the vintage roll bar thread and some YT videos show late '50s cars - Fords - racing with convertible models. aren't convertibles heavier by construction? cannot imagine driving 2 or 3 hours in full sun. why was this decision made?
so it would act as an airfoil, and make the heavy convertible actually lighter? who would have thunk it.
I knew Ed Livingston in Charleston SC; he drove a '61 Galaxie hardtop that he cut the top off of and ran as a "convertible"... He's a character!
Nope he ran Grand National so it was an actual track car; he had one of those bolt-on roofs Ford made to swap between the open and closed classes. I have a picture somewhere of the car he ran, with the roof off, he put a tonneau cover over the passenger compartment.
.....I read once that NASCAR did it to give the spectators a clear view of the drivers as they drove around the track. I don't think they did it for too many years. NASCAR has made some stupid decisions at times.
I used to race in a class that allowed either convertible or roofs. Some of the closed cars used convertible frames because they were boxed from the factory and didn't bend as easy. The big requirement for the convertibles was that you had to have a diagonal bar added to the top loop in the roll cage to keep things from falling on top of the driver. I guess somebody lost a tire one night and it bounced back came through the open loop. This was NASCAR and they didn't even have top loops. https://i0.wp.com/macsmotorcitygara...hevrolet-Bowman-Gray-Stadium-.jpg?w=600&ssl=1
This is a car owned by Sokoll’s Garage the Ford dealer in Windham NY It ran the beach and several other NASCAR convertible from 1957-1959. This car was a real convertible however they also had a roof from another 57 Ford they would bolt (known as a Zipper Top) on a common practice for the Covertable Division car to ran in the Grand National Division. The NASCAR Convertibles were very popular with the fans, they could see the drivers at work! However birth of the Super Speedways killed them, I.E-aerodynamics. My dad was always after Lyle Sokol about the car, but it got washed a way in a flood in the late 1960s or early 1970s and crushed! It driven by George Baumgardner and latter Bill Wimble. Baumgardner was a very successful driver here in New York state as was Bill Wimble who also was a NASCAR national Sportsman (Now Xfinity series)
NASCAR had a separate division/class for convertibles. It was so big the OE manufactures of the time were all-in. # 49 is a Chevrolet 6- Lug "Black Widow " "Factory" stock car. Holman and Moody built the Fords If I'm not mistaken some convertibles ran at the 1st Daytona 500 at the speedway to help fill out the field. They may have only ran a few 100 miles before pulling out. (please correct me if I'm wrong)
1959 Daytona 500 at about 9:00 or so you will see a few convertibles that were at this super speedway race I See a 58 + 57 Chevy and just a little later a 58 Ford making a pit stop.... brass balls without much roll bar
Which were the 1/2 Chevrolet truck front hubs on the car spindles as well as the truck rear axle. These were part of the commercial vehicle package for taxi cabs, hearses and ambulances, and while some of those were produced it was a thinly vailed effort to met NASCAR’s “available to the public” rule
Yeah because the stock car stuff was absolute junk to ALL the other manufacturers. Chevrolets were way under built to the other competing GM products.
as my friend's father said: all you can put in there is a frog's hernia. it doesn't make sense, but at 11 years old it was funny
it was closer to mid 63. The are 3 of the biggest names sponsored by Chevrolet at Daytona in 1963. All 3 "Mystery Motor" Chevy Big Blocks
love the top photo of ol' #3. i'm in the midst of compiling a sponsors list for my fictitious stock car livery from '32 to '47. of course i'll stretch the dates to suite my sponsors. one of them is going to be John R; disc jockey from WLAC radio [John R. - Wikipedia] . he hawked all manner of things "... exotic or unusual products, such as baby chicks from a Pennsylvania hatchery, family Bibles, hot-rod mufflers ..." so that is giving good cause to plaster it on a trunk lid or fender of some upcoming car. thanks buy "why" did Chevy pull out? negative connotations causing marketing concerns?
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