Can anyone tell me what car this is?

[Jaybud76]

 A friend of mine was on a racing team back in the early 80's and they had custom shirts. I wanted to have a shirt made for him based off the original. Can anyone tell me the type of car based off the picture?

[lump]

Photo is not so good...hard to tell. Front end looks a bit like a Chevy Vega. What kind of racing was it? Do you know what class it was? Some basic facts might help. 

 

[Jaybud76]

I'm going to try and find out some more info. on it and get it posted. I can say it was definitely Chevy, and I believe you may be right, I think it might be a Vega. Unfortunately the picture is off a t-shirt from the 80's so yeah, the quality isn't great.

 

[Jaybud76]

Just found out it is definitely a Vega. Thank you for the lead!

[JACK M]

Looks like a drag car with those big rear tires.

But those didn't usually have numbers on the sides.

[CarlLaFong]

6 minutes ago, JACK M said:

Looks like a drag car with those big rear tires.

But those didn't usually have numbers on the sides.

But not unheard of. Quite a few did have numbers

[JACK M]

Could be, I was never much of a Drag racer. I prefer the dirt tracks.

We need big numbers so that the score keepers could easily see the running order. Albeit that is now mostly done electronically but not with out screw ups.

Drag cars numbers are smaller as they only need to be readable at staging.

 

I always make this argument.

Which would you rather do, race one guy for a few seconds or race 15 or 20 guys for a half hour?

 

Drag racers are disqualified if they touch the center line. I don't know what I would do all week if we had rules like that.

When they got this guy off of me in the Late model I finished the race. You can see that his wheels weren't right after this mishap.

 

Excuse my rant, That is a cool T-shirt .  Fun Stuff for sure.

[joe_padavano]

2 hours ago, Jaybud76 said:

 A friend of mine was on a racing team back in the early 80's and they had custom shirts. I wanted to have a shirt made for him based off the original. Can anyone tell me the type of car based off the picture?

 

It is a caricature of a 71-73 Vega hatchback, to be exact.

 

[joe_padavano]

I'll add that the rear spoiler was available from the aftermarket. 

 

 

The car on the shirt appears to be a pony stock race car.

 

[lump]

At first blush, I don't see that one being an accurate caricature of a drag car. Note that it features 4-lug wheels front and rear, and the front tires are drawn to be nearly as large as the rear. I see no noticeable roll cage, no hood scoop to suggest V8 engine transplant, no tach in front of driver's view, and car sitting nearly level. In order to put big drag racing style wheels/tires under the rear of a Vega, one would be forced to either jack the rear end way up, cut out the wheel wells, and/or narrow the rear end and the rear chassis. But no one would go to the expense and hassle of narrowing a super-light-duty 4-lug Vega rear end. 

 

Of course, it's possible that someone just took a basic stock 4 cyl Vega to the drag strip and ran it almost stock. I'm sure lots of folks did that. But rarely would you see that kind of a weekend warrior with graphics all over it, and a giant number on the door. 

 

About that big door number...a heavy percentage of drag racers put their car numbers and class numbers on the windows of their cars, because this makes them easier to remove and/or change. Many drag cars are raced by their owners under more than one sanctioning body as they travel from track to track and event to event, and therefore in more than one class designation...and sometimes with differing car numbers. So putting drag car numbers on the painted surface complicates the removal process. 

 

Obviously, we have no idea how accurate this caricature is in the first place. Cheers, and Happy Holidays everyone. 

[joe_padavano]

1 hour ago, lump said:

About that big door number...a heavy percentage of drag racers put their car numbers and class numbers on the windows of their cars,

 

Traditionally with white shoe polish. 😉

[CHuDWah]

1 hour ago, joe_padavano said:

 

Traditionally with white shoe polish. 😉

 

Yup, and it had a tendency to run down the glass which made for some interesting numbers.  😁

Edited December 11, 2018 by CHuDWah (see edit history)

[Dosmo]

I believe I see rust forming on the T-shirt photo.....

 

Sarcasm.....

 

Nonetheless, the T-shirt is cool.

[lump]

4 hours ago, Dosmo said:

I believe I see rust forming on the T-shirt photo.....

 

Sarcasm.....

 

Nonetheless, the T-shirt is cool.

Ahhh...I see you REMEMBER the Vega automobile, eh? LOL

[CHuDWah]

1 hour ago, lump said:

Ahhh...I see you REMEMBER the Vega automobile, eh? LOL

 

Wife had one in the frigid midwestern winters of the 70s - no garage and the temp often got well below zero overnight.  The Vega refused to turn fast enough to start - usually had to jump it in the morning.

[54vicky]

I wonder what make of car the #16 is in the photo of the 4 stock cars I recognize the vega _astre  and the monza looking ones.

[Dave39MD]

Looks similar to Grumpy Jenkins drag Vega.

 

Dave

[Dosmo]

1 hour ago, 54vicky said:

I wonder what make of car the #16 is in the photo of the 4 stock cars I recognize the vega _astre  and the monza looking ones.

 

Could it be a Mercury Capri from the mid 1970s?

[joe_padavano]

10 hours ago, Dosmo said:

 

Could it be a Mercury Capri from the mid 1970s?

 

 

Considering that I stole the pony stock photo from a Mercury Capri website... 😉

[joe_padavano]

11 hours ago, Dave39MD said:

Looks similar to Grumpy Jenkins drag Vega.

 

Dave

 

Not even close to either Grumpy's Toy nor a drag car in general. Note wheelie bars, hood scoop, and big-n-little tires. The car on the shirt is a roundy-round racer, NOT a drag racer.

 

[chistech]

My 32’ Olds roadster came out of a collection of a former Buick, Olds, Pontiac dealer. I went to where all the cars were kept to pick up a spare complete chassis they had. I was told to look through the building including the loft for any parts that might go with my car. Sure enough I found an area in the loft that held quite a few 32’ Olds parts. Why I’m mentioning this is up in that loft was almost the complete outer OEM sheet metal with GM tags for two cars, one was a Vega, the other sheets were for an OPEL GT. This was all NOS stuff, hood, door, rear quarters, rear valance, trunk, front fenders, etc.. I couldn’t believe my eyes and this was all mixed in with model T parts and packaged OEM  sets of probably every single hubcap GM made for 60’s-70’s cars. Had to be 300 hubcaps, all taped together with GM tape with all GM stock warehousing labels all over them. Don’t know what came of all that stuff. 

[John348]

12 hours ago, chistech said:

My 32’ Olds roadster came out of a collection of a former Buick, Olds, Pontiac dealer. I went to where all the cars were kept to pick up a spare complete chassis they had. I was told to look through the building including the loft for any parts that might go with my car. Sure enough I found an area in the loft that held quite a few 32’ Olds parts. Why I’m mentioning this is up in that loft was almost the complete outer OEM sheet metal with GM tags for two cars, one was a Vega, the other sheets were for an OPEL GT. This was all NOS stuff, hood, door, rear quarters, rear valance, trunk, front fenders, etc.. I couldn’t believe my eyes and this was all mixed in with model T parts and packaged OEM  sets of probably every single hubcap GM made for 60’s-70’s cars. Had to be 300 hubcaps, all taped together with GM tape with all GM stock warehousing labels all over them. Don’t know what came of all that stuff. 

 

Vega parts are pretty hard to come by

[Paul Dobbin]

My brother had one back in the late 70's that was a McDonald's give away car. Had Golden Arches for pin-striping.  I though it was the beginning of throw away american cars., quality was AWFUL.