The ex-Big Willie Robinson Duke and Duchess Dodge Daytona in its restored state. Photos courtesy Corey Owens.
Last May, restorer Corey Owens finished work on the last surviving Big Willie Robinson Dodge Daytona, known as the “Duke and Duchess” car. After showing it at May’s Midwest Mopars in the Park and August’s Mopar Nationals, Owens has made the decision to part with the 1969 Dodge Daytona, which will be offered at no reserve as part of Barrett-Jackson’s January, 2015 Scottsdale sale.
Owens acquired the historic race car from fashion designer and Mopar enthusiast Donwan Harrell in 2010. As purchased, the car’s paint was badly faded, with faint traces of the car’s original hand-painted lettering showing against the faded pale yellow paint. Worse, rust was no longer just superficial in some areas, and the car’s original lightweight fiberglass hood was too frail to reuse. For a time, Owens wrestled with preserving the car instead of restoring it, but the deeper he got into the project, the more he realized that restoration was the best option to save the car.
The restorative work involved replacing sheetmetal around the car’s rear window, along with recreating the car’s fiberglass hood and rear deck lid. The paintwork attempted to recreate a “Day Two” look, with the goal of returning the car to its appearance under Big Willie’s ownership. The paint, then, is imperfect: The car’s engine bay wears the Daytona’s original red, while the pale yellow is seen only as overspray, as is also the case on the car’s underside. Robinson understood that paint didn’t make a car go faster, so there was little sense in spending a penny more on it than necessary. The hand lettering, however, surely looks as good as it did the day the car rolled out of the sign shop decades back.
Though there’s evidence that the car once carried a Keith Black Hemi beneath its hood, power now comes from the same 440-cu.in. Magnum V-8 originally delivered with the car, strengthened with the addition of a slightly hotter camshaft. A three-speed TorqueFlite transmission sends power to the rear differential, which Owens just had rebuilt in time for the sale. Inside, the seats and steering wheel are original to the car as well, though in its competition days stouter perches and a thicker steering wheel were likely used in lieu of the original pieces.
Forgetting about the amount of labor Owens and his shop, Ogilvie Collision, have into the Daytona, there’s still the issue of parts and materials. On top of Owens’ investment in the car, he once told us that the parts bill alone had topped $30,000, and that was before the restoration was completed. It’s tough to put a value on the car in its current state, but Owens points out that number-matching Daytonas routinely sell in the $175,000 range, and that’s for cars without the historical provenance of the Duke and Duchess Daytona. In its unrestored state, Harrell reportedly paid $250,000 for the car, but that was all the way back in 2006, when the market for collector cars appeared to have no ceiling.
Owens recognizes the risk of offering the Daytona at no reserve, but he remains optimistic that he and his partner will at least break even with the car. Equally important, he’d like to see the car got to an owner that will exhibit and use the car, instead of keeping it locked away in a private collection. Though Big Willie Robinson died in 2012, his name remains the stuff of legend in the Southern California drag racing scene, and this car is the last of three Daytona’s that once belonged to the street racing legend and his wife, Tomiko. Will the car break the $250,000 barrier at auction? We’ll find out on January 17.
For additional information on Barrett-Jackson’s Scottsdale auction, visit Barrett-Jackson.com.
from Hemmings Daily - News for the collector car enthusiast http://ift.tt/1sQ6eii
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