Bill Thomas Chevy II Fastback

[427TJ]

Just found this in my archives. My apologies if it's already been posted.

[CamarosRus]

Bill, Any pics of (my old) #27 Alan Green ZL-1 when it was fairly new and still a Super Stock drag car. When I bought #27, circa 1975 it was Candy Red in Modified Eliminator with zero lettering.......

Thanks,

[427TJ]

Sorry Chuck, I got nuthin' for ya.

[Basic GPa]

Good afternoon - Thanks in part to information posted on this site, I was able to finish my article on a pair of Chevy II's that raced in Britain during 1962. The cars were driven by Chuck Kelsey & Peter Sachs. The article appears in the May/Jun issue of "Vintage Motorsport" magazine under the title "Chuck and Pete's Excellent Adventure". The cars were built at Bill Thomas in California and Smokey Yunick's in Florida. The duo would win a couple of rcaes, beating the all conquering (until that point) Jaguar Mk II's.
"Vintage Motorsport is available on newsstands or electronically at https://shop.vintagemotorsport.com/collections/issues
Take care, Mike Matune

[Paul_S]

Mike, Sounds good, will look for the mag. I remember seeing some pics of the race years ago.

Paul

[Paul_S]

Mike, Great Article!

I believe the original short one I read was from a Canadian mag. Didn't know/remember there were two cars.

So after the Thomas car was built and appeared in two magazines, it returned to Thomas for big Pass-car brakes and 15" wheels (like Bad Bascom). Hopefully at that time they installed the heavy front springs and wonder if rears were done also as the Hard Top had the softest. Too bad this car was lost in a storage fire.

I do wonder if the Florida built car had the full V8 kit of components. Thomas was lacking a few items in the March '62 article (Chevy II Block, Oil Pan & HD Front Springs). The HD brakes had metallic linings but still stock size (9" x 2.25" Front & 9" x 1.75" Rear). It wasn't until '64 they increased to 9" x 2.5" F & 2" R.

Interesting that both were white cars.


Paul

[Basic GPa]

Paul,


So very glad you liked the article.


The story you may have seen on these cars appeared in the March 1963 issue of "Sports Car Graphic" magazine. It was written by Chuck Kelsey and only talked about his car. The "Hot Rod" and "Car Life" stories on the Kelsey car are posted earlier in this thread.


Peter Sachs remembers an article being published on his car during 1962. He thought it was in a British publication. We could never locate that article. If anyone knows more about it, please let me know.


There was a V8 Chevy II road raced in Canada by Fred Hayes with sponsorship from Comstock International. He was successful with the car, but as far as we could determine never raced outside of Canada.


Thanks again for your kind words.


Take care,


Mike