This is an interesting story. About 10, 11 years ago I was at the old Petty museum/shop on Branson Mill Rd. I was the only one there and the gentleman running the place showed me the shop area. I think it was when Dodge was just getting back into Nascar. I wasn’t allowed to take pictures but they had just dug this car up. Buried for 30+ years you could imagine the condition. I wish they would have left it alone because now the only thing original is some of the chassis. Still a unique car and an awesome story.
Taken at the Nascar Hall of Fame. I initially thought paying for parking and $20 entry was steep but after touring the hall I felt it was fair. I only spent a couple of hours and easily could have spent the day if I had more time.
Found out something interesting: this car (at the HoF), is NOT a real “Petty Plymouth”. If you recall, Petty won 27 races that year (1967), including an astounding 10 in a row.
One 1967 Petty car went to the Joe Weatherly Museum at Darlington; it was an early-season (up until about March or April; remember, they were running 60+ races a year back then), brand-new '67. The other one (the “27-win car”) was retained by the Pettys and was later sold to Jabe Thomas. Thomas last ran the car reskinned as a Charger in about 1974, wrecked it, and it was put out in a field. It was later crushed.
This car, the “Hall of Fame” car, is a “recreation” built by Kim Haynes just for the Hall of Fame.
Like I said, most of the car was not salvageable. From what was explained to me by the Petty museum is that part of the chassis from the car dug up was used for that car.
LOL…like I said…it “couldn’t have been dug up”. One of the '67 cars is in the Joe Weatherly museum.
The other '67 car (the “27-win car”)
was retained by the Pettys and was later sold to Jabe Thomas. Thomas last ran the car reskinned as a Charger in about 1974, wrecked it, and it was put out in a field. It was later crushed.
The car in the NA$CAR “Hall of Fame” may be a '67 Plymouth, but it’s NOT a Petty Engineering-built car. It’s only a RECREATION of a '67-built chassis. In other words, it’s “fake”, as are many of the cars of that era that are “presented” in museums and Halls of Fame. There are very few REAL race cars - those built by Banjo, Ray Fox, Nichels, Cotton Owens, Junior (Johnson, not Earnhardt…LOL…), and Holman-Moody - left these days. These cars were RACED, and most were raced HARD to the point of totally wearing them out. Most of those that were wrecked back then, were crushed (the exception being the Pettys, who’d literally put them out to pasture and bury 'em). These cars didn’t survive to be “rebuilt”; most of what you see today as “vintage” race cars are recreations or “tribute builds”.
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