Bennie "The Wizard" Osborn
 

It is my understanding that forum member John Neas purchased the 1967 and 1968 NHRA Championship AA/FD car at the R/M Peterson auction this afternoon. Pictures will follow when John gets back to Tulsa.

W:eek:W... that is two BIG buy's for John :thumbs:

nice !!! Bennie was a terror in NHRA Division 4 back in the day .... !

Cool, that is a nice looking car. I had a chance to look it over closely yesterday. The body work was really outstanding. A very well built and pretty car.

Did John do any bidding on the Mazmanian 61 Corvette?
Did he say who got the Corvette?

Good for John-great car. I also am curious on the Mazmanian Corvette-Jim

:bigears:chevy

the Maz Vette went for $225K, but at this time my spies don't know where it went .. the '70 Chevelle NHRA Super Stocker of Ray Allen/Briggs Chevrolet went for $240K, couple of years ago it went for over a mil ! .. perhaps a sign of the down economy?

Details.... :thumbs:

http://www.rmauctions.com/FeatureCar...arID=r139&fc=0

:cheers:

Joel,
Am I understanding this is now TWO top fuel dragsters that John has?
When I talked to him a few days ago, no mention was made about him buying another one. :D

Tom Parsons

some of the auction results....

http://www.sportscardigest.com/icons...s-rm-auctions/


not all of them but the big dollar cars are noted....

Tom- You are correct-- John now has the Nancy car in his stable and it will be joined by the Osborn car in a few days. Anyone with a good deal on a dragster trailer might give him a call. A stacker would be nice.-----------------------Joel

I was at the auction, to bad I didn't know John was there I would have liked to have met him. Maybe he would want to buy my record holder Mondello fuel altered. Prices were very fair on most of the cars. I know what the seller paid for these cars when he purchased them, he took a great loss.

My understanding; the owner ran a hedge fund that lost 2.2B last fall.
Forced to sell everything. :eek:

If you click on the bolded link in the text area, you'll get a .pdf with the complete listing of every car and the hammer price (all were sold).

:cheers:

Thanks for the kind comments on the car.

Below are two pictures that Bennie gave me the other day along with a brief history.

This car was also famous for winning a $14,000 match race over Tom McKewn at Orange County Raceway.

http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g6...osborn0001.jpg
Cover of the 1968 NHRA World Finals Program. Photo of the Bennie Osborn car was taken by Leslie Lovitt. Leslie took so many pictures of the car, which required several additions of Nitro, that the bearings and crank were ruined.

http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g6...osborn0002.jpg
Leslie Lovitt used a camera which probably took in excess of 25 pictures on the run. He was worried about damaging the camera so he wrapped it in foam. Bennie told Leslie that if something happened, the foam would not protect the camera. Hopefully I can show more of the sequence of pictures in the future.

Regards.

now that photo is just plan cool.....

I have to ask, what are you planning on doing with both dragsters? I was wondering that when you had one, but now you have two....????

I did not set out to own two but the opportunity to own two of the front engine AA/TF cars with significant history was present. The cars are great to look at and you could not own this much history in Corvettes for this price. The Bennie Osborn car along with Bennie will probably go to the NHRA Hot Rod Reunion at Bowling Green in June and the Tony Nancy car
to the NHRA Hot Rod Reunion at Bakersfield in October 2010.

Also my background was drag racing and I go to the NHRA Nationals at Indy each year.

Thanks for the interest.

PS Sally who is quite supportive of my hobby has said that she would hope I do not buy any more TF cars as there is limited utility of the cars. ie you can not drive them to the Sonic etc.

He will probably drive them around his subdivision like his other cars. If a neighbor objects he buys them out. Congratulations.

Tyler

Now John, you CAN drive it to the local Sonic, if you are determined enough!

Are you going out to Famoso this Oct for the hot rod reunion?

Bert

Tyler
Good to hear from you. I may fire it up in the neighbor hood during a party (after getting permission from the neighbors).
Regards

Duntov 54
Would like to have met you. Would you give more information on the seller. I did not know who I was bidding against toward the last.
Regards

John,

The seller was Ralph Whitworth. What did you want to know?

Karpo

http://blog.cardomain.com/2009/06/10...on-the-docket/

This is the Ralph Whitworth collection. A massive and mind numbing collection of cars that was slated to appear at a museum Whitworth was going to build in Nevada. The man established his fortune as an “activist” investor, buying large chunks of companies and getting involved in their operations.

Since we all know where the stock market has gone, it seems to have taken a large portion of Whitworth’s, well, worth with it. The museum must be shelved if they arer liquidating this level of inventory. We honesly can’t even begin to tell you what’s on the manifest to be sold, but the dozens of high resolution photos available to see at the link below will tell the story



http://www.winnemucca.com/attractions_car_museum.html
America’s Car Collection -
Flying A Garage

America’s Car Collection - Flying A Garage is located at the eastern end of Winnemucca near the Interstate 80 onramp. This project was brought to the community by a former Winnemucca resident, Ralph Whitworth, and current resident Dave Bengochea. The two men graduated from Lowry High School in Winnemucca.

Currently constructed on the property is the Flying A Garage which is a 6,600-square-foot climate controlled state of the art restoration shop. The Flying A Garage is fit with the latest equipment and facilities, making it capable of hosting “concourse” quality restoration workmanship. Its mission is to return some of America’s coolest and historically important custom, race and classic cars to their former glory.

http://www.winnemucca.com/images/car_collection.jpg

Eventually, Whitworth and Bengochea hope to complete a world class automobile museum.



During the summer, America’s Car Collection – Flying A Garage and the Chamber of Commerce hosts Kruise Night on Bridge Street in Winnemucca the second Thursday of each month. Kruise Night is a community event, where automobiles are on display and street vendors cater to the crowd. For more information on America’s Car Collection call (775) 625-3555.

Duntov 54 & firstgear
Thanks for the information! Were all the items in the auction his? To bad that a person would lose a dream like that. It appears that the museum would have been a credit to the hobby.
Regards

John, Yes all the cars were Ralph's and slated for the museum. If you need to contact him about info on the Osborn dragster let me know.

Karpo

Ralph also shows up on the HAMB forum. He recently posted about his cars and the auction.