Image credit: DickHarell.com

With the recent unveiling and subsequent on-track testing of Chevrolet’s COPO Camaro concept factory race car, we thought it a great time to take a look back at some of Chevrolet’s past in the sport, and such a conversation would be remiss without the inclusion of the man known best as “Mr. Chevrolet,” Dick Harrell.

Born in Phoenix and raised in New Mexico, cars were a part of Harrell’s life from the get-go. At just 15 years of age, he gained racing acclaim in the sprint car realm; first as tuner and later as a driver of both sprint cars and stock cars. At 18, he signed up his tour of duty with the U.S. military in Korea, serving as a mechanic on aircraft engines and airframes for single-engine aircraft. It was after his honorable discharge in 1961 that he began performing flight tests on large troop helicopters and took up drag racing in his spare time.

Harrell’s drag racing ventures took him from unpaved oil fields in Oklahoma back home to Carlsbad, NM, where he’d travel upwards of 280 miles to race his ’56 Chevy in Amarillo, Texas. In 1961, he began traveling across the southwest, racing a factory-backed Chevrolet, winning

Image credit: Hemmings.com

nearly 90% of the races for which he entered in what would be his final season as an amateur before taking up racing as a full-time career.

In 1962, in his first season as a professional drag racing, the young Harrell cruised to the NHRA Super Stock title, launching him from a virtual unknown in New Mexico to garnering appearance money and booked-in match races. In ’63, he drove a 409-Z11 Super Stock Chevrolet against racers from all across the nation at the AHRA Winternationals and used his talents as both a driver and tuner to take the eliminator, launching the name Dick Harrell into national fame.

It was in ’63 that the lightweight, aluminum Pontiac’s, Chevy’s, Ford’s, and Chrysler’s began to take over the Super Stock world, and Harrell was right in the thick of it with his 427 Z-11, winning Top Eliminator the Winternationals. In ’65, the factory wars began to boil over, and despite Chevrolet pulling their factory backing and everyone else abandoning ship for other makes, “Mr. Chevrolet” soldiered on with a one-man vendetta against the formidable Ford and Chrysler efforts. And soldier on he did, winning his fair share of races without any money or parts from Chevrolet. When others were heading for higher ground, Dick’s loyalty shined.

It was in ’66 that Harrell first began building high performance cars and engines for Nickey Chevrolet, and following the introduction of the Camaro

Image credit: Sports Car Digest

in ’67, Harrell installed what many to believe was the very first 427 to find its way into a Camaro, to be sold as a dealer installed, new car. Of all places, Harrell found his way to East St. Louis, Illinois, where he went to work engineering and building new cars for Yenko Chevrolet in Pennsylvania. It was here that 350 and 427 conversion cars were created. But in ’68, he once again relocated to Kansas City, Mo., here he set up shop to convert and modify Camaro’s, Chevelle’s, and the new big block Nova, all of which could be purchased through authorized Chevy dealers with 427 powerplants making 500 horsepower. As another first, Harrell also built and sold 427-powered Nova’s with special competition three-speed automatics, which were part of Fred Gibb Chevrolet’s COPO cars that had been specially built for an automatic class in the NHRA.

In spite of his accolades off the track, it was the quarter mile that Dick Harrell loved best, and unfortunately, it was also what took his life. After being named AHRA Driver of the Year in 1969 tuning and driving a nitro Funny Car and being namd Driver of the Decade in 1970, Dick was killed in a tragic accident in Toronto, Ontario, Canada in 1971. Forty years have passed and another COPO Camaro has arrived, but the name “Mr. Chevrolet” lives on.