Of the 4 cars in the collection, this is the only car that was built and driven back in the 1960’s. This is the original 1967 car that was built and driven by Bob back then. The other 3 in the collection were all built afterward as reproductions of the original cars.
In the 1990’s, a young man approached Bob at an event, claiming to know the ’67 car’s whereabouts. Bob was skeptical, but invited the gentlemen to return with whatever documentation he had. Two months later he showed up with photographs of the car at its home in Montreal. It had fallen to neglect but there was no doubt about its authenticity. Bob made an offer, and soon afterward was towing the remains back across the border to his shop in Arizona.
It took almost 8 years before he began the car’s restoration for me, but both Bob and I believe it was worth the wait. “There is a lot of work in this car,” says Bob, “I’m real proud of what we did on it and how we got it done.” I was ecstatic to see the car done, and I took the car to a lot of shows and events over the years. It was also on display at the NHRA Motorsports Museum in Pomona, CA for 2 years.
There are 2 very noteworthy things about this car. It is the first car that introduced steering brakes on the rear wheels. There were actually 2 brake levers in this car – one for left and one for right. Also, if you look closely, you can see that there is no window in the firewall to allow Bob to see the track once the nose of the car came up. He had to look out the side windows to see how close he was to the wall in order to keep the car straight.
