By
Kurt Ernst
—
Updated
in Muscle Cars, Restorations
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The Duke and duch*ess Daytona, now fully restored. Photos courtesy Corey Owens.
When auto restorer and Mopar specialist Corey Owens acquired the 1969 Dodge Daytona once owned by legendary street racer Big Willie Robinson, the car was a sun-bleached, rust-eaten shell of its former self. Now, roughly $30,000 in parts and 1,900 man-hours later, Robinson’s Duke and duch*ess Daytona has been restored to its former glory, a fitting tribute to the larger-than-life character that founded the International Brotherhood of Street Racers and once piloted the Daytona to quarter-mile glory.
Robinson was a well-known figure in the Southern California drag racing scene, and his time spent with the Special Forces in Vietnam gave him leadership qualities that would help preserve the peace during the racially-charged days of the late 1960s. Using racing as an avenue to vent frustration made sense to Robinson, and his efforts to take racing off the street and onto the track led to the creation of Brotherhood Raceway Park on Terminal Island in Long Beach, California. Robinson was a Mopar guy, and the car most closely associated with him was a red 1969 Dodge Daytona; his wife Tomiko, also a drag racer, ran a green 1969 Dodge Daytona.
Drag racing is notoriously hard on equipment, and one too many dips in the acid tank eventually weakened the body of Robinson’s red Daytona. Tomiko’s green Daytona was totaled in a racing accident, so at one point in his career, Robinson turned to a third Daytona car for his trips through the quarter mile. Said to have come from his brother, who could no longer afford the car, this Daytona had started life painted R4 Charger Red, but Robinson had it sprayed in a cream color before lettering it up as the Duke and duch*ess Daytona, a nod to the respect he had for his wife. Its doors carried the lettering of Street Racers Inc., National and International Brotherhood, an organization that Robinson saw as transcending cultural barriers.
That’s where the story gets a bit hazy. When Mopar collector Gary French purchased the car from Robinson, it was Big Willie himself who said the car had never been raced, but subsequent inspection revealed otherwise. Not only were the rear wheel wells radiused to allow the fitment of oversize drag slicks, but the floor pan above the pinion snubber had been punched upward and later reinforced with a 3/8-inch steel plate, proof positive of hard dragstrip launches. Some said that the Duke and duch*ess car had been used as a tow vehicle, but there was no evidence of a hitch having ever been mounted to the car.
French eventually sold the car to entrepreneur and clothing designer Donwan Harrell, who intended to restore the car to its in-period, as-raced condition. Needing money to launch a new clothing line, Harrell sold the car to Owens, who posted it for sale on his website with an asking price of $250,000, a reflection of the car’s historical significance, if not its worn condition. When he received no offers (though in fairness, his marketing attempts weren’t all that serious), Owens was faced with the difficult decision of whether to preserve the car or restore it to as-raced condition. A teardown of the Daytona made the decision for him; preserving the car still meant replacing the sheetmetal surrounding the rear window, along with the dangerously thin fiberglass hood. The thin fiberglass rear deck lid would also need to be recreated, and as the project evolved, Owens realized that a restoration would be the best way to save the car for posterity.
Nine months later, in May 2014, the car was completed in time for its public debut at Midwest Mopars in the Park, held at the Dakota County Fairgrounds in Farmington, Minnesota. The color mismatch in the engine bay was deliberate because that’s how Robinson had the car painted to save money. As a competition car, it only had to look good from a distance, and money spent painting the inner fenders and firewall was money that wasn’t spent on making the car go faster. Aside from that period-correct detail, the rest of the car was as obsessively correct as Owens could make it, down to the gray primer and cosmoline used on the car’s undercarriage. The seats and steering wheel were original to the car, though Owens preserved the skinny steering wheel and later-model seats installed in the car when he took possession. Even the car’s 440-cu.in. Magnum V-8 and TorqueFlite transmission were original to the car, through Owens admits to dropping in a mild camshaft to boost performance during the engine’s rebuild. He gave thought to leaving the car with an open exhaust, but doing so would have made the car essentially undriveable on the street, and Owens said he doesn’t see the car as a trailer queen.
Critics will point out that the car is neither as delivered nor as raced, and Owens readily admits the car was restored as a “day two” race car. Restoring it to “as delivered,” or “day one” form would erase much of the car’s historical significance, while returning it to “as raced” form is virtually impossible. Only Big Willie Robinson knew what engine and transmission were in the car, and although Owens has had correspondence with a man who claims to own the car’s original Keith Black Hemi V-8, there’s virtually no way to prove the engine was the one installed in the car.
Owens plans to show the car at upcoming Mopar events, including The Mopar Nationals at National Trail Raceway in Columbus, Ohio, and the 45th Aero Warrior Reunion at Talladega Superspeedway in Talladega, Alabama. He’d like to make it to the Carlisle Chrysler Nationals as well, but Owens admits that’s a lot of shows to attend and a lot of miles to travel. When asked if the car was again for sale, Owens was realistic; he’d rather not part with it, but 1,900 man hours and $30,000 worth of parts is a lot for a relatively small shop to absorb. While he’s not actively pursuing the car’s sale, if the right offer came along, the businessman in Owens would likely overrule the collector in Owens.
One likely buyer is Donwan Harrell, the car’s former owner, who’s already reached out to Owens in regards to repurchasing the car. An avid car guy with an affinity for Mopars, Harrell would certainly honor the car and the memory of the man that built it, perhaps easing the pain of a sale in Owens’s mind.
