Projects Origional Mercury Racecar saved. SCORE!!!

I answered an ad on Craigslist for a 55 Merc racecar, winner back in the day, all that. Fortunately I was the 1st person (out of many) to call, and being a Merc guy, the owner was happy for me to get it, and made it easy. Turns out it was Ron Ritter, who at 16 in 1960 bought a 55 monterey and started building, then winning. He became the guy to beat in Milwaukee Wisconsin. He ran the car 10 years or so, with a few engine combinations, setting records and winning trophys at shows and races. At some point, he sold the car and it disappeared. THESE DETAILS WILL BE UNCOVERED AFTER MORE SEARCHING. A couple years ago, Ron Ritter's Grandson located the car in Florida and bought it to surprise his Grandad. At this point Ron is satisfied with his finished show cars and has no desire to restore something, so he put it up for sale. The rest is history (future history).

Someone in the recent past began a "restoration" of the car, adding a 64-66 Buick Wildcat 401-425. The car will need complete restoration, but our plans are to restore into Ron's as raced condition, with a 289, and 2 X 4BBl carbs.

The car still has the hood scoop and the '57 Pontiac Rear with cut '59 olds axles, with the 6:17 gears that Ron Installed way back then. Careful sanding revealled a ghost of the letters painted on it way back. Ron also made cut-outs in the front fenders for when he ran different engine combinations for different classes, that he could attach by screws. When we reached into the fenders, these are still in place, just bondoed over.

At the beginning, Ron told me he ran a 256 Y-block with a 2 barrel. With the 4 speed, the 256 2V, and 6:17 gears, he ran 14.00's at 7200 rpm in the traps. Pretty good for a 4400 lb car! Later he ran 289's and got into low 13's.

All this is VERY cool. We got LUCKY!!

More to come...

 

you know we're gonna need some pictures right?

 

I'm too braindead to figure out why I can't post pics on a forum, so here's a link.

http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/album.php?albumid=29874

 

Wow cool score. Thats one you wont see too many of at any Vintage Drag meet, hell that was probably a rare car to see at the track in the late 50's early 60's

 

Excellent find !!! Wow...I remeber hearing about this car at the Grove. The carshow pic is from the old Milwaukee Auditorium . Keep us posted on progress. Kool...

 

Cool old Merc. More pics,more info,more..more..more! Uh....PLEASE.

 

Awesome. Anything you remember would be cool to hear.

 

No doubt. It is a heavy car, but cool

 

Rader Wheels and Cragar SS's both on the same car. It's not too often you see that combo if at all.

Nice find!

 

My father in law raced st The Grove then. I'll see if he remembers anything about it.

 

That's very cool.
Glad to hear your plans to restore to original.....

That nailhead is awfully cool too!

 

nice find

 

In another pic, he had Raders all around. I've heard raders can be a little weak, so I wonder if thats why he switched to Cragers in the back. Another question to ask Ron.

 

Mr. Ritter doen't seem to think much about the effort his grandson made to find his old car..........Hmmm, how much can I get for this
I'm not usually this girly, but I would really be dissapointed if my gramps had done something like that to me.

 

Probably a lot more to the story than Gramps saying, "Gee, I am not really interested in that..."

If he didn't have the time and money to restore it and many other interests, he might just be REAL happy that a fanatic ended up with the car and will do it justice. In fact, that is sort of what was said above.

By the way, I only see an interior shot above on my computer. Are there other pictures posted? The thread talks about the mix of wheels, but I am not seeing anything.

Would love to see the car! And anxious to see the updates of what you do with it. I am sure Gramps will ultimately see this thread and watch the updates as well. Congrats.

 

He did really appreciate what his grandson did. Im sure they talked about it alot. I'm sure after they both inspected it and looked it over they agreed that it would be too much effort. The car has ALOT of rust and is missing quite a lot of chrome and equipment! Gonna have to be full frame-off to do it justice. Also Mr. Ritter is now in his mid 70's. Besides, If I told you how cheap Ron sold this to me for, you would be sick. All my friends now hate me!!

 

Im trying to figure this out. in the meantime, heres the link:
http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/album.php?albumid=29874

 

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That is a cool find. to have the chance to rebuild/restore a car with that much recorded, verified history and to have access to the guy who originally raced it is a golden opportunity. Really looking forward to the build thread.

To post pics, you should sign up for a photobucket or a flickr or similar account. Most are free to join and fairly easy to use. Personally I use photobucket and it has worked well for me.

 

thanks, I will!

 

That was a good looking car in it's race trim. It looks like he flat towed it to the races too with the tow bar attachment points under the front bumper.

I wouldn't be too hard on the gent for selling it and it looks like he was pretty happy to see that it had found a caretaker who would put it back in it's race trim and maybe race it at vintage drags rather than change it into something that was nothing like the race car it was.

 

You don't have to use photobucket ..

right click on picture, find the properties

highlight the properties, copy

See the little yellow and grey square above reply box

click it , then paste ( insert )the properties and hit ok

I suggest using the preview post button 1st

and it should transfer to like this

 

Very cool find. I hope you can restore it to the as raced condition seen in the pictures.
But I had to laugh a little at "the guy to beat in Milwaukee" with a car that ran 14.00 and then low 13's. Would have thought that Milwaukee might have had some faster cars than that.

 

Great find! Good luck with the restoration. Having a car with history and the original owner/builder around to help is a very rare deal. You do know you could have that car on the Show Fiels at Hershey if you go through the Documented Race Car paperwork, it would be a real easy deal with all the known history. Take lots of photos, and post your updates. Bob

 

I know right?!? I should've added "in his class"

 

I am sorry for jumping the gun....at least it went to someone who will do right by it, good luck!

 

nice ride in its day. im sure grampa had his reasons for not keeping it. but if my grandson went thru that much trouble to get one of my old 55s i keep it till the day i died.its not the car. its the thought to me. but each his own.hell id tell them to bury me in it lol

 

Nice find.

 

That thing is bad-assed.

I wish you well on the resto and can't wait to see pics of it on the track again!