This is a photo of Johnny Beauchamp's first 1955 Chevrolet STOCK car.
swanson9 by
Nathan Pitts, on Flickr
I have the model kit for a 1955 Chev Belair 2 dr sedan and want to build a model of this car. The man in the hat is George Short, of Omaha, NE who bought the car brand new from a chevy dealer. The man beside the rear tire is Dale Swanson, the mechanic and race car builder from Harlan, IA who built many race cars that Johnny Beauchamp drove early on in his career. This was his, and Beauchamp's first attempt to race in modern STOCK cars. At that moment in time a stock car truly was stock. A good mechanic got the parts he wanted from the factory to make his car truly competitive.
I sent a message to Hemiman asking if he thought he could make the decals for this car. He asked if I could find more pictures. I found out a while ago that Dale Swanson, Jr has had a race car shop in Harlan ever since he got old enough to work on the cars. So I sent him an email a couple days back asking if he had any more pics of this car. He replied today. He was extremely interested to learn that anyone would want to build a model of this car. He said he would look through his pics and see what he had. Then he went on to tell me that he is 79 yrs old, and was there the night this photograph was taken. He was 13 at that time. He said this photo was taken around 10 PM and the car was raced, for the first time, the next day. He said he remembered it well and that it was "baby light blue and white, as it came for the dealers lot.
I just love when you can find the history of something like this. Fascinating and really still a pretty small world.
Dale Swanson, JR race shop
https://swanson-automotive.com/MB