Geoff Bodine Levi Garrett NASCAR Project

This car was purchased in 1993 by the current owner and his brother from a person in Nashville TN who reportedly acquired the car through friends who were some how connected to Hendrick Motorsport in Charlotte. The seller stated the car was a roller parked behind a garage and had supposedly last been used by Hendrick in tire testing. It was last raced as the #5 Levi Garret Cup Car by Geoff Bodine, and was supposedly nicknamed "Emily". The goal of the Seller was to take the car to Bonneville to join the 200 MPH club to satisfy a bucket list, but heath issues intervened and negated his plan.

The Current owner moved the car to Indy with plans to prepare the car for Historic Stock Car racing. Included in the sale was an extra fabricated front subframe. Items on the car that are not in NASCAR configuration are the hood and the rear sail panel windows. This hood is a standard GM Production part with inner structure, the sail windows are production Monte Carlo glass units versus the Lexan/Plexiglass units used in racing. The fastback rear window configuration shows signs that the rear window structure may have been modified from the earlier notchback body style to the current fastback configuration.

In December of 1995 the brothers- armed with detailed photos of the car- made a trip to Charlotte to research the history of the car. Their first visit was to Geoff Bodine Racing who was campaigning the #7 as owner/driver at the time. Some of the techincians allowed them to wander around as it was off season and kind of slow. They explained why they were there, and about the same time Geoff Bodine appeared on the shop floor with some associates and the technician apporaced Geoff and advised him of their quest. Goeff come over and greeted the borthers and told theim he had a meeting but if they could hang about for an hour or so he would be happy to meet with them.

While wandering the shop one of the mechanics suggested they visit Hutcherson-Pagen as they most likely built the chassis. Once Geoff returned, he spent 30 minutes with the brothers discussing various types of racing, he reviewed their photos, and apologized for not remebering more about the car stating- I was just the driver-structural details are more the realm of the engineers and mechanics. They thanked Geoff for his hospitality and headed over to Hutcherson-Pagen. Once there, one of the owners and few of the mechanics reviewed the photos and verified it was in fact one of their chassis. They suggested visiting Hendrick Motorsports as that would be the location of the true details of the cars racing history.

Once at Hendrick, they explained their mission to a receptionist, who after a few calls escorted them to the 24 shop where they met a long time technician who worked on the 5 car back in the 80's. He advised them that NASCARS of that era were not serialized and had no frame numbers, but did verify that the welds and other fabrication were consistent with those of a Hendrick fabricator on the #5 team in the 80's, verifying its legitimacy.

Here we have a rare opportunity to acquire an historic NASCAR and build it as you wish for either vintage racing or maybe even street use.

As is the case with most race cars-This car is sold on Bill of Sale.