“It’s really sad he spent all that money on it and never got to enjoy it,” MGuire continues. “Nobody ever saw this paint job until I took it to the Hot Rod Reunion in Bowling Green in 2008.”McGuire has a 350-inch small-block Chevrolet for power with a four-speed. “It’s a handful — people like to watch because it bounces around going down the track.”
Mel passed away a year ago, and as an ode to his role in the cars’ history, Dwight pulled the tie-dye t-shirt out of the box he’d been given in the sale and tied it around the passenger seat — “I put it on there said ‘ol Mel is still here. And the day I did that, it started pulling a wheelie — it had never done that before. So I guess he’s still down here kind of watching over it.”