David Pearson Street Legal NASCAR

Harlow and his Purolator #21.

We love these street legal race cars! Some are real race cars converted over to be driven on the street and provide a wild ride. I did this way back when with a 1965 Corvette dragster that had all aluminum interior, straight axles front and rear plus a 500HP+ 454. Others like to take a street car and give it the allusion of being a race car. From a guy who has done it, believe me the street car based clone is much easier to live with. I only put a few miles on my street car dragster Vette before I sent it on its way. Harlow was much smarter, he started with a street car and built the race car look.

Obviously there are others who think as Harlow does.

Nostalgic race cars are rapidly gaining in popularity with a big trend towards old NASCAR heroes. For all you people out there who think this is a new trend I would like to introduce you to Mr. Harlow Reynolds and his David Pearson #21 look-a-like. Ok; Harlow took some liberties with his build. He found his inspiration in one of the most beautiful and most recognizable NASCAR racers ever, the 1970 Mercury Cyclone Purolator by the Wood Brothers.

Harlow knows his car is not a Mercury but rather a Ford and he also knows it is a 1969 and not a 1970. What you don’t know is that Harlow has built two of these cars. The first one he put over 250,000 miles on and he is on his way to many more with his “newer” build.

Just like the old days…Pearson is fighting off Petty…but who is the fellow in the 58 Chevy?

Not only have these cars been his daily driver for 30 years he also makes sure they get their share of time on the track; as a parade car. It seems Harlow has always been a big fan of the Wood Brothers and he is a familiar site around their shop. He has a wealth of photos of his heroes both the ones behind the wheel and the ones behind the wrenches. He has been generous enough to share a few of them with us and I hope you enjoy them as much as we did.

Here goes the real “Pass in the Grass”.

You may think Harlow is a little eccentric with his Purolator car and his extensive NASCAR memorabilia collection but he is equally passionate about Baseball and Bluegrass music and has equally impressive collections of memorabilia from those hobbies.

That is David Pearson driving with Harlow sitting “shot gun”, how cool is that?

Here is Pearson with his own NASCAR Championship winning Ford.

Looks like a scene out of the Dukes of Hazard; Cooter even autographed the photo!

This looks like some serious fun…I may have to put a 429 in that Cyclone body out back and paint a “21” on the side!

That is 1960 NASCAR Champ, Rex White behind the wheel!

Harlow with Glen Wood back in the day.

Harlow with one of my favorite drivers of all time, Neil Bonnet.

Here is another one with Harlow and David Pearson down on pit lane back in the day.

Miss Hurst Golden Shifter, Linda Vaughan and Glen Wood.

Here is the REAL DEAL 1971 Mercury on track at Darlington.

Harlow with the Wood Brothers in 1975!