South Mountain Raceway and Beaver Springs Dragway – Some people longingly remember their favorite race cars of days long ago. They can almost see them in their mind’s eye once more, just like they were back in the day. And then there’s Larry Wittig. If you’re like Larry, you make tribute clones of your favorite cars that are even better than the originals ever were. The first one I asked Larry about was the 1964 Dodge 330 Ramchargers car.

That one I did first, I grew up in the era of the Ramchargers, so I wanted to do a replica of the car. We looked around and found this car, [it] was beige with a blue interior. It was two hours west of Indianapolis. I paid probably too much money for what it was it had a 426 wedge in it and that manifold but it was 11-second car. It was nice but it wasn’t a Ramcharger so I took it over to Kohrs Customs which is in Frystown so they stripped it, took it all apart, created the interior; blue to what you see [now]. We researched the paint codes, we researched the dimensions of what it was. Travis Hess, who is Bucky Hess’ son, did all the lettering on it just like he did on the on the Sox and Martin car so it was absolutely right. One criticism I got from somebody who didn’t know much was that we had the 2 tone wheels on the front. We have a picture of the finals in 1964 Nationals against “Color Me Gone” and they had those in the front and black on the back and that’s what we took as gospel. The only deviation that is not true to form is they had 2 cars they ran in ’64, the Ramchargers ran a wedge up until February and that’s when the race Hemi came out and then they finished the season with the race Hemi. The race Hemi Motor is 1053 car number the 440 was 940-something. We put 1053 on so I either had to change the number to make it exactly [right] or change the motor. Other than that it’s an exact replica other than the safety features. It’s a race car that I show, not a show car that I race.

Next up, we’ll visit Wittig’s clone of the ’67 Sox & Martin Belvedere. What really makes this choice interesting is that a very young Larry once approached one of his heroes, Buddy Martin, and was blown off. You’d think that would change Wittig’s mind about replicating one of those cars, but his love of the Sox & Martin cars ran too deep to be deterred by a snub. In fact, that old snub became a part of this car’s history. As Witting would tell it, “Long story short, 57 years later I see Buddy Martin at Carlisle and this car was shown up on the pedestal, they wanted it as a display model. I went up to him I said ‘You know 57 years ago I met you at Aquasco, you completely blew me off.’ He’s laughing, and we’re both laughing, and I said ‘I want you to see a car that I did in honor of Ronnie Sox.’ So they took the golf cart, drove me over there, and he’s walking around this thing. We’ve got pictures of him looking underneath, he goes ‘They did good job.’ I said ‘Well we’re even.’ He said ‘For what?’ I said ‘For you blowing me off 57 years ago.’ So he loved it.” Martin loved it enough to sign the glove compartment for Wittig, where you can also find the autograph of Herb McCandless as well.

Wittig bought the car in ’22, originally blue and gray, already having a 440 under the hood. As Larry would say, “It was, you know, decent but then over the winter of ’22-’23, I said to Dennis Kohr, ‘Let’s do a Sox & Martin clone and I mean every single detail.’ So we got the paint codes from Herb McCandless. We contacted Travis Hess who did the lettering, who was taught by a guy by the name of Nelson Grimes who painted the original cars so there’s that legacy there. It’s gold leaf on the side. There’s no vinyl in any of the letters. The vinyl [decals], like the Hooker Headers and that, they don’t make them any more so I had to hire a vinyl guy, and take a picture to him. We figured out the dimensions of the decals from old pictures and I knew how big the Belvedere thing was, 5 ½ inches, and from that we extrapolated out how big the Valvoline and everything is. We took great pains to get it exactly the same as the original car. I raced it in ‘23 with the 440 in it and people kept giving me a bunch of grief because the original one was a Hemi so I went to Ray Barton next year and they put a Hemi in it. So now it officially is like the original car. That’s how we got to where we are now. In Dennis Kohrs’ words, not mine, they’re race cars that you show not show cars that you race it.”

The original cars would bring huge money on the auction block leading one to wonder just how much these race/show cars might be worth. Wittig has the perfect answer to that question, “I’ll let my widow figure out what they’re worth (laughing).”

DF Motorsports Magazine is a Summit Racing Equipment affiliate. Please use the links below to place your Summit order and support this site! Thank you for your support!