BajaNomad - What will 'Big Oly' sell for at auction?

What will 'Big Oly' sell for at auction?

BajaNomad - 3-20-2021 at 12:59 PM

Just saw that Big Oly (winner of '71, '72 Baja 1000 and '73 Baja 500; driven by Parnelli Jones, and prepped by Stroppe Motorsports) is going up for sale at auction on Friday, May 21st. There are other vehicles as well from Parnelli's personal collection in this auction.

It's a very iconic vehicle (and driver, quite frankly) in motorsports, and especially connected to racing in Baja California.

Thoughts on the final price this might generate? I'm curious, that's all. Thought I'd see who else might be as well.

https://www.mecum.com/lots/SC0521-461979/1969-ford-bronco-bi...

For those that loathe motorsports, especially vehicles racing across a fragile desert, I understand your concerns... I do. This thread however is solely intended to engage dialogue regarding this vehicle, and/or its auction. Let's please avoid any debate or positions regarding concerns over racing in the desert. Your concerns are noted going into this. Thank you for your kind understanding and cooperation!

motoged - 3-20-2021 at 02:38 PM

Vroooooooommmm
Good looking basic rig :coolup:

JZ - 3-20-2021 at 02:41 PM

$125K to $175K

David K - 3-20-2021 at 03:42 PM

That may be the opening bid... At least 400,000 is my guess.

[Edited on 3-20-2021 by David K]

thebajarunner - 3-20-2021 at 04:22 PM

https://www.hagerty.com/media/news/big-oly-bronco-bound-for-...

I posted on this yesterday
I tend to agree it is a million dollar rig, but noting that Danny Thompson "only" got a bit over $500k for Challenger it makes you wonder
The Steve McQueen Bullitt going for almost $4 mil was ridiculous

And in honor of our leader's request to not stray from the topic I will refrain from sharing my great memory of getting passed by this rig, just south of the water slides below Maneadero. He started two minutes behind us, and suddenly..... oops, off topic, sorry Doug.

JZ - 3-20-2021 at 04:37 PM

Quote: Originally posted by David K

That may be the opening bid... At least 400,000 is my guess.

[Edited on 3-20-2021 by David K]

Yeah, I have no idea.

mtgoat666 - 3-20-2021 at 05:47 PM

Quote: Originally posted by David K

That may be the opening bid... At least 400,000 is my guess.

[Edited on 3-20-2021 by David K]

You would have to be a fool to spend over 50k on an old bronco with a garish paint/decal job and an Olympia beer advertisement.

David K - 3-20-2021 at 06:32 PM

It is not a Bronco other than in name... It is considered to be the very first class of vehicle that would become known as a Trophy Truck, in the future. Light years ahead of all other off-road racers... Even world speed champion and Chevy truck racer Mickey Thompson couldn't keep up with Parnelli!

BajaNomad - 3-20-2021 at 07:08 PM

Quote: Originally posted by thebajarunner

https://www.hagerty.com/media/news/big-oly-bronco-bound-for-...

I posted on this yesterday

http://forums.bajanomad.com/viewthread.php?tid=95816

LancairDriver - 3-20-2021 at 08:59 PM

Quote: Originally posted by mtgoat666

Quote: Originally posted by David K

That may be the opening bid... At least 400,000 is my guess.

[Edited on 3-20-2021 by David K]

You would have to be a fool to spend over 50k on an old bronco with a garish paint/decal job and an Olympia beer advertisement.

To the people who collect the various race cars or exotics 50k is pocket change. Money is no object.

advrider - 3-21-2021 at 12:39 PM

I'm thinking in the 200k range, it is an iconic race vehicle.

thebajarunner, I think everyone would love to hear your story, I think Doug didn't want it turned into a political discussion about the environmental damage and such. Hope I'm correct because you can share a bit of history with everyone.

OK Rider... by popular demand (Don't blame me, Doug)

thebajarunner - 3-21-2021 at 05:29 PM

It was our first venture into Baja off road racing
My partner, Chuck Billington and I built the truck in his shop, finished it in my garage.
Chuck was a weekend racing tire dealer for Firestone at SCCA events. (He was also 6 time National C Sports Racing champ)
PJ and Marvin Porter (former Nascar Western stock car champion) were his contacts through Parnelli Jones Firestone.
Marvin got us access to the Stroppe shops on Signal Hill.
Bill was super helpful, answered every question, let me take dozens of close up photos of Walker's truck. (The problem was, he never volunteered info, just answered questions, if we had asked the right questions we would not have busted an axle and that is another story)
So, we draw #82 for the 500 and PJ is #84. Back in the NORRA days you started by number, not by class.
Bill teased us a bit at tech, as to when they would catch us. I figured it would be about the Ensenada airport, but amazingly we made it all the way through Maneadero before I spotted the Big Oly and it was a comin' on, in a hurry. Remember, those days we raced pavement to Camalu.
We eased over and they were by us so quickly that Bill hardly had time to wave, and then around the corner headed down to the bridge and of course we never saw them again.

As a very cool followup..... for the 1000 Marvin got a special invite for Chuck to pre-run with their gang. PJ, Porter, Bill Rush, Walker and others. They spent the night huddled in trucks as a veritable monsoon hit the peninsula, next day had to put a new fan belt on a pickup without turning off the motor, I believe Big BIll Rush was the brave soul that did that deed. And later, in the 1000 (which we finished second in the pickup class) we came on a really bad wrecked mini-truck, and it was none other than Marvin Porter and Billy Wilderson (the sprint car racer) Marvin was covered with a sheet, lying on the ground, and we though he was dead, but he suddenly sat up and waved us on. Lots more stories, but just to finish the Stroppe connection, we had a bad radiator leak out of Punta Prieta and at El Arco we just pulled into the Stroppe pits and they were kind enough to patch us up and away we went.
Lots more to these stories, but Doug probably has heard enough for now.

advrider - 3-21-2021 at 07:43 PM

Awesome, thanks for sharing... Maybe we can start a thread of all of the old race stories? With pictures would be even cooler.

LancairDriver - 3-21-2021 at 08:56 PM

Great story’s, would love to hear more first hand stuff. Does anyone remember what year it was when Parnelli hit and killed a gringo male spectator who was on the track? It had to be early 70’s. I think that was the first year I watched the races.

[Edited on 3-22-2021 by LancairDriver]

1974 SCORE 500

thebajarunner - 3-21-2021 at 09:45 PM

Quote: Originally posted by LancairDriver

Great story’s, would love to hear more first hand stuff. Does anyone remember what year it was when Parnelli hit and killed a gringo male spectator who was on the track? It had to be early 70’s. I think that was the first year I watched the races.

[Edited on 3-22-2021 by LancairDriver]

I believe that was the first race that he ran a Chevy Blazer

Two pretty dumb Gringos were watching up past Ojos Negros, riding bikes. Decided to head back to Ensenada after some of the trucks had passed.
They would watch a racer go by, then drop down into the wheel track on the sandy road and ride until they saw dust, jump up on the berm, watch the racer go by, drop down , etc, etc.
Big truck thunders past, drop down into the track, and PJ is just a few feet behind the truck. Bike up and over the hood and gas tank bursts and PJ and copilot are both slightly burned.

My part of the story.....
Marvin Porter (see story above) had driven Parnelli's GMC motorhome up to Mikes to wait for PJ. For some reason they decided to make Mikes a one hour mandatory layover, and Marvin had told us to find him and he would make us lunch in our hour down time.
So, we pulled in, got our checkpoint ticket and restart time, spotted the GMC and drove over. Marvin was a bit agitated but had us in, sat us down and started laying out sandwich spread.
"Guess you guys did not hear about PJ's accident" he said
We were stumped, news to us.
So, there we were, sitting in Parnelli's motorhome, eating his lunch and he was back in Ensenada and basically retiring from the sport.

We finished, it was a brutal course, and I remember driving our rig to impound downtown, passing the funeral home, and seeing a guy in biker leathers sitting in the front room window.

OK, no more stories for the night, I promise Doug....

David K - 3-22-2021 at 08:46 AM

Dick,
I was at Mike's Sky Rancho for the first Score race (The July 1974 Baja Internacional) with the 1-hour 'downtime'. PJ never arrived... and later we would learn what happened...

Parnelli and Stroppe were in the Big Oly Bronco and the vacationing motorcycle riders knew the race was on and they were going backwards on the course... figured they would see a racer coming soon enough to pull off... they were wrong.

Big Oly slammed into one of the wrong-way riders, the gas tank exploded and burned Stroppe and PJ... rider was killed. Parnelli never raced Big Oly again.

The new, bright yellow Chevy Blazer appeared in the 1975 Baja races. Here is a photo I took at the '75 1000 (Score's first 1000) in Valle de Trinidad. Walker Evans became a team mate of PJ, racing a yellow Chevy pickup.

By 1978, PJ sold the Blazer to Scoop Vessels... I recall there was a pair of them? The Blazer was repainted black and sponsored by BFG.

[Edited on 3-22-2021 by David K]

thebajarunner - 3-22-2021 at 10:11 AM

You are correct David
I was working off old memories, sometimes those get a bit rusty
Dick Russell, his Chevy mechanic, rode with him in the Blazer since Stroppe was purely a Ford guy.
That Blazer threw a drive shaft and the crew got word and actually had a spare at the next pit
His crew somehow backtracked on the course, got the new shaft installed and PJ was back on the road.

Scoop Vessels.... great guy, great competitor, Killed in his private plane somewhere over the southern desert. His dad Frank was also a racer, had the world's richest quarter horse, owned Los Alamitos and had depression and ate his shotgun. Another sad story.

David K - 3-22-2021 at 04:37 PM

The Vessels Stallion Farm is in Bonsall, CA... about 5 miles from my home. It is quite a spread! Scoop roared by me more than once when I was pitting and spectating... He tamed that Blazer rather than destroy it with a lead foot, ala Parnelli.

[Edited on 3-22-2021 by David K]

Don Pisto - 3-22-2021 at 07:00 PM

where they went wrong......everyone knows that an upside down horseshoe will let the luck run out, the idea behind the horseshoe on the beer label was that when you poured the beer you set it straight.....clever but not so much on a trick truck! :light:

I bet it goes for $1.5

Parnelli did not "destroy" cars!!

thebajarunner - 3-22-2021 at 07:06 PM

quote by DK
"The Vessels Stallion Farm is in Bonsall, CA... about 5 miles from my home. It is quite a spread! Scoop roared by me more than once when I was pitting and spectating... He tamed that Blazer rather than destroy it with a lead foot, ala Parnelli."

Parnelli bent 'em, he tweaked and twisted "em,
but destroying a car means not getting to the finish, and PJ was a master at bringing them home
Sometimes they were looking like destroyed, but the trophies said otherwise.

I remember the great quote, back and forth, between PJ and Stroppe after PJ had rolled the Big Oly Bronco for the third time coming off the graded road at Ojos Negros at the finish of the 500 back in about 1974

Supposedly once they stopped rolling over Stroppe looked at Parnnelli and growled "Now look where your crazy driving has gotten us"
To which Parnelli replied, "Yeah, got us here 45 minutes ahead of the next guy and get your A.... out and get us back on our feet so we can go on into town and celebrate"
Actually, the quote I heard had a few more expletives, but they won.....

We had a saying, "If you have not totally used up your vehicle at the end, you didn't try hard enough."

AKgringo - 3-22-2021 at 07:16 PM

I have an old Kia Sportage that would look pretty good with that paint scheme! How many rattle cans of gold and white paint do you think it would take?

I hope I can still get some Oly decals and stickers. I think since my Kia is only a four banger, I will change the number from "1" to ".5"! :light:

caj13 - 5-24-2021 at 08:51 AM

1.7 million

BajaNomad - 5-24-2021 at 01:13 PM

http://forums.bajanomad.com/viewthread.php?tid=96078