This is for NASCAR's (and AK's) Chevy fans. In late March, 1955, at a half-mile dirt race track in Columbia, South Carolina, a popular period driver named Fonty Flock drove a '55 Chevy, number 14, owned by Frank Christian to the brand's first Grand National (now Sprint Cup) win. When I first read about this nine years ago I began searching for a picture of the car. Unfortunately at the time there were none to be found. A blue and white '55 Chevy actually later won the 1955 Southern 500 and possibly because of it's color pictures and the importance of the Southern 500 at the time has been the poster child for Chevy's first successes in 1955.

Thanks to the explosion of NASCAR history books available in the first years of the new century I ran across a few black and white pictures of Frank Christian's Fonty Flock driven car, but what was really needed to enable modeling of this car was color information. A few years ago I bought a color video which had footage of the 1955 Southern 500 in which Frank Christian's car ran with a different driver. When I watched the video specifically looking for a '55 Chevy with a "14" on the door I saw the car on the pre-race warmup lap. I managed a screen capture (which is the picture in my avatar) and had it posted in an expansive NASCAR modeling site now named ovaltrackmodels.com and waited for a skilled modeler to turn it into something three dimensional. (I haven't the patience for intricate modeling.) Earlier this year a model showed up. While it may not be exactly what the car looked like at the spring Columbia race, I think it does a great job of capturing the "look" of the car as it campaigned through the 1955 Grand National season.

There has been a lot written this year about Tony Stewart adopting the number 14, and how A.J. Foyt approves of 'his' number going to Tony, and how a number 14 car scored Chevy's first NASCAR top series win. The link below takes you to the car.

http://www.ovaltrackmodels.com/mjohnson14.htm

An additional link shows more views of the model and some of the pictures from which details were drawn.

http://www.sharksrealm.com/sd/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=1794

That person did a great job on that model! Especially making his own decals. I have made some decals for model railroading, and it is not a very easy thing to do, to get them right.

Thanks for the post ec! Fun to read. The Flock brothers, especially Tim and his monkey, and their sister Ethel are legends in NASCAR.

I'm a Tony Stewart fan through and through! Tony's shop in Concord, NC is a throw back to the old Chevy days. I have friends on his pit crew and love going in there when I'm in NC! :thmbsp:

excellent post, thanks..as a loyal A.J Foyt fan, as well as Tony Stewart, who is one of the few that still get it, I really enjoyed seeing this

Those models are excellent.

I love to see real bodies stock cars :) Even models are way cool :)

Anything but COT :(