(soft rock music)
(engine revving)
- Here we are in the south.
And it's raining and it's supposed to rain all day today
and all day tomorrow, 100% chance.
So I'm driving a more modern vehicle than the Woodie
because Woodies don't like to be out in the rain.
We're on our way up to Virginia.
To visit a guy I met several years ago
while I was writing a book called Barn Find Road Trip.
Real interesting guy.
His name is Snowball Bishop.
Of all the books I've done, Barn Find Books,
he's one of the favorite people I've ever met.
Neat man, neat cars, neat story.
So I hope you enjoy it.
(soft rock music)
This man is Snowball Bishop.
I met this man a number of years ago
when I was writing the book Barn Find Road Trip.
We're driving up the highway,
right up the interstate highway,
and I looked over my right shoulder,
and there was a field full of cars.
I said, we've gotta go visit that man.
And it took a long way to find out where to get here.
And I just thought you'd enjoy meeting him
and seeing the cars that he has,
the cars he's restored in his garage,
and the cars he has in the field out back.
So you got two '64 Fords here.
You restored these yourself?
- Yeah.
This one here now, that's unrestored car over there.
- That's unrestored, okay.
So this is a '64 390.
- [Snowball] I found it in a tobacco barn.
It had been setting seven years in a tobacco barn.
- [Host] Tobacco barn.
- [Snowball] It was unrestored, four-speed car too.
- [Host] Yeah, and it came with a four speed.
It was originally a four-speed car.
- He said, I'll tell you what.
He said, you probably wanna give me,
be like the rest of them that come in here and
don't wanna give me nothing for the car.
I said, well, I don't know about that.
I said, you care if I go look at it?
I went on up and looked at it.
That was the original engine in it.
He just up and said, would you give me $500 for it?
I said, why certainly I will.
I said, would you care if I just
go ahead and pay you for it today?
And I said I'm down here just to cross,
so I'll come back and get the car.
He said that'll be fine.
So I started on it, I took it off the frame
and I done everything on it.
- [Host] You took it off the frame?
Everything, no kidding?
Does this have dual exhausts?
- [Snowball] Oh yeah!
- [Host] Wow!
Original hubcaps?
- [Snowball] Everything original about it.
- Now here's another two door hardtop.
- Yeah this car here now.
The old Fords wasn't bringing nothin then
when I bought this car.
You could buy them for a dime a dozen.
- [Host] What year did you buy this car?
- [Snowball] '68.
- [Host] 1968, so this car was four years old
when you bought it.
What'd you pay for it?
- I bought it for $250.
- So 500 and 250. (laughs)
We'll go inside this building
and then we'll walk through the fields out there.
(upbeat music)
That's a rare four-barrel right there.
It's an auto lite 4100.
You have two of them?
- [Snowball] Two of them.
- [Host] Can I buy em?
- [Snowball] I'll sell you one of them.
I'll keep one myself.
- [Host] Alright, you got a deal.
(upbeat rock music)
Four Barra manifolds.
So there we got grills for 64's up there.
Consoles.
'63 grill.
Steering wheels, new bumpers.
I'll put this carburetor right here.
- You want that?
Which ever one you want.
- Alright, now I want you to tell me
about this stock car over here okay.
- [Snowball] Oh, lordy!
You know I got the motor
and everything over there in the garage.
Brand new engine goes back in it.
The four speed, well the four speed and the housing,
sitting right there somewhere goes back in it.
Chrysler, you know.
- Now what year is that originally?
- [Snowball] I ain't be sure.
You know I run the 37's all the time.
- [Host] '37 Ford coupe.
- Yeah, the coupe.
This car here coulda been a '39.
I ain't be sure.
I finally found a '37 hood up to Richmond.
They sold it now.
My boy brought it to me.
I used to run the '37 Ford hood.
I like them the best on it you know.
- [Host] Mm-hmm.
- [Snowball] I've gotta have a piece
of it to put it back together.
- So when you ran that did it have a flat head originally?
- Yeah, started out with a flat head in it, you know.
I finished sixth in a 100 lap race with the flat head.
- [Host] With a flathead behind five Chevy's?
- [Snowball] Yeah the Chevy's.
I told my daddy, I said we gonna have to do something.
I run with the 312's, running good
along side the big block 390's is and the 427.
You know, I love Ford, don't get me wrong,
but they just wouldn't run with the 312's
it would run better than the 390's and the 460's and 427's.
I found out Richard Petty had had
a bunch of stuff down at his place left over.
426 wedges and stuff.
I said, mmm, maybe I ought to find out more about that.
(host laughing)
So we called and found out and went down there.
He had one engine complete sitting in the corner.
A 426.
Had some miles on it.
And he enough parts and stuff to maybe build two engines.
Old man Lee was living at the time.
- Lee Petty?
- He said boy what can I do for you.
I said I'm down here looking for
some parts to build on of them.
I'm thinking about running Plymouth.
More parts.
I've been running Fords.
I can't run with the Chevrolet's.
He hollered for Richard to come out there.
Says, Richard that stuff laying
over in the corner over there.
What are you gonna do with it?
He said, Dad I'm not gonna do a thing.
He went to the Hemi's you know the heavy stuff.
- Hemi's yeah.
[Host] - This is great stuff.
- This boy is interested in buying that stuff.
What do you want for it?
He said, oh, I don't know junk price swap it off to him.
That's how he spoken.
Well I didn't have all that much money with me at the time.
He says would give $1200 for all of it.
I said that sounds reasonable enough
but I said if I had $1200 I ain't got that much with me.
Back then we didn't know what a credit card was,
you know, back then.
Had maybe a checking account you know
not very much in the checking account.
We went to dad, you know, make the old man go
dig some money out of the green box somewhere.
(host laughing)
But anyway, he said, how much money you got boy?
I said I got a $1,000, all my money right here.
Richard would you take a $1,000 for that stuff.
He said, yeah.
But I spoke up and I said now wait a minute here.
I said I got to have some gas money to get back home.
(host laughing)
I said I'm 150 miles away from the house.
I don't know how far it was I was down in Randaleman.
(host laughing)
He said give me $900. (host laughing)
Load it up.
I loaded everything up and that started the ball.
They knew we was in the ball game.
We won the championship.
- Wow! - With that car in 1972.
I don't know how many races that thing did.
We put them engines together.
Kept them and run them and run them and run them.
Till I run out out of 426 stuff then,
I went to the 440 blocks.
- Did you have a four speed in there?
- [Snowball] Oh yeah.
- [Host] Four speed.
Okay, and a Franklin quick change.
- Right there, she sits right over there.
- [Host] Oh, yeah, okay here.
- That's it right there on there and the bell housing
- Oh, yeah.
- [Snowball] Somewhere right there.
- [Host] Whoa look at that.
- [Snowball] I got the four speed somewhere.
- [Host] Yup.
Well that's a beauty.
Would you sell that car?
- [Snowball] No.
- [Host] No.
We're gonna walk around, we're gonna walk around back there.
- Go ahead and look at all that junk
whatever y'all want to do.
- Alright, good.
I think you probably get why I like this guy so much.
I mean, he's the salt of the Earth.
He'll tell you just what he thinks.
A sweet, sweet guy who grew up on this property
in the house right down there
and he said his mother was the school teacher.
In a one room school house
and that's where he went to school.
He spent his life working mostly
for Volvo trucks which has a plant near here.
Building race cars and restoring old Fords.
This is the race car that, you know, (laughs).
This should be in a building.
I mean, last time I was here it was in a garage.
He would work on it in the garage
and his friends would come over
and help him until late at night
and there was no power going to the garage.
They had to run the extension cord across the street
and up into into his house and that's how they got light.
In the garage they'd work on the car
and then eventually a card game would break out.
They would be playing poker
and it'd be three in the morning.
His wife.
You gotta come in now it's getting late.
He wouldn't come in, wouldn't come in.
So he told me.
(light swooshing)
She'd just unplug the extension cord.
That was the end of the night, boys you gotta go home now.
So, that's where this car was worked on.
I would love to buy this car.
This is a piece of Virginia racing history.
It's run flat heads.
It ran wide blocks.
It ran engines from Richard Petty.
Both 426 wedges and then 440's.
Neat old car and if I were able
to buy this car I wouldn't even paint it.
I'd put clear coat on this thing and build it
into a vintage race car and road race it.
This is one part of his life, his racing.
The other part is restoring old '63, '64 Fords.
So we'll walk back here and take a look at what he's got.
(upbeat rock music)
The interesting thing is, everything's for sale.
I mean, he'll sell anything.
One is this '64 Ford with a tree growing out of the hood.
A little tree.
That's the little tree.
Then this a '64 Ford over here.
With a big tree growing out of it.
I mean that is, look at this.
This is like an amazing piece of sculpture.
He figures he parked this car in 1972.
(laughs) Now look at this one.
Oh, this is too much.
It's coming through the floor shift hole.
In the console and up through the windshield.
Unbelievable.
So his thing is '63 and '64 Fords and I asked him,
is that when you were born?
He said I wish that was the day.
Parts cars but he'll sell them.
He'll sell parts off them.
He'll sell the whole car.
He said some back here are worth fixing and others are not.
Here's a '64, a '65, and I'm not sure
if he's got stories about these cars or not.
This is pretty rare car.
Mercury and it's a two door
and it's got that slant back window.
My friend Bob Mead, who's now my brother in-law,
in high school his parents had one of these
and this back window goes down.
It retracts and we used to put our surfboards
inside there to go surfing on Long Island.
(hood creaking)
390.
But you know this cars a parts car.
As we've seen driving out West.
Texas whatever, the cars are in better shape than this.
This is an unusual car
and I'm not saying you need to fix this up.
We'll find another around here that would be a '65 Galaxy.
This is not a Galaxy.
It's '65 Ford Custom and it had different tail lights.
Now look at this, it's gotta '63,
round tail light.
Inside a '65 almost rectangular housing.
The Ford Customs had a different
tail light and it was a different car
than a standard '65 and we'll find one here.
Okay so look at this tail light.
It looks '63-ish.
We'll here's an actually '63.
So that tail light kinda looks
like this within a '65 housing.
We'll find a '65 so you can see what I'm talking about.
That's a rare car, you don't see '65 Ford Customs ever.
So these cars, this is what attracted me to meet this man
driving down the interstate and seeing these cars.
He's got some other cars up here in buildings and overhangs
that are more of what we're talking about being barn finds
that you could theoretically fix up and drive.
So let's go check those out.
(upbeat rock music)
So this is Snowball's house up here
on the other side of the road
and this is the '63 he told us about.
So the red one up by your house.
That'll be for sale?
If somebody wanted to buy it.
What do you think you'd ask for something like that.
- I was gonna try to get around $3500 for it.
- $3500?
If I were you, I would get in touch with me
so you could buy this car.
That's a pretty amazing price.
So here's the tonneau cover.
Convertibles, I mean, I don't have to tell you.
Convertibles rot out.
They rot out back here because the back window goes dead.
They rot out up here just because
floors rot out in the driver's seat area.
So this is a Galaxy 500, 1963.
It's got a 390.
It's got an automatic on the column.
He says it runs.
Now look at how you open this hood, this is pretty cool.
You grab the lever, this emblem.
(metal squeaking)
Pop it up.
Look at that, chrome valve covers.
It's got a four barrel.
An after market air cleaner.
I don't know what kinda four barrel that is.
It's kinda round.
Manual breaks, manual steering.
He says that the floors are pretty good in this thing.
Seems like a heck of a deal to me.
I mean, you could wash this car up
and have a pretty nice car.
The interior has got kinda of a velour.
That's not original.
See there's velour stuff on the door panels is not original.
You could get an interior kit for this thing.
He said the floor is weak around the gas pedal,
and that's not a surprise.
70,000 miles, you know, and that could be original.
70,000 miles.
So it needs a top, obviously.
Let's take a look at the trunk.
There we go.
So there's fender skirts.
Okay, you can see the floor.
Ah, yeah, these floors need to be worked on.
What'd you be best doing here is going out into the field.
We know that he's got plenty of '63 Fords over there.
Two doors.
And see if you can find a '63 two door with a solid trunk
and just cut that thing out.
And cut this out and weld it in.
This is weak, this is weak over here.
It's got fender skirts.
I guess this is door trim
and side trim that the car is missing.
Yeah, see the piece of trim that's in the car.
Probably came off of here when this got hit.
I think that could be fixed
or he probably has fenders for it as well.
So for 3500 bucks, what a deal.
I'm told it runs.
I'll go ask him if he could put a battery in.
All right, they're getting a battery.
Snowball has a little bit hard time getting around.
His son, Jimmy.
This is Snowball's son.
So this is Little Snowball.
- Well, yup, this is Little Snowball.
Some of them use to call me Snowflake.
(host laughing)
And I'm like, okay, I can accept that.
I can deal with that.
- [Host] You wanna put a little gas in the carburetor?
- [Jimmy] Yeah lemme do that and we'll see.
I know we can get her.
- [Host] Are you gonna work the throttle?
Want me to work the throttle?
- [Jimmy] Just be careful right now.
Yup, yup, yup.
(engine cranking)
- [Host] Whoa man.
(engine sputtering)
(engine revving)
(muffler purring)
Man!
So can you show us the other one you got down there.
- Yeah. (upbeat rock music)
- So not surprisingly here's another '63 Ford.
I don't know how many '63 Fords are left
on the planet Earth but about half of them
are sitting on Snowball's real estate here.
This is a '63 convertible.
The drive train and this chassis has been all restored.
So, new bushings, new tire rod ends, new sway bar.
Now it's everything is new.
It's got power steering.
It's a 390 which apparently runs well.
It's got a manual gear box
but it's not a four speed, it's a three speed.
So the chassis been all restored.
Mechanically, the car's been restored
but the body is in need of work.
Snowball would like to get $4,000 for this car.
So we saw one up the hill there.
Which is $3500.
Which is a 390 automatic.
Here we have a '63 convertible 390
with a manual three speed gear box for 4,000.
So you're talking 7500 for two cars.
I gotta tell you.
If you could do a package deal on the two cars.
You could at least make one great one.
If not, two great ones if you were a handy person.
These prices go back to,
well, to the time when he was collecting parts.
I mean, look at this place.
These are all old Ford parts hanging around here.
Starter saw mites, trim rings,
rows of carburetors, fuel pumps.
If you could buy cars and parts from somebody that was doing
it back in the day and doesn't go on Ebay,
then you're probably getting a pretty darn good deal on it.
So I would say between the two cars.
$7500 is a pretty darn good deal.
You know, I know you don't live here,
you came over to see us, so I appreciate you.
- I didn't know for sure.
You said Rayners Town and I'm like okay.
- Nope we're here.
But I left the Woody home today.
Woodies don't like rain.
So I've hope you enjoyed coming with us.
Visiting Snowball Bishop.
Amazingly interesting guy who's told us
about the stories of his race car.
Restoring his cars.
The cars that he has to be restored
or for sale and his parts cars.
He's kept us entertained all afternoon.
The rain's held off.
It's been a wonderful time
and I wish you could join us on a trip like this.
Happy hunting!
Okay, so, we were talking about 65's before.
So this is your dads car.
He told me once it was your car.
That's a 390 as well?
Oh, that's got headers on it?
Wow, nice car.