"The emblem is a little crusty, and won't quite clean up enough to put it back on my Chevelle."

I respectfully disagree. I'd put that emblem on just like it is.

Well, now that you mention it... it would add some nice patina which the car doesn't already have. Thanks for the nudge. I'm going to have a thorough look for any sign of the original emblem holes.

I just realized that there's something special about the numbers on the Rhode Island plate that I put on the Chevelle a few years ago.

http://i247.photobucket.com/albums/g...ps3enqzrbj.jpg

I know of a guy in RI that can reproduce that emblem if you want I'll message you his contact info.

Today I spoke with Dave Kenahan, he was the Service Manager at Norwood Motors back in the day. Unfortunately he doesn’t remember my L89 Chevelle at eighty years of age, but we had a few laughs. I spoke with him about five years ago and he still remembers me. He sure helped me fill in a few holes on who did what at the dealership. As he put it, they worked on a LOT of cars… many late nights from 5-1am working on the funnycars and other race cars. He recalls Mel Perry building race cars for customers, and they seemed to do a lot of that work in the late hours. Dave has been trying to locate Mel Perry for the past three years, with no luck so far.

Dave wishes he still had all the records of the cars they sold and/or worked on (so do I), but apparently when Tom Ricci took over Norwood in 1991, he got rid of all the historic records and paperwork.

Fantastic leg work Helmut.....that picture is marvelous :D

Dan

That would be great. Thanks!

They called Tom Ricci the dream dealer mostly because he could be found sleeping at his desk. Norwood had a ton of paperwork up stairs above the parts room all of it and a huge framed ariel photo from the 70's went into a dumpster. When I worked there my bay was the old engine swap bay it had a big I beam in the celling with a chain fall on it, I wish I took some photos of the place before they tore it down.

Who knew at the time that you were a part of history in-the-making? Looking back, a lot of people are saying shoulda coulda woulda... thanks for sharing the mental images.

This is the brown car that Norwood built, its was an L89 with chambered exhaust and Mel Perry installed an L88 short block in it. The owner of this car confirmed that Howard Neff's Chevelle received the 427 short block before he took delivery of the Chevelle.