Whereabouts of Grumpy Jenkin's Camaro Toy IV
 

Bill Jenkins aka Grumpy as we all know had a bunch of race cars over the years and some of them are lost to time.

This car, Toy IV, was one of them. Bill ordered a Butternut Yellow L89 1968 Camaro. He later repainted the car white.

Bill sold Toy IV to Rufus Boyd aka Brooklyn Heavy in late 1970 and Carmen Rotonda maintained the car and drove it. Carmen sold it to a guy in 1974 who later sold it to Joe Algieri in 1979. I chatted with Carmen today and he clarified the ownership trail. (I amended this timeline today 12/9/23 in this post to reflect my chat with Carmen).

Joe sold the car as a roller to a guy in Kentucky who was going to run Modified with it. Joe himself trailered the car to Kentucky, he doesn't remember where, but he said it took 18 hours from NJ. This was in 1980.

Here are some of Joe's Facebook comments on IV:

2019:

Joe Algieri
This car was owned by my brother and myself I still have parts off the original car someday we will find it and we will restore it and who knows what after that but yes we did on this car and race it in modified production I was very young we were very successful but I wouldn’t of been able to do it without his help.

Bill Algieri
Thanks brother, we had a lot of fun, F modified if I remember correctly.

Joe Algieri
You are correct.

Joe Algieri, 2018:
OK let’s see how good Facebook really is here’s a picture of my Camaro I sold a 37 years ago in Kentucky delivered it do you think we can find it

Joe Algieri
No Bill Hayes did all the chassis work on his car I sold it without a motor and transmission to a gentleman in Kentucky who is going to race it in IHRA modified production no title no Vin just just a paint job to go on don’t have any more information there would be a reward offered for the real car

**
So it sounds like it went to Kentucky in 1980. Also Bill Hayes had a shop called Auto Weld.

I want to give special thanks to Joe Algieri, Carmen Rotonda, Doug Boyce, Mark Pappas, Richie Schmidt and others who graciously took time to talk to me via phone calls and over social media.

That's a great post, Hopefully, that will get the juices flowing to find the car:headbang:

Yeah could be fun to poke around and do a little research.

I specifically asked about the front end because the car no longer had the hideway headlights. He made the change.

Good to see someone putting together the history on Toy IV with facts. I’ll be following this one eagerly. Hopefully the cars out there and can be brought back to its glory days.

this information has been around for a long time and a lot of people have been looking for it so I'm surprised it has not been found. I hope it turns up.

Maybe those are the parts Joe was referring to in his post.

Great story and hopefully it will be found. That 68 Camaro made Jenkins a lot of money and of course wins on the strip.

I like the 67 SS/C car that Dana Mecum owns now.

Joe said he sold the nose of the car, was kind of indicating it was rough from the acid dip. From what I've read over the years, sheetmetal that was acid dipped unless treated properly would become weaker over time.

(12/10/23 edit) - I originally said nose and to some that implies the entire doghouse. Joe says he still has the fenders.

Yeah, I read your conversation with him about selling the front clip after. I've read, way in the past, in those ancient paper things called magazines, that many of the race cars that were dipped were never properly neutralized and eventually rusted to dust while sitting neglected. If the clip was already in bad condition and the rest of the body wasn't properly treated at that time, that is what could have happened to the body too.

I thought I read the body was sold with no tags or title and if it kept rusting to the point of not being worth repairing and no on knew it was any different than a base Camaro, it may have gone to Camaro heaven a long time ago.

Right that's a concern shared by a few that the car just fell apart over time. But I thought some of us (including me) would be inspired to check with our older racing contacts in KY to see if anyone remembers the car, we might find some info. I'm not looking to purchase the car.

I have some magazines I'm in my 50s. :)

I would think it had to be delivered reasonably close to a drag strip...maybe even Beech Bend ? Too bad Joe doesn't remember the area/town where he delivered it.

He told me KY, I saw in another article he quoted as saying he delivered it to a location with escavation/paving equipment. Other states have been mentioned too. Ideally I'm hoping to talk to him on the phone some day. If anyone is friends with him please ask him to reconfirm.

Cool story. I like hearing about people finding "ordinary" cars they had in the past,....but it's especially cool when it's a search for a famous one.

One of the things that makes the car difficult to find is the lack of information and/or pics of the construction of the car.

Based on some of the pics and I saw a reference to fitting 32x14 slicks on it, the car must have gotten tubbed and backhalfed. Given the era, the car would have early ladder bars or relocated leaf springs, anyone know?

I think sometimes folks don't share info because they're worried someone will find the car and they won't.

I reached to Bob Veniero, we'll see if he sees my email.

Also anyone know if Bill Hayes Auto Weld is still around? I'd think he'd remember the chassis modifications.

I thought it would be fun to encourage folks to look around for the car. I'm thinking it would have an acid dipped body that might not be doing well and a original non-acid dipped nose.

12/10/23 edit notes:
-Early research had Bob Veniero as the person who bought IV from Carmen. Carmen said he did not sell it to him but he did sell him a '61 Corvette. So I removed Bob from the timeline.

Added 2 more pics to post #1, thanks Tony Jenkins.

I believe Bill also had a set of fiberglass fenders that he ran on Toy III and Toy IV.

These fenders were different then the fenders normally seen on Toy III and Toy IV.

They had no side light like on the 68 and no emblems like on the 67 .

Good to know.

I think all we can go by at this point is that Joe Algieri said that he sold off the nose, it was in sad shape and I think he said it was acid dipped. I'm not familiar with the racing classes the car campaigned in and whether they required stock sheetmetal, and for example if Bill was making changes all the time for competitive advantage.

If anyone is a good friend of Joe, maybe they could ask him more about that as well as the chassis configuration at time of sale. When I contacted him I was just another person who he didn't know who asked him a dozen questions in rapid fire.

I got a strong lead to someone who might know the car's history after 1980, we'll see if he calls me back. It's tricky to contact strangers and the older they are the more guarded they are. I'd safely assume the promotion of another car as the genny IV would make someone even more guarded if they don't care for drama.

Jerry Orn on FB says that this is Toy IV when Carmen Rotonda owned it. I'm told Carmen and Frank were buddies. Maybe one of you guys knows for sure, or can ask Carmen my understanding is he is still around. I don't think I've seen this pic before:

Also Richie Schmidt on FB shared some comments:
Joe put a fiberglass nose on it before he sold it. He said he still had the fenders from the car. Jenkins sold the car to Brooklyn heavy and there are pics of it without the RS reverse lights. When Jenkins ran the car it had the non RS lower valance on it so maybe it wasn't an RS when new. Maybe the RS back up lights were just lenses screwed on.

My guess is that you had the same pics as in this post which are the same ones I have. I got them from Joe Algeri when I spoke to him about the car. Jenkins found the car down in the southeast a few years before his death and said the car was too hacked up to be restored. I tracked the car for a few years past when Joe owned it. The car was painted black and belonged to a guy named Wild Bill who ran it in a "super shifters" type club. The car was named the most dangerous car in the class because of how hacked up it was. I later tacked it to the Carolinas where the trail went cold.

I'm saving the various comments from the FB Post I made in the Vintage Camaro Drag Racing Group on FB. In some cases the comments conflict with others but I'm not in a position to call up Joe A on the phone but I'm happy to update the thread if someone knows him and chats with him at some point. I also did reach out to Bob Veniero via FB but have not heard back.

there is some disagreement on which of the two Brooklyn Heavy Camaros was Toy IV

I'm double posting because I wrote a reply to you on FB, but I lean towards the white car because the rear tire opening is radiused all the way around on the white car and also the green car. The orange car might have the lower ends trimmed but not the upper part.

Green car if IV has rear sheetmetal opened up to run what could be 29.5s or even 30" slicks.

So if Richie's comments are solid, he is saying the last known color of IV was black. It's also generally thought that IV ran 32x14s in the early 80s (aka lil bubbas a knickname for those tires) and the rear metal might have been trimmed even more.

So the way my mind works, I like to figure out if any events triggered decisions made by people at that time. I don't like to rely on heavy speculation if there is info out there that can indicate what likely transpired.

So case in point, Rufus Boyd is reported to have sold the car in 1973. Most of us know he had legal issues at one point and spent time in the clink.

I was trying to work the timeline, and it lines up. He was arrested in 1973:
https://www.nytimes.com/1973/12/21/a...profit-of.html

He was sentenced in 1976: https://www.nytimes.com/1976/06/18/a...an-brings.html

So it's fair to say that his issues influenced the sale of many if not all of his cars. I don't think it's aggressive speculation that the cars were sold to immediate people in his network, so one research point would be if Frank did buy the car, or Carmen did, or if it was some sort of partnership. Enough time has passed that I imagine Carmen would be comfortable to connect some of the dots. Wish I could talk to him, but I'd be some random guy from Chicago calling him.

Same is true for Joe Algieri, he was cordial but he gets asked about the car a few times a month and I think that would sometimes be annoying.

I asked Richie if he could chat and provide more info on his comment he made about the car being black, an outlaw and so forth.

I do know per a call I had today the vin of the car is known to a few people and one of them could verify it.

If you read the text in this article you will found out that the Green Camaro and Toy IV is not the same Camaro

And there is this:

Here is my working notes and timeline.

TIMELINE:
So the timeline I'm tracking the most, though I'm happy to modify it if facts and/or people who were actually involved share info.

-Bill Jenkins purchases IV, a butternut yellow L89 in 1967/1968. He races IV until the middle to end of 1970, and then sells it to Brooklyn Heavy (Rufus Boyd). At that point in time the car has a 3 pt bar.

-Heavy campaigns the car and Carmen Rotonda drives it at least some of the time. Car is then sold in 1973 to Carmen and/or Frank Carnisacola, there is some sort of relationship there. Some say Rotonda's speed shop becam F&Js.

-Car is sold to Bob Veniero in 1974.

-Bob sells the car to Joe Algieri. It's said that Joe has the chassis work done by SRD (but I've also heard Bill Hayes of AutoWeld). Car gets backhalfed and tubbed and there are pics of the car running 15x32s out back. I've also heard the car around this time recieved a Dana 60. Joe said he swapped the nose off the car and changed it to standard grille. He's said on occasion he sold the nose and one person said he was told he kept it. At this point the car has fiberglass fenders.It's said that Heavy looked at the car and said it was IV. Since Heavy may have been incarcerated from 1973 (unless he was out on bail) I wonder when he would have seen the car. He was officially sentenced in 1976 so we can assume he started his sentence then. So the story about Heavy verifying the car feels like hearsay for me at this point. (feel free to show me otherwise).

-Joe sells the car as a roller in 1980 to someone in Kentucky. Joe delivers the car and it's an 18 hour drive. The buy 's location had a lot of escavating equipment.

-The trail goes cold at this point.

-The car is rumored to have been painted black sometime after 1980. Was reportedly owned by a guy called Wild Bill who ran it in a "Super Shifters" club. Car was named the most dangerous car in the class because of how hacked up it was.

-At some point after 1980 but before his passing Bill supposedly looked at the car in person and verified it was IV. This is supposed to have happened in the Southeast. Bill said the car was too hacked up to restore. There is another version of this story that the car was getting pro streeted and he saw it in NJ. That latter theory seems like hearsay to me at this point.

-I'm told from a credible contact the car still exists as is. I have followed up with the contact info I have. We'll see what happens. In one of my calls today one of the people, also extremely credible says he has the VIN number of the car.

I'm just in it for fun of it, feel free to help or if you have additional info and want to keep it private shoot me a message. A few folks have graciously shared info with me.

Five period pictures IV with Bill in the pictures, the car does not have an RS front valance:

Earliest pic of IV I've found so far, non-RS valance.

Not sure about his old one but here is the new one.

Love it..

This is distinctive:

.....

Seems this is already old news, but I didn't think the "pumpkin" was T-4, since it had a vinyl top. Who would add a vinyl top to a race car ?
PSJ, hope you can track this down from all the recent info you've acquired.

It was great talking to you last night John.

Here are a few things that might ruffle some feathers

I spoke to Carmen Rotonda about the car. He said that when Heavy bought the car the engine blew up. Carmen owned his own national record holding Modified Production car and says that he and Heavy traded cars. At that point Carmen had the Jenkins car. He says they painted the cars to look like the swap never happened and Heavy continued to tell people it was the Jenkins car.

When the FEDs arrested Heavy they confiscated all his cars but witnesses say the Camaro was not one of them. One source said that Heavy had the car at his "down south" house. If the swap story is true then the car he was hiding was Rotunda's old car.

Heavy authenticated the car shortly before his death (late 2000's) based on pictures from when Algeri owned the car.

The real Jenkins car had a VIN and trim tag and a very prominent member of the Nostalgia Pro Stock community claims to know the number. If the car didn't have a VIN when Algeri bought it it may have been removed to prevent the FEDs from taking it.

The Algeri car went to Kentucky and then to North Carolina where it was painted black with 2 white stripes and owned by Wild Man. Wild man died in a car wreck (not in the Camaro)and his father kept the car and supposedly still has it.

As for authenticating the car without a VIN and trim tag it would require that the car had at least the partial hidden VIN on the firewall. From there you could add the first digits since we already know the car is a 2 door coupe and send the number to the NCRS and see if they can find what dealer the car was shipped to when new IMO if there is no partial VIN I would not trust any authentication of the car.

Wild man's father is well into his 80's which matches the identity of the guy that John Ryan heard about. I have a friend who knows how to contact Wildman's father I am just waiting to hear back.

Got a referral from a highly credible person, and I left a message for the person who reportedly owns it or had owned it in recent years.

As far as IV turning into the Pumpkin and in the process getting a vinyl top, it's a long time theory and I'm trying to be very open minded about the different theories.

If readers don't mind me rambling a bit here are some of the theories around IV.

Pumpkin become IV
-It's plausible, it's pretty much accepted Heavy bought IV. I struggle with the idea that Heavy added a vinyl top to a car but hey find a person who was there to share a testimony.

IV eventually became the Algieri Racing car
-It's plausible, it's accepted that the Algieri car was purchased from Bob Veniero who had purchased it from Carmen Rotonda or Frank Carnisacola of F&J Speed Shop. Carmen drove for Heavy and it sounds like wrenched on the cars too.

Algieri car is not IV
-And this theory has been brought up in some of my calls with folks. The simple version of this theory is the Algieri car was Carmen's own Camaro and not IV. I like the simplicity of that theory, it's known Carmen had 2 Camaros he himself has said in a past post on FB he did. But then you ask yourself, if the Algieri car was not IV then who ended up with IV when Carmen sold it.

I had talked to Joe via FB and I'll follow up with him again. I'd really like to talk to Carmen. If anyone is a buddy of his and could make an introduction please PM. I'll keep it under 15 minutes and respectful.


My only agenda here is putting some theories to rest and make sure we have a fact based view of the history.

I think the black roof on Heavy's 68 Camaro was painted. It was probably done to match his other Wild Pumpkin which was a Baldwin Motion car that actually had a vinyl roof from day one. Heavy's 70 Camaro street car named Heavy's Baby was a Dick Harrel 454 street car that also came with a vinyl top. That said, I don't know if the orange and black car is the ex-Jenkins car since even though it is call such in some publications Heavy did continue to call the ex-Rotunda car the Jenkins car after the swap.

Look closely at the pic in post 20 and you can see, what appears to me, to be the seam leading back from the windshield. Did he have it added to match his other cars ?? :hmmm:
Is there any history on that car, how it was originally built and where it came from ? Knowing that could dispel, or affirm, rumors too.

For those following along, Richie and I talked again today and went over all of the information.

The guy I was referred to for IV does not have it but a few folks though he did because he's had some race first gen Camaros and is in the right state. But the name Richie has is highly promising which is great. So we're hoping he can get connected to the person and then follow up, let's hope it happens! At the very least it would be great if there was a way to verify what the car is, whether it's IV, Carmen's old car, or something else. Also don't know at this point what remains of the past chassis work on the car.

Carmen got back to me today. He clarified the ownership history of the car and I've amended that in the first post.

Grumpy > Heavy / Carmen > in between guy > Joe Algieri.

I had chatted a bit with Joe and I covered some stuff with him a week ago. Here is a quick rundown of points:
-He bought from someone in between.
-He removed the hideway nose off the car (at this point I don't think it included the fenders), and sold it to someone in NJ. It was acid dipped and in rough shape. He ran Modified Production so he ran a regular headlight nose because the headlight had to work. He did not want to add the weight but had to.
-Has pictured from when he was stripping off the paint (what color I wonder), and the Grumpy letter was underneath other paint.
-He stripped the chrome off the bumpers and painted them.
-He shaved the rear back up lights.
-He removed the gas filler neck.

Do you know who I would like to meet as a result of this research?

Carmine Rotonda. Guy is super cool.

Thank you again Mr. Rotonda for answering my final round of questions.

Me: What color changes did IV go through when you guys had it?

Carmine: Got the car from Grump it was white. Painted it orange and it stayed that way for a couple of months. Then he painted it with his green color scheme. Most of the time it was green.

Me: Settle the controversy once and for all, black painted top? Vinyl top?

Carmine: Black vinyl top.


So right from the man himself.

‘

Here’s a batch of Toy 1V pics I had saved, sorry some are a bit blurry but the more the better as any view may be useful trying to ID something specific later.
Best of luck back-tracking, sounds like some good leads also very cool you’ve hooked up w/ Carm Rotonda!
:beers:
~ Pete

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