Shop visit to Bill Rhine Restoration and Fab shop
 

I got a call from Bill last week to ask if I might come take a look at a car that he had just acquired and thought that It might be one of my old race cars. Some one had been far off the road hunting and had seen this car under some sort of a shed and found the owner to take a look at it. The hunter was a NASCAR fan and seemed to think that it might be one of my cars as I did some things different that other Cup car builders during that time and notified Bill. He bought it sight unseen and had it delivered it to his shop in Denver, N.C.

Peggy and I took a trip to Bills restoration facility, then he took us to his farm where he had a LOT of cars. Bill fabricates and restores high end cars, prototype cars, show cars for current NASCAR teams and has made most of the car related displays at the NASCAR Hall of Fame including the cars used as simulators. He is currently involved, working behind the scenes for the Toyota prototype work on the 2021 new NASCAR rules changes. He is also a fervent collector and restorer of what he termed 'relevant' cars, not only of NASCAR, but IMSA and is a big Elliott Forbes-Robinson fan.

I am quite certain that this particular car the he just bought looks to have been driven by Elliott. I built it from scratch originally to take to Daytona in February,1982 where we finished fourth in the first qualifying race and eventually finished 7th on the lead lap for the 500 itself, sponsored by the Jolly Rancher Candy company. It was raced a few time after that, then it, along with another of my cars was painted as a Four Star Whiskey car for the Stroker Ace Burt Reynolds movie. I do not know the history between the movie and the finding of this car.

I do not know if Bill is going to restore it as a Jolly Rancher car or a Stroker Ace car. He has already restored the Burt Reynolds car from the movie. Bill has 68 NASCAR cars in his collection, 62 of which have already been restored, and stored in three separate locations.

The first set of pictures are about this car.

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Here are some pics of the 'Chicken Pit' car from the Burt Reynolds movie Stroker Ace.

I am driving the #77 car that is running along side the 'Chicken Pit' car.

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Wow. What a great find, Will. Very, very cool to see this happening. Sure do hope to see more as it progresses...

Here are some pictures of his fabricating area.

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Here is one of his prototype cars.

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Here are some of Bills collection.

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How cool is that!

Awesome to know the history.

Hi Will
Talk about a trip down memory Lane!!!!!
You must have thought you died and were in heaven.

Most of us would think we had won the lottery if we could be the proud owner of just one old NASCAR, i can't imagine having that collection.

I'm happy that you were able to see that collection.

Steve

Will,
Looks to me that you had one too many Whisky's in your memory bank ! :D. (Five Star in your report vs. Four Star on the quarter panel of the car )

Very happy for you to get reunited with your old car.
Going to try to re-acquire it ?