CamaroFacts

Home / People / Dick Harrell

1932–1971

Dick Harrell

Drag racer and engine builder, “Mr. Chevrolet”

Yellow 1969 Camaro Yenko/SC
1969 Camaro Yenko/SC (COPO) Photo: Sicnag, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons; plates and faces blurred Original photograph License

Dick Harrell raced at the front of NHRA and AHRA competition and was the engineer behind several of the dealer-tuner Camaros, even though those cars are filed under the dealerships' names.

He got the name after GM withdrew from factory racing in the mid-1960s. With Chevrolet officially absent from the sport, Harrell was in effect the brand's unofficial presence, so "Mr. Chevrolet" described a vacancy as much as a driver.

Green-and-white 1968 Camaro Z/28
1968 Camaro Z/28 Photo: Sicnag, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons; plate and faces blurred Original photograph License

The revived Performance Center brand's Ray Morrison history places Harrell's Chicago engineering and conversion work for Nickey from 1966. It describes his 1967 dealer-installed 427 Camaro as a believed first; Dana Chevrolet has a competing claim. Nickey also worked with Bill Thomas in California, so the dealership name alone does not identify who built a particular car.

He later engineered 350 and 427 conversions sold through Yenko's Span, Inc. as street-or-strip cars, and in 1968 opened the Dick Harrell Performance Center in Kansas City, building 427 Camaros, Chevelles and Novas through Chevrolet dealers. The sources we have do not give a complete production count for those conversions.

His factory connection ran deeper than conversions. He is credited with development work on the all-aluminum ZL1 427 that went into the COPO 9560 Camaros, and one of the first two ZL1s went straight to his Kansas City shop for the AHRA Winternationals. He also built competition automatic 427 Novas from Fred Gibb's separate 1968 COPO order (9738) to establish NHRA's automatic class.

Harrell’s work crossed several dealer programs
Harrell’s work crossed several dealer programs Nickey: Camaro 427 conversions; Yenko: Span engine conversions; Gibb: COPO 9738 Novas. Nickey and Yenko conversions were separate from Gibb’s COPO 9738 Nova order. No complete production record survives for Harrell’s conversion work. Nickey Camaro 427 conversions Yenko Span engine conversions Gibb COPO 9738 Novas
Nickey and Yenko conversions were separate from Gibb’s COPO 9738 Nova order. No complete production record survives for Harrell’s conversion work. Original CamaroFacts diagram. History and sources.

The fullest account of his racing titles comes from the revived Performance Center brand's own history.

Did you know

  • A 1969 Harrell Camaro sold at Barrett-Jackson Scottsdale in 2013 for $253,000. It started as a 396 SS from Bill Allen Chevrolet in Kansas City and was converted to an iron-block 427 with a ZL1 camshaft and 4.56 gears, built for John Penso of the Flying Dutchman funny-car crew. It resurfaced in Hawaii nearly four decades later, and Harrell's daughter Valerie confirmed it.
  • The rarest Harrell Camaro is the 1970 454, painted forest green and cream. It is believed to be the only survivor, and nobody can prove whether three or six were made. It was raced for parts of three seasons, stored in a barn from 1974, resurfaced in 2003 with 6,000 original miles, and now sits in the Brothers Collection.
  • Harrell grew up in Carlsbad, New Mexico, after his family moved from Phoenix when he was five. He started in sprint cars at 14, moved to dirt stock cars at 17 and joined the Army at 18. By 1961 he was in a factory-backed 409 Impala and winning about 90 percent of the races he entered.
  • In 1963 he won Super Stock Eliminator at the AHRA Winter Nationals, then in May set the AHRA national speed record of 118.57 mph for A/SM Sportsman at San Angelo, Texas, sharing the car with teammate Charles Thurwhanger (spelled Therwanger in another source).
  • ZL1 number one was Harrell's race car in 1969. He and Gibb raced it nationally, and Harrell made Hot Rod's Top Ten list that season. With Jim Hayter driving in 1971, the same car won the AHRA World Pro Stock title.
  • The crash that killed him at a Toronto drag strip was in a fuel funny car, after a front tire failed. Accounts differ on what the car hit, a guardrail or a light pole, and one says the crash led to the development of special drag-racing tires.
Sources for these details

Key beats

  • 1962 NHRA Super Stock class champion
  • 1963 AHRA Winter Nationals win and A/SM speed record
  • 1969 AHRA Driver of the Year (fuel funny car); Driver of the Decade, 1970
  • Killed 12 September 1971 at a Toronto drag strip, aged 39