ran his TransAM series Camaro. He also bought pistons, and other miscellaneous engine parts, took them to Dennis Boyd and Dennis could not even use them because they were not of the quality the current parts available were. The shop was amazing, I managed to buy a Goodyear Blue Streak treaded Stock Car tire that they used in the 60’s. His daughter had a bird shop that was part of the building around the corner, I guess thats gone also.
yea she moved the bird shop to us-1 but I think she closed it down
We have a 1962 Pontiac rear “bumper” here at the Archives that Smokey put on Fireball Roberts’ car at Daytona for the Firecracker that year… You can literally pick the thing up with ONE FINGER! It’s made of lightweight aluminum… just one of Smokey’s “inventions” to save weight… Running an extra length of fuel line through the frame rails and roll bars so the car could hold an extra three gallons of gas was another innovation of his… As Smokey put it “NASCAR rules only state how much fuel the tank can hold but say nothing about how much the fuel lines can hold.”