Tim Tebow, Richard Petty restore NFL star’s college car
By Bob Pockrass Sporting News
Tim Tebow has hired a pretty famous person to restore his old college car—The King, Richard Petty.
Richard Petty's Petty's Garage is restoring Tim Tebow's college car for the Tim Tebow Foundation.
Soon after Tebow was selected 25th in the 2010 NFL draft, he didn’t need his 1995 Ford Thunderbird anymore. So he parked it at his parents’ house in Florida and left it there untouched for three years.
Tebow, who starred at the University of Florida, recently decided that he should get rid of the car so he wondered if his charitable foundation could use it. The foundation decided that it could—not for transportation, but as a fundraiser.
There was only one problem—the car wouldn’t even run.
Tebow’s car likely could attract a high price from a passionate University of Florida fan, even in shoddy condition. But it likely would bring much more for his foundation if it were restored.
Enter a man who knows something about building and rebuilding cars—NASCAR Hall of Famer Richard Petty...
“This is a ’95 Thunderbird that (eventually will have) went from rusty and covered in cat prints to an amazing machine because of Petty’s Garage,” said Tim Tebow Foundation Executive Director Erik Dellenback. “The car isn’t real special but it will be soon. Timmy knows very well who Richard is. He’s a big fan.”
“We’re excited because obviously the legendary status of Richard Petty is a great tie to us,” Dellenback said. “Originally our goal was just to auction it off and as we started seeing what this was going to look like and the interest of people wanting to see it, we decided to use it for a year on promotional tour. … The dollars we can raise off that could literally affect thousands of children.”
The car, which had around 80,000 miles on it, will take about 800 manhours to rebuild. It was gutted and will have a new 5.0-liter Coyote Ford engine (500 horsepower) with automatic transmission. It will have new front and rear suspension with big brakes to make it a high-performance vehicle. It will have new custom seats.
The shifter from the old car and parts of the car’s body will be used as part of the rebuild.
When the foundation and the Petty people picked up the car, it still had music CDs in it as well as the air freshener that people might recognize from an ESPN documentary just prior to the draft where Tebow is shown driving the car. The car had cobwebs in it and lots of notes—from phone numbers of scouts to notes likely just left on Tebow’s car while on the Florida campus.
“It was not your typical college football player’s car by no means,” Petty’s Garage CEO Jeff Whaley said. “We found a list (of numbers) of when he was being courted to go to school, but there were no beer can lids, no cigarette ashes.”
Tebow’s people believe the car will be a hit.
“This is a one-off—Tim Tebow is one of the hottest commodities going right now and to have him and Richard, if both of them were standing there at Barrett-Jackson (auction) and you had the right Florida Gator fan or Tebow fan or Richard Petty fan, there’s no telling what this vehicle would bring in,” Whaley said.
“It was truly his college car. How can you say that about anything else?”
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