Bobby Allison's 1979 Daytona 500 Car: The Race That Changed NASCAR Forever! (Unrestored Survivor)

this car right here is the car that Bobby Allison was driving in the 1979 Daytona 500 you know the famous one where everybody was fighting and basically put NASCAR on the the national map this is the car Tim Walker is the owner and he has a heck of a story as to how he acquired this thing I had looked for this car for 39 years I took a job in Chattanooga because I had heard stories of the car being there I took the job and Stevie Allison can tell you because I heard it was in the area and this is one that I always knew it was going to be something one day and it is now that's why I've preserved it as I found it I've got the original intake the boxtop intake for it I know where the original parts are let me take you around it yeah what are the the details on it that make it authentic and identifiable as the car cuz it's well when when it first showed up I you know Don Miller said well you know they can reproduce these they can build them they're not that hard and I said was Don something tells me that this is the car I've learned a long time around cars if you don't take the chance then you'll never know well when it showed up to Don Miller's Museum Bobby Allison was there Don Miller was there and I'll never forget Bobby's and Don's face because it was raining real heavy that day Bobby had he if if you ever have him look at a car to to get it authen authenticity for the car he'll walk right up to the front suspension it was on a flatbed and he walked right up and he smiled because look at the date on the the the the wear and the age of all the the decals how could this and then me looking at the suspension and looking all around the car is I mean why would somebody do all this work and let it sit yeah it has this unrefuted paint chips and even up here I noticed when we're walking around that it has rock chips in it that were just painted over so they're still in there but there's fresher paint on top of it it just like this Grill used to be Chrome at one point it's all sand blasted like you can't right you can't reproduce that type of wear without going and racing it that's true and another sign is look at these bumpers would stick out but they've cut a section out of these brought them together and welded them up and under the hood it's it's it's ratty folks but it Remains the real car I think it's cooler in this form than it was if it had been stripped and repainted yeah and here's my biggest dilemma is do I partially repair the paint and keep it original or do I go ahead and restore it to a te that's that's been a really tough question because this paintwork right here is history and a good friend of mine Joey Knuckles that raced on this team that worked on this team worked on this car worked for budmore told me that it's it just when he walked up to it he just knew and so and then I took it down to South Carolina and let Greg Moore and I've got pictures of and I've got the documentation of all that Greg Moore walked up to it and just smiled he said I can tell you right now this is the real deal let me show you under the hood real quick if you can help me his hood weighs not as bad as the Matador okay that's good can you see that now now she's wanting to roll yeah but you look all look at all of this it's still got the headlight bucket mounting in there too yeah you could you could pop those panels out and put a headlight back in this thing y insane and here's the here's the connection also is my dad used to double date with banjo Matthews in Miami the one thing that really shocked my dad was the talent that banjo had for racing in my dad never knew he had it he ended up working on the crew for banjo's Te uh Team during the beach Race part of this main bathtub bar up top is bent what is that from how did that happen this is probably the accident that um junked the car do you know which like what was the last time that this car was used what are we looking at its form uh Greg Moore can answer that question when Greg Moore walked up to it watch your finger old cable there you go thing in question I said great was this thing wrecked he said well it started out Tim that Bobby on the Speedways was complaining about the the sheet metal rattling and they figured out that that was slowing them down so they virtually skin wipe the whole side to settle the rattling down that's what I was told wasn't there that's it has so much Bondo over here yes because it's just a piece of tin behind here and you get air traveling all around this thing it's something's going to Rattle Greg Moore walked up and he said there's only very limited Bud Moore engineering stickers he remembers excuse me putting that decal on the dash another decal he remembers putting this decal on but there's this piece of tape that's right here a piece of duct tape he walked up to that where you put put the Jack yeah he remembers that that's why it's still hanging let's see interesting out of this vinyl how much it is shrank over the years yep and the guy had it in his garage for all those years but it it's just time yeah what is the the progression of this car being a budmore car to it leaving budmore engineering's possession and then ending up with you what was it doing that whole time and how long was it sitting in a garage for 39 years so he sold the car to somebody and that guy kept it until you bought it yeah cuz cuz Greg Moore remembers loading the car up Joey Knuckles said back in them days they reused all the parts that they could suspension parts and everything else they just reused everything so that's why you see it in this state this is the state I got it in it was on the casters when you got it no I had I made that that unit underneath there back they come Bobby Allison stays in that fourth position yeah there's some things in here that you just couldn't you just couldn't copy like the way that switch panel was kind of crudely stamped together and yep the weird quirks and nuances of the way they used to do things everybody did them their different way cuz there wasn't really any way to share what you were doing with everybody else this is when you had race Secrets what's in the trunk let just look in the trunk want to see what the trunk looks like heavy extremely heavy yep just going to roll away yeah I built it a little bit too well as far as rolling cuz it'll go in the wrong direction is that Brown um that's oxide primer okay hold on I can't tell if that's paint or if that's yeah that's oxide primer and look at the the weather stripping how it just crumbled the fact that this car actually had weather stripping is cool yes did you notice anything interesting yeah if you like look under the car you can see where they've had to like make repairs and stuff and how they yeah sh over like like the shifter had to be moved over so you can see where they patched it up and everything and there's still like the bolts for the passenger seat that would have been there I would imagine Bobby's not the only guy that drove this car and I know you explained this to me before but I don't know if it's on film yet is it's hard to refute that this is a real Bud more Bobby Allison car but how do you know what about it told Greg and those other guys that that is the car from the 79 Daytona race probably the the one thing is like Bobby they went up to the suspension and it's unmistakably the fight race car got that on paper got it on I got it but documented by the people who worked on the car at that time so they had different front suspension configurations on different cars that they had at that time right Ander all the same different things that they identified with a lot of times I can look at the other cars look at the fender flares now if what Joey Knuckles is telling me is Right which I believe anything that Joy a lot of things that Joey says but these were VW flares I don't see really the the the workmanship inside that would you know what I mean yeah there's there's not grafted in there that flare bulge is part of right now did they did they butt weld you know yeah you really can't see do you see a seam anywhere I don't this looks like hammered like it was the original Fender that was hammered out yeah you can see the see the you can feel it yeah you can see the hammer dents on the inside yeah you can feel all of it was it the back fenders maybe that were grafted take a look cuz I haven't had a chance to really okay I can see that yeah that is multiple pieces yeah it's still got Hammer marks in them but it's spliced together yeah look the seam there's absolutely a seam there let's see what the other side looks like this one's not seamed up as much but it's still hammered okay now you know they traded paint quite a bit in them days the spender almost looks bigger than the other one too but that I guess that's cuz the Bondo yeah they're probably not the same some of this damage in here looks like it happened yesterday it's like crazy how well preserved it is if you come back here and you stand between this vender and that roof vender like it it affects the body lines so like it goes up into this body line yeah and then on this side look it doesn't yeah like they weren't super concerned about it being equal or maybe it had something to do with arrow who knows and I say this on record when I was building the charger I was block sanding the car wanted it nice and and right and Don Miller walked up to me and he said what are you doing with a block sander he said Tim these things were tools they weren't there they were a 50 or 100 foot car long as it had to look good 100 feet feet away it was fine they were mainly tools back in those days now you got pretty panels that you just replace back then they had to work with what they had when they were taking the pictures of this car in the infield of um 79 Daytona I was with Bobby there so I knew it when it was new and then what happened after that it was just so hard for me to try to keep up with why don't we call Greg see if he answers the phone maybe he would say exactly what the aftermath of this car was cuz in that Daytona race the door was all dented in from some accident he had been in I'd really like to know what you know how many how many more times was it raced and what race is this from for reference for those of you who don't know Greg Moore is Bud Moore's son hold his headrest in now look at the picture of this car 1979 look at that headrest and compare that to what you're looking at right now I don't know about you but it's little details like that that make the authenticity of this car on top of that those three window bars up there I thought that would be good to see and you know what they are not on this car but you can see the holes where they used to be I guess the bad part about being my age now and growing up with all these guys because most of us have hearing aids and crutches now or Walkers some things that you never thought you didn't think of back then let's go under see some more what's going on in here yeah even though there's no front suspension in here you can see how it was there would have been a a straight control arm like this with the spring in it and then it had another locator attached to this looks like little hind ball there that would come out like that instead of the double a AR deal like the chevel style that they evolved into might as well just we'll just crawl on in here and hang out see what it's like to be Bobby Allison's engine oh this is neat we got a Ford part number on there hey Mr Moore how you doing oh thank GRE more called him back and oh okay we just pretending to be a radiator look at all those rivet holes in that Grill I should probably get out of here so we can see what he's doing right well he's right okay he's right here filming and um Mitchell you're on stage with Mr Greg Moore now we were just wondering whenever Tim brought this car to you to authenticate what about it makes it um undeniably the 79 Daytona Car as opposed to just one of the cars that you had back then how many cars did you have back then at that time yeah well back in those days uh in 79 we we done good if we had like three four at the most but yeah that that no doubt whatsoever I mean that you know everything from the gray Speckles of paint that we put on the inside it was a waterbased type fuel where it didn't weigh much robar placements gussets I don't what to look for on that thing and and and that's the right car no no doubt about it see back in those days you just didn't throw cars away breing a Thunderbird that we put together was actuallyy a a car driven by by Buddy Banker in 76 the one that W to 500 within 1978 we reskinned it but it was not a brand new it was not a brand new chassis best I can recollect it had a it was a a buddy Bay car had a KN for a clip had been put on it you know cuz well I've been reading for tax purposes and stuff uh we used to scribe a car is the car was B the the midsection and the front clip was one thing and rear clip of the another our sponsorship the with Norse I will say about $180,000 wow which you know that was a that was a tremendous amount of money for us back then yep basically the thing with Bobby Allon was put together B Matthews Bobby that the illed deal with the n and I never forget when first come come across with the Thunderbird I i' went and looked at the showroom and got a brochure and they found out they had a Diamond Jubilee edition of the Thunderbird and and basically you know we fighting that door or the rear window you know all that stuff had to be open and what made the Thunderbird a wonderbird was the fact that they bed di Diamond EV 75th Anniversary C and it had a vinal roof that covered the back window and made it look more like a luxury liner we talked about it me and me and Daddy talked about it my brother Daryl and that was even input from Junior D Levy and stuff about it then we got thinking about it and Ford we knew Ford was probably going to come back in within two two to three four years said let us make this Thunderbird and we put that thing together we chopped that front end up you done all all the tricks to it we had that thing painted in a FL and and it was sitting uh in the front part of the shop where we rolled it out and you know I had some real good crew guys I've heard people walk in and say God Al Mighty that's a beautiful r car and Bud board her and told him said yeah but don't run it be a ugly son of a bit that car pretty much was uh put back the short track car you you guys are are great I appreciate everything y'all doing and and I want to put something together uh you know as soon as we can and that's why I'm that's why I'm here now Greg because if we don't keep it alive it'll it'll just perish forever and you know I've looked up to you and for many many years and I was just telling Mitchell here that in 78 and especially 79 when y all did the photo shoot out there in the on the uh in the front in the Grass at Daytona I was there I walked out with Bobby and oh yeah and I I couldn't believe that I was out there and that guard wasn't chasing me oh it was it was incredible and you know the effort that we had in 79 we had a lot better race car that was a we had we had approximately about 15 18 more horsepower uh which was a bu you know back back in the day cuz you know we fighting rules and everything you know m uh and and and we don't want to get into the deal about the highport heads or or that kind of thing I going I going about that manone I head probably for for about three years you know I really like about what you guys and and and and men and what y'all doing uh it is keeping it going right is keeping it going and keeping it accurate you know Bobby and I have traveled thousands of miles together oh and when he talked about your dad he loved you and your dad very much we love we Y and and you know you know how special Bobby is to me so he saved he saved my life and he became more of a father than my real father I had been hanging around Bobby in the races since 1972 February 6 16th 1972 that's when my life changed and it became a way of life this period um struggled in the early days of Miami with uh schooling and and amongst other things um but at the time that I met Bobby I was 11 years old in 1972 February and it just became into a friendship ever since then we we used to go up there with my dad said in 1972 he had underground pipe supply company that he was a Salesman for and he approached me at like Christmas uh in 71 said hey guys my brother and I how would you like to go to Daytona and watch the race and I said that would be fantastic but the one thing that I or nor my brother will ever forget is my dad said on the way up boys do you know I know the Allison I thought to myself oh boy dad started drinking early the the funny part is is I was determined to find Bobby Allison and as it happened I guess it was uh the Wednesday we were up there my dad and my brother said well we're going to try to get in the pits and so in the pits with was easy Once you knew how right at the flagst after the practice or the race whatever they would open the gate so they went in saw Bobby and Donnie and and all the the crew and everything and I was still walking around the track I must have walked five miles that day I was going to sneak in somewhere I was a rookie then but I got better I was headed back to the campground unsuccessful and my dad and my brother walked up to me and said where were you we w we got in and we saw Bobby and Donnie and and R the whole group and I'm not sure if red was there or not but nonetheless I just started crying I just started crying and um so my dad says you know what TJ we'll we'll try to go back tomorrow and my dad said don't get lost Follow Me Maybe we can have the same luck we did yesterday so sure enough the practice was over and time trials or whatever and they opened the gate my dad says just do exactly what I do well right at the flagst there's still a pretty good size grade there so my dad jumps down and trips well he's trying to keep his footing I have never seen a man run 35 mil an hour ever in my life but when it when he got on the apron he invented the the scor pan cuz my dad's feet were right here skinned up his face and everything and so so we we found the Allison and I was at awe and Star Struck and and uh so Bobby is leaning over the hood of the car sees my dad walk up with blood and you know SC face scraped up and Bobby said not much changes with you does it because they knew each other my dad was a little older than Bobby and he was closer to Eddie's age but at that particular time my life changed and this is a story I've always wanted to tell because in Miami I was number two tested for uh learning uh disabilities and um then quickly acquired two stomach ulcers and was not happy and I found when I was talking to Bobby everything had changed so that's when my life had changed and I built more confidence after talking with Bobby there's more to Bobby Allison than just a a historic and a fantastic race car driver it's Bobby Allison the person because he cared at any time at any given time you can talk to him I could call him he gave me his home number I could call him I could ask for advice and anything that's why it's just been a way of life for me there's a cool bonus story about uh Greg Bobby in a telescope at the end of this video after my little wrap-up segment here so don't forget about that I just love how profound this stuff is and how there's so much more meaning to these cars than just a car like it's never never just about the car like Roger Pensky says racing is a people business it's it's all about people everything's about people cars aren't just hunks and metal they they way to forge a life to learn skills to make friends everything all of this my entire life right now is due to my blind dive into doing stuff with cars cuz I hated school and turned into…