History Historic Stock Car Photos

With all of the devastation and loss of life from the tornados in southern Indiana one of our racers suffered the loss of his race car shop. Darrel Basham a long time short track and A.R.C.A. competitor lost his shop in Henryville. Hope he can recover and continue to race. Also I would like to send all of my condolences to the people affected by the weather as my parents used to live in Memphis Indiana and I know the area well. Allstarracing

 

Really sorry to hear that. I've been monitoring the situation because of all the friends I've got up there. Darrell is a real trooper and an old friend.

 

We had the same storm front came through north alabama.. no one lost their life but lots of damage. The eye came less that 1 mile from my shop. I hope everyone is well..

 

k9racer, judging from the amount of activity on this blog it looks like those tornado's might have hit some of the blogers who post here. It too hope everyone is okay.

 

Great thread. Maybe this has been discussed earlier. Does anyone know what the oldest existing NASCAR auto is and where it might be located? NASCAR started in 1948 with modifieds and in June of 1949 with stocks. Do any of those cars still exist? I'm looking for cars that were actually used in a NASCAR race.

Thanks for any help you can offer !

 

Indybigjohn, there is a question on the Dogfight forum asking about the name of a couple of ASA drivers, how about going over and letting us know who they are.

 

I know this is a old thread but the May 2012 issue of Hot Rod mag has a interesting article on "old" NASCAR with photos.

 

I'll take a look, Falconred. Hope they're from my era.

 

The title of the article is "When NASCAR Mattered: What Went Wrong?"
Indeed.
Here's a clue:

 

I bet her Father is very proud to show that photo to friends and family members.

 

I have to asks. While Danica has proven to be an accomplished driver, does she want to be a race car driver??? Please Ms. Danica, choose a profession. Driver, or model. One things for sure she knows how to diversify her attributes, and yes, she is a strikingly beautiful woman. Would really like to see she in the winner circle more.

 

Obviously, either you guys have never seen Carl Edwards shirtless on the cover of a fitness magazine and the "athlete's Bodies" issues of ESPN magazine (where the athletes are photographed nude) or you are displaying a pretty serious double standard in regard to Danica Patrick! Has she been hyped to the level of ridiculousness? I tend to think so.... however, that shouldn't take away anything from the fact that she's an accomplished race car driver doing what at least 95% of us don't have the talent to do- drive an Indy Car in race conditions at over 200 MPH AND drive a stock car in race conditions at over 190 MPH.
Danica is a shot in the arm that NASCAR needs to get more people following the sport. As far as whether or not she deserves to be where she is, I think she does. We'll see if that talent can make the transition to NASCAR, but I think that she has a pretty good shot, especially if she's got the backing and mentor-ship of Tony Stewart.

 

Getting off topic here, guys. We don't want this thread shut down. Danica has nothing to do with stock cars from the 60s or earlier. Start a separate thread for her and you can derbate about her talents all you want.

 

Beenthere, good point. Moving right along then...

 

There is an old saying, "If 'ya got it, flaunt it" And man 'o man, Danica has it all, beauty, brains and talent. Let's not lose sight of the fact that Race cars burn Gasoline, but today, they run on money, and lots of it. Danica's doing what she needs to do to bring the money. Money for her car owner, and butts in the grandstands for NAASCAR. The NASCAR crew can bring the gasoline.

 

Please quit waffling on about Danica and/or other modern day athletes.

Or what effect they may or may not have on modern day Nascar.

Or modern day Nascar itself for that matter.



Its really unfortunate we ( as Mods ) keep having to come back to this Thread to remind Y'all that you are on a Traditional Forum.

 

Okay I'll get this back on track and around to the first car on the thread, at the 1964 World's Fair:

 

Yup, Fire Fly, that's the car in the first photo on the thread. Thanks.

 

One of my favorite cars of my all time favorite driver. Fastback Freddy was my hero.

 

Ya really wonder how non-stock N.A.S.C.A.R. let them be back then. We already know about the narrowed rear frame sections on the 06 car and the altered floor pans that were let through on some others and when I was in California in the late 60's and saw some of the out of date southern cars that were brought to the west coast and raced it was apparent N.A.S.C.A.R. would let about any thing fly. I saw two third size fenders and grills. Smokey's wern't the only ones just the most famous. The Banana car was so rediculus it was funny but others were done subtly and hard to see but done just the same. Some of the reskins with newer sheetmetal on older floor pans could get real inovative. Allstarracing

 

Fast Freddie taking time to mug for the camera man at Riverside in 1964.
Cool!

 

All the original '66 H&M Galaxies (prior to the Fairlane introduction) had swooped-down noses and slightly chopped and leaned-back roofs in front. They had problems with cracking windshields at Daytona (something to do with the mounting position) before they were allowed to use the Fairlane with the Galaxie front frame section welded to the unibody. Don't know what month it was, but I have all the old Stock Car Racing mags where this was explained in detail. It was a long time ago, but I remember seeing a photo of Curtis Turner in a white (w/red roof) Galaxie suffering multiple cracked windshields. After the Galaxie/Fairlane hybrid, Nascar allowed teams to rebody old chassis with newer sheet metal and the rest is history.

 

L.D. Ottinger.....The Early Years.

 

dang that is a old one, l.d. used to race some with us at huntsville. now i see him at the shades run in pf tn. always a front runner,and chewing gum.lol .

 

.....That was about 1961-1962 in Newport, Tennessee.

 

June, 1962

 

One of the least known items was the offset frame stub. A number of Holman/Moody cars had that. My dad bought a '68 Mustang in 1970 to run IMCA (it had been a Grand American showcar, but he ran it with a 427 in IMCA). Fast and great handling race car. In late '70, he crashed it at Oklahoma City, and called H&M for a new stub. They got real quiet, then had him measure several spots on the car. Turns out this car had a 2-5/8" offset stub. He later bought a H/M Torino, ex-Pearson, that was offset 1-1/2 inches.

 

<hr style="color:#e5e5e5; background-color:#e5e5e5" size="1"> Fast Freddie taking time to mug for the camera man at Riverside in 1964.
Cool!


So is Fred still alive? I heard some scuttle butt, gees must have been over a decade ago that he was planing on moving to Florida and live somewhere near Daytona International Speedway.

 

Mr. Lorenzen is still with us and still living up near Chicago. His daughter has established a Face Book site for him and...on good days...you can contact him through his daughterr at that site. Check it out:
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=645254624

 

This is one of the best threads on ANY message board. Thanks to Bigjohn for starting it and everyone who keeps it rocking.