'59 Plymouth Forum

Here's a little more info on the 1959 Plymouth in NASCAR and Daytona Beach speed runs.

First appearance of a 59 Plymouth was by Lee Petty at Trenton, NJ on May 17th, 1959. After the Daytona he continued in Oldsmobiles and most of those races were in the 57, not the 59 that won the 500. Richard Petty competed in some but not all of the intervening races, also in a 57 Olds. I didn't dig further to see when he made his first start in a 59 Plymouth but it wasn't at Trenton.

We have at least one, maybe several members in our group who have built Petty tribute cars based on 59 Plymouths, hope some of them are reading this and could supply more info.

Now, back to the beach! Found more data on 3 cars that competed in the Pure Oil trials, in the "Big 3" class (Plymouth, Chevy, Ford) where I mentioned earlier that a Plymouth had the fastest time, but was disqualified for undersize valve, due to Chrysler's published data glitch. The fastest car was from Ohio, and the official speed was 120.967 mph (I previously said 123, from memory of reading it long ago.) Still, that's not bad, considering in 1958 the top speed in the same class was 116 mph, by a 58 Pontiac. Still digging for more data on the beach runs but I have found some good leads... and more memory jogs.

Wow1 Doing a little web search myself ... I found out I knew the 1959 pole position driver Fritz Wilson. he drove the Holman and Moody prepaired zipper-top thunder bird #64. zipper top meant removable top to race as a convertible. The car lost a piston and did not finish! EVEN SMALLER WORLD! My wife's mother grew up with Fritz and his brother Don in eastern Colorado. Fritz and Don raced MoPars Fritz owned a Super Bird hemi powered and raced Challengers on short track. I used to talk to Fritz at our racing award banquets, that is how I found out the last bits of information. His brother Don built left-hander chassis', I visited Don's home, shop many times.

Wow, just discovered this thread. A wealth of info. I made 2 sets of copies, one for me and one for my friend who used to race stocks locally back in the day. He raced a '58 Plymouth.
Bernie B mentioned Dave Marcis. He is from my home town here, Wausau, Wis. We just saw him recently at a local car show. The show promoter brought Dave in to make an appearance. I think Dave said he is living in NC and building hot rods with his son-in-law. He's lookin' good. Still wearing wing tips. Sometimes his picture appears in the local paper. He advertises for a company selling hearing aids. Dave's brother Don, has a '57 DeSoto, original, lots of patina, nice car. He takes it to a few local car shows.

Dick Trickle...from Wis Rapids, WI, about 45 miles away, he used to race here locally until he moved down south. My friend ran into him a few weeks ago in a local coffee shop. Dick now lives in NC also. Guess these guys don't like our Wis winters. Dick was up here for the Larry Detjens Memorial Race here in Wausau. Larry was killed racing Alan Kulwicki (forgot the year and where, southern Wis somewhere) If I recall, Alan bumped Larry Detjens and Larry's car hit end of pit wall. Dick Trickle and Alan Kulwicki got into a scuffle after that accident.
Remember when Trickle was driving Winston Cup car #66. During a caution, camera showed Trickle smoking a cigarette while driving around track (priceless)

Side Note: Back in '66 when I traded my original/first '59 Sport Fury for a '66 Mustang, dealer later told me a guy bought it to make a stock car out of it. Never saw it again, though.

Another note: Scott Wimmer and his Dad, Ron, recently bought the local race track here in Wausau where Dave Marcis got his start. Before the Wimmer's took over, the track was about to close. They refurbished it, made improvements, and now every Thnursday nite, they have a packed house.

Neat info John! Glad that the old track was rescued from being close down. We don't need any more shopping malls to re-use the space that old tracks use to be!


John Q.

Glad the Daytona thread was revived, and your mention of Dave Marcis et al Wisconsion racers brings to mind this memory. I only went to Daytona once, in 1976 - well known for the last lap crash of Richard Petty and David Pearson. I was sitting in DePalma grandstand, at the head of pit row, watching through the telephoto lens of my camera. Could'nt beleive Pearson could catch Petty, then saw them come out of turn 4 side by side, next thing was a big "whump" sound, then tire smoke and squealing tires. Lost sight of what happened for a few seconds, then focused on Petty sitting in the infield - then a bit later a cheer goes up as Pearson comes back around as the winner. Anyway, the connection was Dave Marcis won one the the Twin 125's that year in the K&K Insurance #71 Dodge. Don't remember how he finished but that was a quality car back then. Been a long time Dave Marcis fan too, I like to root for the little guy. That brings us to Alan Kulwicki and his "Underbird" winning the 1992 Championship. Was a long time Kulwicki fan too, long before he won his first race in Arizona and invented the Polish Victory Lap. Something in the Wisconsin water, I guess. And I've had some, too. Spent a few days there on a couple business trips not quite ten years ago, along the shore of the lake.

There's plenty more to dig out of the 1959 Daytona events concerning our Plymouths, too. I located names of three entrants in the beach speed runs, but decided against trying to see if they are still around... it's been 53 years. Would still like to find a list of the speeds turned by all entrants, but just the fastest Plymouth was listed, which was disqualified due to a paperwork error as I'm sure I covered before.

Just a little more info on Dave Marcis. Back in 1971 my friend bought a new '71 Dodge Charger Super Bee here in Wausau from the Dodge dealer. His main reason besides liking the car was that this was the type of car Dave Marcis was driving at the time in NASCAR. Turns out my friends wife could not drive the car in the winter because of the torque/traction, etc. It just wouldn't handle on icy roads, so they would park it for the winters. They still have the car today and because of not being driven on salty roads, he has kept it in show room conditon. Car gets a trophy at almost every car show.
He had the car at the show Dave attended and Dave signed his sun visor for him.

A few years ago Dave purchased a supper club/resturant in rural Rib Lake, Wis. called Camp 28. He used to come back here to deer hunt and liked the place so he bought it. But he sold it a couple years ago because he had a hard time managing it properly from North Carolina.

Wow! This thread has covered several historical race related drivers and topics. Now I also can relate to weather from Daytona to Wausaw Ice storms. I am on call for snow removal here in Colorado and drive in adverse weather conditions to get to work, I repair snow removal equipment. I survived ice roads skiing here in Colorado. I am suprised we all survived driving performance vehicles on bias ply tires. Two days ago we were in the 80 degree Heat and now we won't make it out of the 30's today. The best ice storm vehicle I ever drove was a 54 Plymouth Savoy with the Hy Drive option. The Chrysler 300 G is the most dangerous with 495 ft lb of torque @ 2800.

Ricky,

Please, no four-letter words here - and snow is a four-letter word! Good luck to you for the season. You brought back a memory; my best car in snow was my 70 RR 440-6 with four speed. Heavy car, Sure-Grip, etc. Wouldn't run well until warmed, but traction no problem, did have studded snow tires. Had it from 1973-76... still have the powerplant.

On another related topic, you said your family had connections to Dennis Maurer - Judy Lilly cars I think. If interested, check out the ClassRacer.com website, find the forum on Hemi Darts and enjoy. Tons of info.

Great web site..