The Sketchy World of Vintage NASCAR Sales: Avoiding The Scam with Aaron Brown

This car is an absolute scam. And I'm going to tell you why. Just because somebody tells you to do it, you really need to think, should I do it? I mean, that's nuclear quality welding right there. Suspension is set up for road course racing. Well, let's take a look at that. This is where the disasters begin. So, you asked for it, whether you like it or not, you're going to get it. We're back here at the garage shop with Aaron Brown. We're going to learn some stuff today that could possibly save your life or someone else's. What are we doing here? What we're going to do here today is we got three cars. All three of them came from Ring a trailer. And you know, if you happen to sell this car and you and it was yours and if you get your feelings hurt today, I'm sorry, but you know, I'm my business. I see a lot of people, they spend a pile of money on these cars and then they don't they get them and then they're over their head and then all of a sudden it's another 50 grand just to make the thing complete the dream. And I know there's a lot of people that's watching this that know that know that. I know who you are. You know, one of my pet peeves is when you read an ad and they say, "Oh, it's race ready." Race ready for define that. I mean, let's define what does race ready mean. Does that mean race ready to go make parade laps? Does it mean race ready to drive around the neighborhood and impress the kids on their bicycles? I mean, does it mean let's go be competitive at an SVR event? You know, I just want to go over some stuff and maybe all together all of us can learn some more cuz we can always keep learning. We're gonna get that Thunderbird out. We got this 29 car that came from Bring a Trailer. We got this Sam Hornish car over there. And at the end of the video, we're going to go over my Dodge Daytona. You know, as well taken care as that car is, is it race ready? No. And I'm going to tell you why. So, stick around to the end and that's going to be a lot of fun. It sold for $16,000. It, you know, is it worth that? It could be. you you know it needs a lot more work. Ford Thunderbird, you know, been built in the early '90s. Mark Stall 10 races after being retired. But the there's key words in these ads said to be or reportedly it it's either right or wrong. Don't post, you know, conjecture in an ad. I mean, one of the things when you look at these cars is you want to come up in here and and look down in here. Now, if you look right here, this car has been clipped obviously before. It's been cut right there. It's welded. Had a bar put in it. I mean, the weld's back in there. I mean, it looks like bubble gum machine got after it. Explain what clipped means for someone who doesn't know. This car was wrecked really hard at some point. It had a whole front clip on it. It's probably had a couple front clips on it in my opinion. I mean, the way it's I mean, that is not a factory weld. And it's actually even I don't have my glasses, but the weld's actually cracked right there. If you can see that right there. When you say front clip, that's all the suspension points. At some point, this was thing was bent. I'm guessing it was bent back when it did race Winston West or whatever it did uh back in the day. Um because it still got a strut rod front clip on it, which is really really old. that somebody had took and decided I guess they didn't have the sway bar arms, the proper sway bar arms or lost them or something. So, they went and put this contraption on here to be able to run a standard sway bar arm. And then, you know, race ready. They put the bolts in upside down. You know, these these pieces here kind of designed that these bolts come loose, but they're still in there. The sway bar arm still has half a chance of staying on. So now this bolt comes out. The nut comes out. The bolt falls out the bottom on the racetrack and then the arm comes off cuz you take that off. There's a groove cut in there. So the bolt is kind of as long as the bolts in the hole, it can't slide out. It has it has a chance. Yeah. I'm not saying it's going to stay on there, but it has a whole lot better chance of being there being there versus not being there. I mean, obviously with the bolt gone, it's coming off. So, I mean, that's another thing we see a lot of, you know, stuff is stuff like that. Uh, and then here's another thing we see a lot of, too, which I've seen it kill destroy a couple cars. Uh, these fender braces don't have lock nuts on them. Uh, they this should be a double lock nut right here because this will come loose. This comes out, comes back, his tire blow right front tire, whatever, and you're junk. Some of the things they say like they oh it's Penske racing shocks and and they allude to the fact that the car was road race which makes everybody think oh I I can go road racing it's not a circle track anymore. That's pretty far from the truth. Does it have Penske shock absorbers on it? Absolutely. But those are those are like old timey as you can see from the rings the rings in them. These are for coilover coilover shocks. You put your sleeve on there and these were like a Penske late model coilover shock. They're not a cup bush cup level, truck level, Xfinity level type Pensky shock. So to me that's kind of Is it a Penske shock? Yeah, absolutely. Is that something that you're going to take up immediately and be competitive at Indie SB this weekend? No. You'd be make parade laps, you know. So there's vote one for pre parade lap race ready parade lap car and and really this car would have this year car never would would have had Billings on it anyway if you were going to res you know if it was like a restored car I think it's like like a cut and paste template that these people use you know through the through the website and you know because all the verbiage is written very very similarly it's almost like AI wrote it you know I mean it says has a Ernie Ernie Elliot you know, engine Ernie Elliot heads. I mean, I could be wrong. Like I said, I'm not an engine expert, but they usually have EI stamped on them in the very front and and I'm not seeing that on either side. So, who knows? Uh, you know, and and then, you know, the way the freeze plugs are in this block as compared to way a real NASCAR block is prepared. Um, you know, that's that's not right. So, you know, so there's already some little bit of issues. I mean, these brake calipers by today's standards, these guys that are racing these cars at any level, they're not racing that. And it it's it's going to be a huge waste of your time if you bought this car and thought, "Hey, I'm going to go to Indie and I'm going to race the SVR event at Indie." They they pro I mean, it'd be a waste of your time. It would be it would be embarrassing and you'd never want to do it again. like these radiator hoses. Here's another like this one's not even attached. I don't I don't even know what they got going here. I don't know. But right there, if you look at these two clamps, Yeah. that's another indication that somebody that doesn't know how to work on a race car was working on a race car, these clamps should be opposite each other cuz if you try to put them both on at the same time, you squeeze them, you they'll actually start leaking where the clamps are cuz you pull the hose over and crimp it. So, they should be opposite. And I don't even I don't even know what they got going on down there. These ridiculous things here, you know, and they they they go ahead and put those adjustable setup arms on them and race those. Probably not a good idea. Not with these cars as heavy as they are. I've seen that a lot of times. I've also seen them break. I've seen them come loose. Seen that destroy cars quite a few times. Are those more intended for you use that for mockup to get where you want? Yeah. Then put it in the fixture, set the fixture up. I mean, that's what we use them for. I mean, I I remember back in the day, you know, we'd go to Daytona or Tallaladega for a test and, you know, they'd throw one of them on there, you know, run around a few laps for it and then we'd take it off and mark it, put some notes on it, and if it's what they wanted, we'd go back to the shop and build one. I mean, this line right here, 239, like 99. So, that line is 25 years old. buy the car, you go get the engine refresher, you're going to hook all this junk back up to it, not knowing what's been through it, rust, metal. How many times the engine's been blown up in this thing? I mean, the cool thing about this car is it still has a mechanical clutch right there, which quite a few people don't know how to make them work. That was actually one of my jobs when I worked at the seven car at the racetrack was to set that mechanical clutch. And it's quite the art to get it just right for the entire race. But these headers, you know, it's good. These This car's got a little honeypot of really neat old parts. These headers, you know, were made, you know, were made for that, you know, for this arm, which is kind of which is kind of cool. Isn't Mark Stall from the stall headers family? I think so. I don't know. That would explain why it got nice headers. I mean, it's a neat piece, you know? It's pretty neat piece that that's those are like really hard to find and if you need them, it's very frustrating. I mean, that's cool. It's still got the, you know, the old style Modin oil cooler on it. Really hard to find those. So, I mean, in in all reality, if you were restoring a really nice car, this car has got a lot of really cool period correct parts on it that you I wouldn't race today, but if you were restoring something, I mean, I'd strip this. I'd use this for parts, you know. Then we come here to the inside. The insides are always to me the most impressive because this is where This is this is where the disasters begin. And and if we can, you know, look down through here. I mean, we got the seat mounted, you know, through all this cheesy stuff. This slotted bracket, you know, down there. Bolts sticking out. They got that go down in here. That bracket's not that thick either. No. I mean, the bolt head's just sticking through the inside of the seat there, you know, with a little tiny washer on it. uh you go up here. I mean, that's real nice in the back of your neck right there. You know, it's not use a button head or anything. And then it has no back strap on it, you know. It has no back. So, the seats basically in those sliders, they're bubblegum welded to that half Mickey Mouse seat bracket, you know. And then if you look here, I mean, the leg braces. I mean, that's We'll bend that over. We get a really good look at it. I mean, that's that's that's high quality right there. I mean, it just don't get no better than that. You know, if this if the, you know, the leg board don't fit, you know, let's just spend a lot more time hacking together some junk, you know, to rivet in there and, uh, you know, let's just not make a new leg board, but, you know, so, I mean, if that was the goal, I mean, they they really accomplished that one really well. I mean, I'm a I'm really kind of particular on the seats and stuff in these cars. Um because we actually race ours and and you know, at well over 200 mph, that's just not acceptable to me even to ride around the street. It's not cool. And then you come back here. this aluminum bracket. I think somebody either broke it or welded it made this thing and either ground all the weld off of it or whatever, but it's only 90,000. It really should should be 120. The seat belts are wrapped around this mess right here. And and they're going to your shoulders are not going to be this high. So the this car to really make it right needed a bar put in up here to over there. We had to do that to that Harve car. Let's go look at that. This should Yeah. So would this be an example of an acceptable way to have your seat belts? Yes. We had when we got this car, it had, you know, it had like this Mickey Mouse seat in it. But, uh, we ended up putting this bar in right here because when we mounted, you know, the seat and everything and it, you know, there was nowhere to put the seat belts down there. And so, we made we made this bar. But, as you can see, our stuff's it's not dragging on anything. You know, it's all where it needs to be. And you can come down see the leg the leg braces off bit. You know, all the it's got all the right bolts. you know, the seat belt bolts, mounts, and all that stuff are all where they belong, you know, and basically, you don't have to reinvent the wheel. I mean, NASCAR already, you know, for this time frame, they already dictated how the seats go. Just do it like they say, you'll be fine. It's been proven time and time again that it works. I mean, that's about dry as a bone right there, you know, and been greased and who knows when, you know, these brakes. I mean, there's nothing back here that's I mean, remotely race ready. And again, they didn't advertise this as race ready. They said it was raced. And I mean, I'm sure it was at some point. I mean, this car was bought to be, you know, kind of stripped down and turned into a show car for restaurant for some restaurants. You know, as far as restoring this car, I would never restore this car. I'd scrap it. Too much work. It's just too much money. I mean to do it right. I mean you can half put it back together and go do parade laps if that's your thing. I mean if that's your thing. I mean I can't I mean I that's not what we do here. If you move up the food chain a little bit, you spend a little more money and you get a car like this. Yes. What do you have to do to it? What do you need to look for? Well, this car sold for $16,000 which really in in closing again I think that was fair money for that car. at 16,000. I mean, you're getting a motor. I don't, you know, I think there's a Jericho in it. You know, there's some there's some hard to find parts. You're gonna sit on them for a while and have to restore them. Could you make your money back on a little bit parting it out? Yeah, probably. You know, and then sell the thing as a roller, whatever, you know, let somebody play with it. You could probably make money make more money on it parting it out. It It's just not worth the amount of money it would cost to actually make a legitimate race car again. But fair deal for for parade laps. Thi this car right here was another car that was bought on bring a trailer 35,000. And here we go again with the weird words. 2003 Chevrolet Monte Carlo Cup Series that is said to have been driven to a second place finish by car Kevin Harvick. That doesn't make sense to me. I mean said to by who? Right. Said by who? You know, like don't if you don't know, don't say it. Don't Just because your car's got a radiator in it that you think was at Bristol doesn't mean the car you just bought was driven at Bristol Motor Speedway in 2000. That's absurd. Like, bring some proof to the table, please. You know, because that's how these people get in trouble. You know, stop jerking people around. I'm sure somebody at RCR could look up the numbers on this car and and it would be pretty interesting because it was ran at Bristol, but then they also took it to Charlotte. It, you know, that's kind of a odd deal that you would take your Bristol car to Charlotte in Atlanta, but I mean, who knows what, you know, they were doing with it. um you know in Texas it I mean this car has has a I mean for the variety of tracks it ran at you know it'd be kind of cool if somebody could tell us where it actually did run cuz it is a real Harvvic car. So how can you identify that it is a real RCR Harvick car other than the graphics on it look like they're well again proper when you come over here somebody who's really good can fake proper graphics. Oh yeah. So that's it's a Ronnie Hopkins chassis. It you know, you know, chassis number over here is RCR 110. And this chassis was built in 10 of O2. Ronnie RH's Ronnie Hopkins Engineering. The month and year it was built, which was uh 10 of O2, and it was the 1288th chassis that RH built, and it's RCR chassis number 110. So, I mean, in my opinion, we've worked on quite a few RCR cars and a couple Harvick cars that this is this is true and correct and it and it's pretty unmolested and at $35,000, it's a really nice car. This is like the cup quality stuff that that guys used to do. You can see where the window, you know, somebody really took a lot of time. Everything's fit finished. I mean, that was always one of my favorite tricks. If you see the holes in the, you know, the holes in the uh window braces, you'd put those holes in it with the Rotex punch and then you would paint paint the window brace. Well, then you'd get your a real nice counter sunk and you'd go up through there so it would be black with, you know, the aluminum, you know, in the counter sunk, which is all I always thought was really cool looking. It just really finished it off and gave it a nice finished look. You know, these cow panels, that's always a tattletail sign as if it's like legit or not. These cows fit really nice. You know, they got the little hinge in it. You know, everything's just everything's right. Nice. Fits along the hood and everything. This is not a road course car, but the majority of the majority of this body looks really nice, you know. I I would say I mean this was probably a pretty good little short track car at some point in its life. Um you know and it still has a lot of the neat stuff on it when we got it you know again a supposedly road course car which we knew it wasn't yada yada yada. So we get it and the engine was basically a stock bottom end small block Chevy with SB2 heads on it. So we got tricked on that one. It was not stated in the what listing was that? No, it was not stated in that ad. And so we had Jeff Collins, you know, Jeff Collins took and basically rebuilt the whole thing. And this particular block was very difficult to find. I can't remember why, but this was kind of a pain. You know, it was really a pain to get this thing put back together properly. You couldn't even use the same block? No, no, it wasn't. It wasn't even a race block really. Right. It was some hacked up. It was It was a mess. Windshield was all fogged up. We had to put a new windshield in it. Then basically we went through everything like every hubs went through everything on this car and then it had like a Muny four-speed or showcart transmission in it. So we put one of our center shift transmissions in it. We mounted the seat, made new legboards, redid the fire system. Uh this car actually went land speed racing, so it has a parachute handle in it which was a lot of fun. They took this car to Arkansas. I We took it up there a couple years ago for Vance and I'll bet 10 different people drove it and they just made laps in this thing running 200 mph, you know, round and around and around. So, you know, in a standing mile, which was a lot of fun and it's a super comfortable car, you know, could we put six piston brakes and all that stuff on the front? We could, but they don't drive the car long enough on the racetrack. They'll go out and make 5, 10 laps. So, why have six piston brakes? You know, they're not really racing it. We have brakes and stuff for it, but why why put that on there if the, you know, the four piston stuff actually works a little better for the pace and what they're doing with it because they come up to temperature a little quicker and they level off. They can have a good time in 10 a 10 lap run instead of, you know, 10 laps to get the a real hard driving to get the brakes hot. Just because somebody tells you to do it, you really need to think, should I do it? That's a lot of money, you know, to put six piston brakes on something. Is that going to is that modification going to fit your needs? Are you driving it like Kevin Harvick where in six laps you…