Bill Thomas /race cars

[Jon Mello]

Looks like somebody bought the rockers and all the other pics have been taken down from the ad.

[Jon Mello]

Bill Thomas had some involvement with Andy Porterfield's '68 Z/28 Trans-Am car, building the
race engine, providing the headers and exhaust, and contributing to the chassis set-up.




Jon Mello Collection

[Jon Mello]

It is believed that the decal shown below is the style used in two places on the front fender of Porterfield's orange Camaro.


Jon Mello Collection

[Jon Mello]

The February 18, 1967 issue of Competition Press & Autoweek reported that Bill Thomas would be involved in heading up
the Nickey Chevrolet Trans-Am effort but this was a short lived endeavor. 1967 was an off year for car sales in general and
Nickey decided to conserve their resources shortly after this. I talked to George Follmer about this recently and he told me
that he was good friends with Bill Thomas and does not recall ever being asked to drive a Camaro for him.


(Jon Mello Collection)

[satman]

Neat stuff Jon............
Back in 1968 I was in LA building engines for some  Australia racers I used to buy a lot of my parts from Bill Thomas and in those days it was a real happening place Their primary focus on drag racing and Corvairs with a small bit of road racing thrown in. I think they were mainly brokers with most of the good stuff coming from Traco and other local suppliers.

AL

[Jon Mello]

Thanks, Al. Yes, BTRC sold a lot of performance parts, often from other suppliers but they would also build and modify cars for people there in their shop. By 1971 though it was all over.