General Information
In March 2016 I was reading Nick's ('69FuryIIIConvertible) restoration posts and saw a photo of a John Petrie shirt which brought back a ton of memories.
I wrote the following post to Nick.
Brings back memories. Back about 1970 John Petrie took his Super Car Clinic on a road tour all across the country. When he was in Kingston at Kingston Dodge Chrysler I took the Fury in and got a decal that looked exactly like the one on that shirt. It was stuck under the hood and for years was an interesting discussion point. Unfortunately somewhere along the line it disappeared. It was kinda neat to meet "the man himself".
To my great surprise Nick posted "Bill, I can will get you a replacement for that decal!"
Nick followed up with a PM. "All I need from you, if you don't mind, is a quick re-telling of how you received the original, and what the Clinic was like, Mr. Petrie and the MClennan's would really enjoy that!"
The following is the story.
My first memories of John Petrie go back to the Desoronto drags at back in the early 60's. Those were the first 'pro' races I'd ever seen. I'd watched local street drags in Ottawa and was "turned on" to Mopar watching two guys race their 57 Fury hemi cars. One was 4 speed and other was an automatic. Interestingly, the auto car nearly always won and both always won against the GM and Ford cars. At that point my goal was to own a Mopar with a big engine and an automatic.
I enrolled at Queen's in 66 so the next few years where spent all my time learning to be an engineer. In 1969, true to form, I custom ordered my Fury with a big engine and automatic transmission. Once again I found myself on the racing fringe watching the new breed of muscle cars. I liked to watch, but had no real desire to race myself, my new engineering training pointed out all the things that could go wrong. These were very heady times, these cars were amazing.
Anyway in 1970, the John Petrie Super Car Clinic arrived at Kingston Dodge Chrysler and the dealership asked if I would bring my Fury to the clinic. As I recall John brought 2 or 3 of his cars which we all looked over carefully to see if we could spot any "magic mods" that made them go fast. LOL
As it happened I arrived before the Challenger/Cuda/Charger crowd so I did get a chance to speak quietly with John before the mob arrived. While I don't remember details of our discussion, I do remember being impressed that he was such a very nice, down to earth type of guy, very different from the "drag racer" image I'd expected. At some point I discovered he was born in Sept 42 which I thought was neat since my birthday is June 42 and that made me his elder for 3 months each year. Funny the stuff you remember.
We hung over the fenders of my Fury and he gave me a few tips to perk up the 440. He signed one of his decals and stuck it under my hood. I thought that was neat and over the years showed my autographed "Super Car" to a lot of people. Unfortunately, when I had the body work done, the hood had too much rust in the folded seams to repair so the hood was scrapped long with my sticker.
When I saw the jacket logo all the memories roared back, what a rush!
So here are the requested pictures of the Fury with it's John Petrie badge properly restored to it's place of honor!
Thank you Nick and thank you John!!
I wrote the following post to Nick.
Brings back memories. Back about 1970 John Petrie took his Super Car Clinic on a road tour all across the country. When he was in Kingston at Kingston Dodge Chrysler I took the Fury in and got a decal that looked exactly like the one on that shirt. It was stuck under the hood and for years was an interesting discussion point. Unfortunately somewhere along the line it disappeared. It was kinda neat to meet "the man himself".
To my great surprise Nick posted "Bill, I can will get you a replacement for that decal!"
Nick followed up with a PM. "All I need from you, if you don't mind, is a quick re-telling of how you received the original, and what the Clinic was like, Mr. Petrie and the MClennan's would really enjoy that!"
The following is the story.
My first memories of John Petrie go back to the Desoronto drags at back in the early 60's. Those were the first 'pro' races I'd ever seen. I'd watched local street drags in Ottawa and was "turned on" to Mopar watching two guys race their 57 Fury hemi cars. One was 4 speed and other was an automatic. Interestingly, the auto car nearly always won and both always won against the GM and Ford cars. At that point my goal was to own a Mopar with a big engine and an automatic.
I enrolled at Queen's in 66 so the next few years where spent all my time learning to be an engineer. In 1969, true to form, I custom ordered my Fury with a big engine and automatic transmission. Once again I found myself on the racing fringe watching the new breed of muscle cars. I liked to watch, but had no real desire to race myself, my new engineering training pointed out all the things that could go wrong. These were very heady times, these cars were amazing.
Anyway in 1970, the John Petrie Super Car Clinic arrived at Kingston Dodge Chrysler and the dealership asked if I would bring my Fury to the clinic. As I recall John brought 2 or 3 of his cars which we all looked over carefully to see if we could spot any "magic mods" that made them go fast. LOL
As it happened I arrived before the Challenger/Cuda/Charger crowd so I did get a chance to speak quietly with John before the mob arrived. While I don't remember details of our discussion, I do remember being impressed that he was such a very nice, down to earth type of guy, very different from the "drag racer" image I'd expected. At some point I discovered he was born in Sept 42 which I thought was neat since my birthday is June 42 and that made me his elder for 3 months each year. Funny the stuff you remember.
We hung over the fenders of my Fury and he gave me a few tips to perk up the 440. He signed one of his decals and stuck it under my hood. I thought that was neat and over the years showed my autographed "Super Car" to a lot of people. Unfortunately, when I had the body work done, the hood had too much rust in the folded seams to repair so the hood was scrapped long with my sticker.
When I saw the jacket logo all the memories roared back, what a rush!
So here are the requested pictures of the Fury with it's John Petrie badge properly restored to it's place of honor!
Thank you Nick and thank you John!!
