Is That Bud Moore / Earnhardt Car a Ford or a Pontiac? Are You Sure?

Our RR upcoming events calendar lists an event on Sunday, October 14 that is titled MEMORY LANE MUSEUM HONORS BUD MOORE .

The event description is found at this link below - just click.

http://stockcar.racersreunion.com/events/memory-lane-museum-honors-bud-moore

I sure plan to ride up to Mooresville, NC and see my old friend Bud get honored. The event copy also says that the 1982 Bud Moore Wrangler Thunderbird that Dale Earnhardt drove to victory over Cale Yarborough in the 1982 CRC Chemicals Rebel 500 at Darlington is also displayed in the museum and a picture is included on the museum web site.

When I read that statement, I broke out laughing. As the Manager of Wrangler NASCAR Special Events, I was in the Bud Moore pits that day and in victory lane with Dale and Bud at Darlington. I don't know anything about the 1982 Wrangler T-bird in the museum, but I do know that not all 1982 Bud Moore / Wrangler / Dale Earnhardt Thunderbirds are what they appear to be.

Let me explain :

The 1981 NASCAR Winston Cup season began with Dale Earnhardt driving a 1981 Rod Osterlund #2 Pontiac sponsored by Wrangler. Osterlund had a former Pontiac speedway car Wrangler bought to use for a show car. In fact, I drove that show car in the 1981 Daytona 500 pre-race parade and it overheated. Osterlund Racing Manager, Roland Wlodyka took the car back to the Old Statesville Road shop in Charlotte and put a different fan in it to keep it from overheating at slow parade lap speeds.

As has been well documented, Osterlund sold the Dale Earnhardt team to JD Stacy in summer of 1981 and Wrangler brokered a deal with Richard Childress to field Pontiacs for Dale in the final 11 races of 1981. A lot of folks forget that Childress ever fielded a Pontiac, but Wrangler had a deal with Pontiac for 1981. I paid the salary for the late Robert Gee to go to Richard Childress' little shop and skin some sleek #3 Wrangler Pontiacs.

At the same time, we had to re-decal the Osterlund / Wrangler Pontiac show car #2 to a Childress / Wrangler Pontiac show car #3. That wasn't a big problem, except for my show car budget over run.

When Wrangler signed with Bud Moore to field Ford Thunderbirds for Dale in 1982, I had no money in my budget to build a Ford Thunderbird show car. So, I did the next best thing.

I paid the ever reliable former father-in-law of Dale Earnhardt, Robert Gee to hang 1982 Ford Thunderbird sheet metal on our 1981 Pontiac race car, keeping the Pontiac race engine in the vehicle.

For three-quarters of the 1982 racing season, I thought I'd gotten by without anyone discovering what I'd done. Then a letter to the editor from a fan appeared in the Southern MotoRacing paper of the late Hank Schoolfield. The letter asked why the engine they'd seen in the 1982 Wrangler T-bird on display in August at a department store in Bristol had the distributor on the wrong side of the engine?

I have to hand it to Hank Schoolfield. He really bailed me out. If you never knew Hank, let me explain that modesty was not one of his virtues. Ole bald headed Hank had been sports editor of the Winston-Salem Journal and was the public relations guru for both North Wilkesboro and Bowman-Gray Stadium. In addition to those duties, Hank founded and owned Universal Racing Network, broadcasting events prior to ISC owned MRN. Hank never met a subject on which he did not consider himself to be an expert. Such was the case with Hank's response letter to the fan who obviously knew the difference between a Pontiac racing engine and a Ford racing engine.

In an amazing display of pomposity that only Hank Schoolfield could have summoned, he explained in print to the race fan that the NASCAR Winston Cup racing mechanics often took liberties with race engines and made modifications so they would fit in the space allotted. This, he explained, was why the distributor appeared to be on the wrong side. It was a special modification made for racing.

Well, we laughed our butts off - me - Bud - Dale - everybody who knew anything about the history of our Wrangler show car. The fact that I was spending goodly sums of advertising dollars with Hank in his paper and on his radio broadcasts may have accounted for his answer. I was too sheepish to ever ask.

For the life of me, I can't remember what we did with that car when we built a new style Wrangler T-bird show car for 1983. However, when I get to Mooresville on Sunday, October 14, I think I'll ask Bud and Greg Moore to take a look under the hood and tell me if they see a Ford or Pontiac engine, lol!!!

Shown in the Dozier Mobley photo below is the very car I have been telling you about, on display at Richmond Fairgrounds Raceway on September 12, 1982 at the Wrangler SanforSet 400. There is a 1981 Bob Burham built Osterlund Pontiac racing engine under the hood of that 1982 Bud Moore Ford Thunderbird.

The fellow on the left is my late father and the man on the right is "Mr. Wrangler" from the television commercials. He was a Hollywood actor named Ray who also did Buick commercials in a suit sans the mustache. Those are the facts, mam.

The two cars below are the same car as above, except with the Pontiac skin. First is #2 1981 Osterlund livery and second is #3 1981 Childress livery. #2 Photo by Dozier Mobley, #3 photo by Bryant McMurray:

dave - this is incredible i remember this car - that robert gee was the best when itcame to hanging sheet metal - hey guvner - this is awesome stuff dave - thanks so much for posting this - your right all is not what it seems to be - you guys pulled the wool on this one - the old monte carlo that dale drove for osterlund in 79 and 80 - was actually a 77 model - but dale liked it the best - said it handled better than the buicks they had - thanks again for this - im still laughing .

Hey Dave, (Fulton)

Here is a pair of Wrangler/ Earnhardt / Bud Moore cars for for you to look at.

One is of one that we did for Bud, and is shown at our shop.

The other one is a 'publicity?' photo of unknown origin. I do not know if it was the same car, but I was unable to see any differences.

Bud Moore sure treated me well and gave some businees back in the day. I really appreciate his service to our country as well.

Those are beautiful photos, Will of a great looking car (or cars). I never met a finer individual in racing than Bud Moore. His entire family were wonderful to our family. Did not matter what the contract said, Bud always gave MORE than required.

When we moved back to Spartanburg in 1986 from Dallas to work for the Derrike Cope deal, Bud insisted that we move into his lake house on Lake Bowen until we could find a place. He and his late wife, Betty met us late on a Sunday afternoon after we drove for two days in two vehicles from Dallas.

When we got to the lake house, Betty popped the trunk to reveal at least two weeks worth of groceries she had bought for our family. While the girls were busy, Bud took me in the kitchen and showed me a spot on top of a kitchen cabinet where he'd hid an unopened bottle of Crown Royal in its purple velvet bag in case I had a bad day at the shop.

Keep in mind, there was absolutely nothing I could do for Bud Moore at that time in the racing business - he is just a wonderful person. They don't come any finer in my book than Bud.

I can't wait to see both Bud and that old T-bird in Mooresville. Thanks for posting the photos, Perry. I bet Bud spit about a quart of tobacco juice in Darlington that afternoon when Dale was racing Cale late in the race!

David, my wife and I went to Rick Hendrick's big Christmas party in 1986 at the steakhouse that moved into where the old Fogcutter was near Eastland Mall/Sharon Amity/Central Ave., because I'd handled the publicity and announcement in Atlanta of the "Dream Team" - DW, Waddell Wilson, Hendrick & Tide.

The highlight of that party was Robert Gee getting up and singing. It brought the house down. We need more characters like Robert today in racing.

Dale won again for Bud in a 1982 "shoebox" Wrangler Thunderbird at Nashville in the 1983 Busch Nashville 420.

I also remember the interiors of Bud's cars always being painted gray. The blue interior on our 1982 Wrangler T-bird show car should have been a dead give away that it wasn't from Bud's shop.

I also see that in 2008, the International Motorsports Hall of Fame at Talladega "borrowed" the Beam collection Memory Lane restored 1982 Bud Moore / Dale Earnhardt / Wrangler Thunderbird and promoted it as the car Dale won with at Talladega, which, of course, was a 1983 T-bird, not the Memory Lane '82 car.

Wonder how they managed to have a screw-up like that? Guess they didn't bother to look at any race photos.

Earnhardt drove 1982 Thunderbird but not as winner
Thursday, July 10, 2008
MIKE BOLTON
News staff writer

The Birmingham News

A car unveiled at the International Motorsports Hall of Fame on Tuesday and touted as the car Dale Earnhardt drove to his first victory at Talladega Superspeedway is not that car, the car's owner and Hall of Fame officials confirmed Wednesday.

The 1982 Ford Thunderbird unveiled Tuesday was driven by Earnhardt but is not the car in which he won the 1983 Talladega 500.

The Hall of Fame and the car's owner blamed each other for the inaccurate information.

The Birmingham News first noticed a discrepancy Tuesday evening when photos of the car unveiled earlier in the day did not match The News' file photographs of Earnhardt's car taken by four photographers during the 1983 Talladega 500. Hall of Fame officials were notified Tuesday evening and said they would seek an explanation.

The car's owner, Alex Beam, who restored the car and had it on display at the Memory Lane Museum in Mooresville, N.C., told The News on Wednesday that the Hall of Fame had contacted him because it was looking for a 1982 Ford Thunderbird driven by Earnhardt. He said he told Hall officials that he had such a car.

He said Hall of Fame officials never asked whether the car was the one Earnhardt drove to victory in the 1983 Talladega 500.

A misconception of this type could easily happen in todays racing world,if it didnt look like it a tap from a hammer corrects that.

In the eightys cars STILL had their own personality to a point and you easily explained that with your rehanging sheetmetal on a Ponti-Bird . You have accomplished a slight of the hand maneuver that most folks didnt see(but that was the object of the game - right) because you displayed it as a unit of one measure when in truth it was of another. So in truth the Bird was really a Pontiac unless it needed to be a T-Bird which really made it be a Ford of sorts cloning to be a Chevrolet of fact.

Did I make myself clear ? Or do I need to add a Studebaker in there that Kyle drives...

Johnny,

I kinda hate to admit that in my days at Wrangler we owned a couple of Studebaker airplanes in our fleet. Actually, they were extremely noisy Mitsubishi (the folks who built the Zeros that attacked Pearl Harbor) MU2 turboprops. We called them the "Rice Rockets." They were ideal for takeoff/landing on very short strips in the rural areas where our plants were located, but I hated to fly on them. You couldn't hear yourself think, much less carry on a conversation. I bet Laverne Zachary has some photos of those planes.

Here is a #15 Wrangler Pontiac that won the very first race of what is today's Nationwide Series. Dale Earnhardt drove this Robert Gee built car to victory in the 1982 Goodys 300 NASCAR Budweiser Late Model Sportsman Series opener at Daytona in February 1982. Russell Photo

And, the Robert Gee #3 superspeedway Wrangler / Earnhardt Pontiac Late Model Sportsman car in late 1981:

Was the WRANGLER CARGO PLANE # N10088 an #15 WRANGLER RACE CAR hauler?
What races was it used?
#1. WRANGLER RACE CAR, PLANE, TRUCK
#2. WRANGLER CARGO PLANE # N10088
#3. WRANGLER CHEVY SUB TRUCK
#4. FILLED - UP WRANGLER CARGO PLANE # N10088
#5. YELLOW T - STRIPED ROOF #15 WRANGLER RACE CAR
#6. YELLOW T - STRIPED ROOF WRANGLER #15 RACE CAR

At Wrangler (Blue Bell, Inc.) we had two of those Canadair CL-44 cargo planes with the swing out tail headquartered at the Greensboro airport. They were used primarily to take 1,000 yard rolls of denim from Greensboro's Cone Mills and Burlington Industries' Erwin Mills to our Lady Wrangler division headquarters in Puerto Rico and bring back finished goods.

One plane had been purchased from Flying Tiger Airlines. I don't know the history of the other. They were also occasionally used to fly to Africa's Ivory Coast to our plants there, also. Later they were licensed for full cargo hauling and began to haul a lot of electronics back to the mainland from Puerto Rico on what would have been "dead head" empty return trips. One of the planes crashed at Boston's Logan Airport in the 90s when the landing gear wouldn't deploy.

Member Laverne Zachary who did business with Blue Bell/Wrangler Aviation has many Wrangler plane and Earnhardt photos in his collection.

My first show car driver, Ricky Parham (a good friend of Winston Racing Team's Wes Beroth) staged the #2 Osterlund show car that day. That is Ricky's Suburban you see in the photos you posted, Dennis. When we went to Bud Moore in 1982, the Suburban was exchanged for a Ford van.

Ricky was from Oxford, NC. On Thanksgiving Day 1983 - now 39 years ago - Ricky and his dad were killed when their trail bikes collided head on in the woods on the family's Oxford farm following Thanksgiving dinner. Mrs. Parham made the decision to remove Ricky from his ventilator at Duke University hospital the same day she buried his dad. Ricky was well loved on the race circuit. Racers from everywhere came to the funeral. The little country church outside Oxford had to put speakers in the parking lot so the overflow crowd could hear the service.

I hired former NASCAR flagman and official Chip Warren to replace Ricky. It was a sad time.

The plane NEVER hauled the race car / show car. Sorry for not answering your original question, Dennis.

That awful looking orange bordered shot of Dale and the car was shot by the late Dozier Mobley at a hurry-up session from the photo tower on pit road at Daytona in January 1982 and used in 1982 as our Wrangler fan pass out cards. Dale HATED that card.

Link to Laverne Zachary Wrangler Aviation and Dale Earnhardt photos posted here at RR on his home page:

http://stockcar.racersreunion.com/photo/photo/listForContributor?screenName=31kfr13pd7yhn&xgi=&test-locale=&exposeKeys=&xg_pw=&xgsi=&groupId=&groupUrl=&xg_disable_customizations=&page=3

So you are saying this car wouldnt fly,or couldnt,or maybe it wouldnt fit... WRANGLER #15 RACE CAR

My math is bad. Thanksgiving 2012 will be 29, not 39 years since Ricky & his dad crashed their trail bikes. Seems like yesterday. When we were living in Dallas, Ricky's mom secured Cabbage Patch dolls in Raleigh and had them shipped to Texas for our girls for Christmas 1984. They were a wonderful family. His mom & dad operated a garbage collection business.

Thanks, I enjoyed your post, I think the "insider" and behind the scenes type of posts are the most interesting. This is one of the '83 Victory Lane photos, the scan didn't come out very good but you can see more of the car in it. I probably have ten to twelve different photos, both black and white and color ofvictory lane that day. I think the other shot was from the same day but sometimes things run together any more in my old mind.

Thought you might like this too: Atlanta

Thanks, Robert. Do you remember the awful storm that blew up before victory lane finished? Sky turned black and all heck broke loose.

I had been in the Wrangler Suite outside turn 1 and I got Dale's mother, Martha in a Sheriff's Dept. car, but we didn't make to victory lane before the storm, even with the motorcycle officers trying to lead the Sheriff's car back inside the track.

Thanks again, Robert. This photo is from the Spring 1981 Atlanta race. I blew up the photo and I "think" that is me driving/steering that car race day morning.

This was the only race at Atlanta for a #2 Osterlund / Wrangler / Earnhardt car. In the Fall 1981 race, Dale was in the RCR Childress #3 with Wrangler sponsorship.

Note of importance - the Spring 1981 Atlanta race was the first for Dale Inman as crew chief at Osterlund for Earnhardt after leaving Petty Enterprises.

I remember being out in the groves of pine trees (long gone) outside the turns that morning stringing Wrangler banners with Bob Jannelle. They showed great on television!

Dale Inman on the right if I'm not mistaken. Earnhardt in his western leasure suit with his back turned to the camera, see the next shot for the "dressee" Earnhardt.

yes to all of the above, Robert... thanks for the memories

Here is a photo of one of those noisy turbo prop Wrangler "Studebaker" Mitsubishi MU2 "Rice Rockets" taken in Greensboro at Blue Bell Aviation by Laverne Zachary. Thanks for the photo, Laverne. Many old memories. Dale Earnhardt flew with us on one of these to the first New York Winston Cup Awards Banquet in 1981. We'd fly in and out of Teterboro, NJ airport.

Wow!!!! This is an awesome thread! I love that Wrangler stuff! More memories Dave!

Thanks, Cody. I'm afraid I'm repeating myself too many times, though.

With Richard Petty's son-in-law, Charlie Luck, trailing in the 45 Luck Stone car.

http://www.luckstone.com/company/team/charles-s-luck-iv

Charlie was actually living with the Pettys at that time... kinda like Mikey did.

Dave and Robert,
Photo of #2 Wrangler Race Car - Spring 1981 Atlanta race.
Is this a Pontiac race car?
Is this a show car or race day race car?

Did Dale Earnhardt wrecked this race car before the race?

The front end of this #2 Wrangler race car looks funny, all-chrome front bumper, location of hood pins, and the small chrome grill section?
Could this race car be a Ford + Pontiac = Fordtiac? LOL
The front fender has at least 20 different stickers (STP,Good-Year ect.)just like the other Pontiac race car teams.
I noticed other race teams used 2 different race car rim wheels at different race tracks: the 5 wide hole race car rim wheel and the the 10 small hole race car rim wheel.
Thank you very much for any information given.

I was wondering what it was my self. The front portion look of that of a Mercury.....but from the front fender back is all Pontiac.

I thinkthe #2 WRANGLERrace car was repairedwith an 1979 GRAND PRIX PONTIAC Front end parts missiing the chrome (left & right) headlight trim.

Photo 4. 1979 GRAND PRIX PONTIAC Front Side View
Photo 5. 1979 GRAND PRIX PONTIAC Front View

Another version (mine) of the 76 girls and victory lane as shown in the earlier artlcle; Plus a little different view in black and white.

On a couple of photos you mentioned Dozier Mobley, does anyone know if he is still around and is he still shooting? I have a good photo of Dozier shooting with a smokey bear or state trooperhaton if I can find it

It was a "back-up" Osterlund Pontiac off the truck that we used in the pre-race parade that day in Spring 1981 at Atlanta. That's all I remember. Our show car wasn't there. The actual race car that day had white wheels. The car I drove off the truck for the parade had chrome wheels.

Definitely no Ford connection until 1982. Wish I could remember more.

Could it have been the Richmond or Rockingham or Darlington car?? Wish I could remember.

Dave, Is that you on the far left under the L in the sign?

Dozier M. Mobley
Born: December 6, 1933
Died: November 10, 2009
Jefferson, Georgia

Dozier was born on December 6, 1933 and passed away on Tuesday, November 10, 2009.

Dennis, I'm not in the photo. I was in a Sheriff's car with Martha Earnhardt being escorted by motorcycle officers, but got stuck in traffic trying to get her from the Wrangler V.I.P. Suiote outside turn 1 to Victory lane. An awful storm blew up and victory lane was cut short.

I posted some things about Dozier back in February. Check out some of the pieces in this thread:

http://stockcar.racersreunion.com/forum/topics/when-football-and-motorsports-collide-super-bowl-xlvi-meets-indy?commentId=1981311%3AComment%3A643965

I worked at the Gilbarco plant adjacent to the Greensboro airport from '89-'91 and when the wind was right I could see the Wrangler cargo planes coming and going. I seem to recall they had their own place at the old airport right beside the newer one.

I well remember always going by the Gilbarco plant. Wrangler Aviation was down from the old brick terminal in some steel buildings. Kinda looked like a bunch of thrown togerther WWII stuff.

Well it definitely wouldn't be the first time guys have borrowed parts to rebuild after accidents.

Case in point: Kyle Petty crashed his primary Pontiac in practice for the 1983 Miller 400 at Richmond. Not sure whose idea it was, but they ended up with the bumper off the rental car and on the car for the race.

I guess there are many reasons, Jay, why the racers have always been so well loved by the rental car companies, lol!

Congrats Jay for catching KP's eye with your tweet to him during winter testing. In the post-race of Homestead, KP simply alluded to a pic I tweeted him of Penske Racing's first start with Mark Donohue. With your tweet, you got the full-on color commentary!

We have our own in-house RR personality with Jay!

Good catch, Chase of Jay's great job.

Take a bow, Jay!