<VV> Bill Thomas

[Levair at aol.com]

All,

Just yesterday, I had a pnone converstion with Bill Thomas, the original 
owner of the Bill Thomas/Doug Roe car. 
  The call was in response to a letter and the May communique that I sent 
him. He is 85 years old and in his words "Doing bible study and getting ready to 
go to Heaven".
   He was very glad to hear  that the car was being used again and was very 
interested in it's racing results this year. He asked what happened to the 
scoops that used to cover the six holes in the rear fenders. Does anyone know?. 
   The car was originally red, then blue shortly after Doug got it, and then 
Hugger Orange in 1969. 
   Bill never raced the car himself; always had a "hired" driver. One of his 
sons is racing midgets now, but the other 5 children and his wife were never 
intrested in cars. 
   GM did help him financially and supplied engines but made sure that the 
money supplied to him , Doug, and others on projects never received money slated 
"directly" to the racing Corvair---remember this was during the AMA Racing 
Ban era. 
   He can't recall why they assigned him number "361" for racing. 
   We can thank Bill for the development of the140 HP heads which were always 
on the car when raced , even in 1960. 
   He said that we got most of the articles pretty much right---phew!

Warren