Bill France Ford

[MarkJ]

Bill France drove this car for Raymond Parks back in the early days of stock car racing before NASCAR even existed. I have been hesitant to post it because I got the color wrong on it. So, when you look at the build pretend that the red parts of the car are a dark silver. I had no color ref pictures of the car when I built it so when you look at red and silver in a black and white photo from back then they look basically the same. Amoco was one of the sponsors of the car and the Amoco signs back then were red and black, so I just guessed on the color red because of that. Other than that, the build should be correct, I hope. It's really hard to find color pictures of real cars from back then. I found out from pictures of museum cars that were built later and I'm pretty confident that the builder of the replica car got the colors right.

[john2]

        Well, it's a really great model anyway.  Very nice.

[Michael F]

I know it´s hard to find good color pics of that era cars.
Even color pics are no guarantee for original colors.

You built a very fine model !!

[racecar dave]

Looks good to me. great period piece

[MarkJ]

Thanks guys. About the only colored media back then was 8mm movies that have been made into YouTube videos for us to look at today. I found a YouTube video with some of Big Bill's cars from back in 1941. I captured two of the images from that video. the quality isn't that great, but you can see he liked his cars to be silver. I'm thinking the big 4 door might be a Lincoln. Might even have been Raymond Parks personal car. You know that these cars were driven to the race not trailered. The ref pic car I used to make the model was not in the video but I'm sure it must have been silver. The graphics on the car were the same as far as the sponsors Hemphill and Red Vogt being on the roof.

[MarkJ]

Turns out that 4 door was a 1941 Graham Hollywood built by a guy named Graham and another guy who owned the Hupmobile company that failed. Graham had something to do with Cord because the Graham was made from left over tooling from Cord and Hupmobile. It had a supercharged 217.8 cubic inch straight 6 engine. Only 1378 were built. I'm thinking it had to be Raymond Parks who purchased it because back then France was just a service station owner. Didn't say how much horsepower it produced but I'm sure it was pretty healthy for back then.

[TarheelRick]

Mark, this is another excellent build showcasing again your outstanding capabilities.

[Volzfan59]

No matter if the color is right or wrong, it's a beautiful, well done model.

[Rattlecan Dan]

Great looking build. Very nicely done.

[MarkJ]

Thanks guys. I really appreciate the kind words. I thought it was interesting that Big Bill was actually one of the best drivers of the early forty's to have been able to get a ride with Raymond Parks who was like the Rick Hendrick of his time in stock car racing.

[catpack68]

Really nice work on this one Mark!👍

[racecar dave]

Beautiful period piece

[MarkJ]

Beautiful period piece

Thank you, Dave. Appreciate the kind words.