The #96 Die Cast cars are in and I'm pretty stoked!

I went to the Lionel Action die cast company on Friday after they called and said that the 'plated' cars had arrived as well as the original 'painted' cars that were in a week earlier.

I was quite surprised as I had not heard of having 'plated' cars. They offered them in platinum, gold, white gold and copper. The white gold and the platinum ones look almost the same unless you move them around in the light.

All but the original prototype, which I have, show a serial number under the right rear wheel, adjacent to the fuel cell. If any of you see one of these cars somewhere, post the serial number as I would like to know the locations of where they are going.

They made 6,096 of the 'painted' cars and only 96 each of the four styles 'plated' cars. I was told that all the cars have been sold to dealers and that this car was the 7th fastest selling car that has been offered to date.

I was able to 'acquire' the non-serial numbered car, and original style 'painted' cars with the serial numbers 3 and 96, and one each of the plated cars.

This was my race car that Dale drove in 1978 or so, and I am pretty stoked that anyone thought of something from that far back in time, but it sure brings back a LOT of memories. I just wanted to share my enthusiasm!

Here are some pics. After viewing the prototype, I asked that the blue on the car be lightened up some what and that the suspension was actually painted blue at the time. That appears in some of the photos.

Well, I better get back to work, I am getting real far behind in the Panel Truck restoration.

Very nice, Will. I can see why you're proud.

I want one! I will let you know where I found mine when I find it Will. Iwould definitely like to purchase one if I run up on one of them.

I saw this 1/24 came out recently. There are some custom diecast's using Bill Elliott's #4 "Dalladega" Torino redone in the #96 Cardinal paint scheme that sold for well over $150 in the past, Lionel has put a stop to that monopoly.

I think this would look cool next to my autographed 76' Torino of Bill, but maybe later, Congrats!!!

I was at the car show in Hickory last week to meet with "Humpy" Wheeler. I wanted to get a copy of his new book and he wanted to see the new die cast car. He was very generous to write some kind words in the book, the wrote some more nice things on the cover of the die cast box and gave the box back to me. When I got home and started reading the book, I saw that he continues to mis-spell my last name, LOL.

Cody: I took one of the cars to my friend 'Buzz' McCall at the NASCAR HOF museum, and I went up on the 'track' to take a closer look at the Elliot car they have on display after he mentioned that it was the car he won his first race with at Riverside. I wanted to take a closer look at the car because Bill had brought that car to my shop after returning from Riverside to have another body put on it. The car had different inner 'panels' in it, but I saw some of my particular tell tale details and recognized that he was correct about it being the Riverside car.

I have some items that I am going to donate to the museum from some Dale 'stuff' that I have.

Yesterday, I stopped at Dale's shop to chat with Randy and give him one of the cars and I was hoping to get to see the 7-post shaker that they have being used. DEI has a contract with GM to do all their race teams 7-post work. I never got to see a 7-post machine actually working, but I did spend some time observing the installation of one when the Ginn trace team was installing their machine (I'm certain that it is the one that DEI uses now)

Yes Will, that car used to be in our museum as we have 6 of Bill's cars in the Georgia Racing Hall of Fame. That IS the chassis from 1983 Riverside, but the body is the next era of the Thunderbird. He won the Riverside race with what I call the "Boxy Bird" which looked like a shoebox. In 84', Ford introduced the new aero bird. The 1985 body was put on for Michigan I believe. Hope this helps.

-Cody

Hey Cody, thanks for your response. We did a large number of repairs and re-bodies for Bill after we re-skinned this car.

We modified the two new 'bird' cars for the Universal Studios movie Stroker Ace with Bert Reynolds before they were available at the dealers. We became very familiar with the new, smaller 'birds'. When Bill was making his run for the million dollar season, we were constantly on the road to his shop picking up and delivering rebuilt and/or re-skinned cars. Of particular interest was when Dan took me across the road to the old lumber yard(?) and I saw all the wrecked street cars.

We also restored the car that he won the million dollars with. I'm not sure where it is on display now, but you can tell which one it is by the fact that there was a dash plaque noting that it was rebuilt at our shop. We made it ready for a 'reveal' at some downtown convention center / motel and Bill was kind enough to permit me to attach the plaque.

By the way, I also did the restoration for the Petty car that is/was(?) in the Smithsonian Institute in DC.

Also, the 'bad guy' car(s) in that Stroker Ace movie were my actual race cars and I drove the 7-eleven car in the movie and provided eight additional cars, two tractor trailers and all the pit equipment.

Cool. Yeah all the old muscle/street cars is now infront of Bill's shop, behind the OLD Coors shop, and adjacent to Ernie's shop if that makes since. The old building supply shop is still there but it is overgrown with kudzu.

Thanks Will.

Cody, maybe you can confirm or deny something that I remember Dan telling me one day. I was down there picking up another car to make into a show car, and when I noticed all the cars in the old building supply 'yard', I asked Dan what all the cars were doing there and he said take a good look at them. All I could see was the fact that they were all / mostly all Fords, and his response was that they were all cars that Bill had wrecked, most on route #9, and that their dad felt it was going to be less expensive to have Bill drive a race car, than keep him in street cars.

Will, could there be a connection between the #9 on the race car and hwy. 9?

That is what I took from Dan's comments.

Yup. That's how it got started, because they always drove on 9, so their car number naturally became 9. It was a combination of that and Bill's early idols, Jody Ridley, and his brother Biddle. Jody was known for driving a #98 for Bill's dad, and Biddle usually ran the 9. When All three were in the same race, Bill would let Biddle drive 9, and Elliott would either drive a #97, 94, or 99.

And about the street cars. I have heard that too. I have never gone in the yard because I have always had business in the shop, but from just glancing, there are probably 20-30, maybe even 35 Ford products. Every thing from Falcons (And lots of em') Cougars, Comets, Torinos, Mustangs, one or two Galaxies, maybe one Thunderbird (65?) See when they were all young, and George's supply business was his sole business, he had several old cars that he'd give the boys to tinker with. Bill had a 61' Starliner that was white with a red top and the car's name was "Purolator" in which was Bill's jalopy.

I didn't mean to high-jack your thread about your diecast, Will, sorry. lol

-Cody