Five Vintage Race Cars You Can Buy For Vintage Frito Money
Cameron Van Der Horst
Racing is expensive. One of the oldest jokes in the sport goes as follows: “Q: How do you make a small fortune in racing? A: Start with a large one.” Even the collectibles associated with racing are expensive. Take this old bag of expired Fritos we found on eBay. They’re Jeff Gordon themed, and shaped like little race cars. They date back a quarter of a century, so we’d expect them to be a bit stale. Regardless, the seller has listed them for the slightly ambitious price of $25,000 (thankfully, with free shipping). These nostalgic snacks inspired us to take a spin through the RacingJunk.com classifieds to see what sort of vintage racing action we could get into for that money. Check out what we found!
We’ll start out with the cheapest car of the bunch, this 1995 Kyle Petty Coors Light Pontiac. It could be yours for a mere $10,000, but keep in mind that this is a roller. Even after you source a drivetrain, it may be many thousands of dollars – and many dozens of hours of work – before it’s ready to race again. However, the car appears to be in great condition, and the seller claims that this is the very chassis that Kyle Petty obtained his last win in. Either way, it’s a documented Kyle Petty Cup car, and it’s a great way to get into vintage racing.
Look, $25k isn’t going to get you a vintage Formula One car or a vintage Indycar. However, it can get you this gorgeous 1980s Ralt RT5 Formula Super Vee. This car, complete with its Brabham 1.6 engine, hasn’t been raced since 1988. With that said, the car looks to have been preserved in excellent condition. Per the ad, it’s also been treated to a comprehensive mechanical freshening recently. It doesn’t seem like it will take much work to get this machine going again. With plenty of interest in Formula Vee to this day, it might be as good a time as any to get into vintage open wheel racing for Frito money.
Now, we’re moving past that magical $25,000 price point, but we promise we won’t go much higher. Trust us, these cars are worth the extra coin – and who knows, maybe you can negotiate with the seller a bit. This 1938 Dreyer sprint car just came out of a museum and looks the part. Listed at $29,500, this vintage sprint car represents the birth of Indycar racing, dirt oval sprint car racing, and American hot rodding. With its overhead cam-converted Ford Model B four cylinder, this was likely a potent weapon in the right hands back in the days just before World War II. Would you treat it as a museum piece, or run it in some vintage races?
Few vintage sports car racers are as well-loved and well respected as the BRE (Brock Racing Enterprises) Datsuns of the early 1970s. Those cars are well out of reach for our Fritos budget, but for just a hair under $30,000, you can wheel a convincing replica built out of an ould SCCA ITS car. This car has a well-documented racing history of its own, and a logbook to match. In recent years, the seller claims over $20k worth of upgrades and maintenance. It seems like it’d be a great choice for someone just starting out, and offers a lot of versatility to the weekend vintage racer.
We saved the best for last. For just $31,000, you can own a beautiful late 1990s NASCAR Winston Cup road course chassis. This example, in Square D Kenny Wallace livery, looks terrific, and was campaigned by a beloved figure who is still active in the sport today. We think the only thing more entertaining than Kenny’s vlogs would be owning – and racing – this cool piece from one of the sport’s greatest eras. Vintage stock car racing is becoming more popular each passing year, and this example even won the 2021 Historic Stock Car Division at the Master’s Invitational race at Laguna Seca. If we had Frito money laying around the RacingJunk.com office, this would already be ours. Time to start checking those couch cushions.
