1967/1968 Dick Harrell funny cars

[sYc]

Jeff, some neat pictures on those sites you posted. I had seen some of them, but there were several new ones. Man, what an era. Wish they had taken more pictures though, and all in color. Some really creative painters back then. The part that bothers me the most about not always thinking to take more pictures (I am the world’s worse) is all of the history lost, such as what was sitting in the shop of the guy I bought my car from. Not only my car, but two more vintage funny cars, tons of vintage speed parts and some cool stuff back of the shop in the weeds. Kind of reminds me of the stash in Wisconsin that just sold. The first time I did not take a camera along as I had no idea that I was about to walk into a time warp. When Mo and I went back to pick up my car, Mike was tied up with some other business, so all he had time for us to put the rear wheels from the other car on mine and load it. And as you guys who have helped me wheel push it around know, hard to do with just your self and 2 others. guy. Good thing Mo was there.

One of the rides that I remember out back was an old ambulance/hearse, the paint all faded and such, but clearly on the side was painted Barry Grant. We were told this was Gary’s first support vehicle.
As you walked inside the front door of his shop were several engines on stands (W shaped heads), 2-3 blower setups and a couple injection setups, complete with stacks. Once in the main area of the shop, stacked along side the walls were piles of alternators, distributors, intakes, wheels, on and on. We did not go up into the loft, but he said he had some where over 300 engines up there, and by the looks of it, may have been so. Supposedly there was a complete DZ engine up there. Mike told us he had turned down 1 mil for the whole lot.
In the center of the main shop were several cars, including a sweet ‘66/’67 Nova, day two with Cragars, wide tires, etc, his daily driver.
The other three cars in the main shop were funny cars. The one I bought, another was a mid year Corvette, ‘64 I believe he said. It had a flip top one piece body, was white at the time and Mike was unsure who’s car it was. He asked me to do some research on it, which I did, but was unable to find anything. It would be a neat car to have, as I have yet to see another vintage funny car like it. At the time, same as with the car I bought, it was not for sale.
The only car for sale at the time of our first visit was another other flip top funny car, similar to mine. A ‘67/68 Camaro, long nose, front bumper ?, funky spoke front wheels (sort of looked like motorcycle wheels), and as I said above, the rear wheels that are on my car now. I will never forget who he said he thought once drove the car, Dickie Montoya. Dickie because it made me think of Dick (Dickie) Harrell and Montoya because of the road race driver, Formula 1 maybe? Because at the time this was the only car he was willing to part with, I did some research when I got home, but was unable to find anything. Later on, when I met Bob Gibson, he told me he had heard of him. Some sort of regional racer, I believe he said Nebraska, Texas, ? Another interesting fact about this particular car, as with many others (remember the ‘68 DH Chevelle most of us passed on), it was shopped around at SCR2. Mike lived near Rogersville and showed up at the track to see if we were going to race. He told me he visited with some one there who had a Harrell race car there (Porterfield). Bill, as well Howie, have told me about meeting Mike. As my luck goes, I was in Springfield watching it rain instead of at the track where the sun was out. BP still ribs me about not racing that day. Mike did his best to sell him the Montoya car to Mo. Mo still tells me it would have made a neat pulling rig.

And by the way guys, a few months after all of this, I tried geeting a hold of Mike to see about getting a set of Halibrands for the rear of my car, the phone had been disconnected and heard the stuff was no longer there.