Lee 1 and its new owner

[ChgrSteve67]

If this has been posted already....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5_30wv5h0s

[Bob]

Cool.

[Just 6T9 CHGR]

x2

[Chris G.]

After watching that, I don't think Bubba had any clue what truly happened to Lee1. 

[tan top]

 

[68X426]

I chuckled when the interviewer went to exit the Lee and out of habit reached for the door handle. Then realized "oh yeah, I gots to climb out the window".

[69 OUR/TEA]

I thought the car was alot nicer than it is,the body/paint look decent and I know they restored it to pre-jump condition,is it just me,cause that car looks cruddy?

[CharcoalCharger]

This is kinda old news.  I follow golf and am a fan of Bubba, so I heard about it back in Jan. when he bought the car.  I didn't think he really bought Lee 1 because as 69 OUR/TEA posted, I thought the car was restored to pristine condition.  Bubba said it needed some work when he bought it, but he was still going to take it to the Waste Management Tourn in Phoenix (which he did).  I wonder why it was put up on the market.  Either way, it is cool that someone like Bubba got it.  Bubba also had the car with him when he was on Feherty.  It would be cool if he would show up at Carlisle with it.  I'd like to see the car again and meet him. 

[Cooter]

  I wonder why it was put up on the market. 

The car is a roach and was cobbled from another car. The REAL "Lee 1" was cut up into pieces and sold off by that guy from Indiana. If this is old news, then the back stroy is REALLY old news. MANY threads have gone crazy because of this car and the controversy surrounding it.

[ChgrSteve67]

I just thought the interview between the two was entertaining.

Like this one with CE and some Ford engineers that are not exactly car enthusiasts or NASCAR fans.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HwLMvRDlclc

[DC_1]

Its cool that Bubba bought the car and the interview was pretty good, but to be honest that cat looked pretty disappointing. Since it was wrecked and needed so much work they should have restored it to show car condition not pre-jump stunt car condition IMO......A stunt car only needs to look good from 50 feet on camera. Since this car needed so much work, replacement metal and parts i would have prefered it to have been brought up to the level of what the car portrayed and not what it actually was. Again just my  

[moparstuart]

its a re-body 

[Back N Black]

Wow! i think Bubba paid $108,000 too much.

[jaak]

I thought the car was alot nicer than it is,the body/paint look decent and I know they restored it to pre-jump condition,is it just me,cause that car looks cruddy?

I think that was the intent of the restore (...or rebody), not to "restore" it to showcar or showroom condition, but to make it look like it did in '78, a 10 year old car with a crappy orange acrylic enamel paint job. Its an interesting car to talk about, but I agree with other posts, essentially this is "Lee1's VIN-Firewall-Windsheild", not Lee1.

I think this selling on Barrett Jackson shows that folks do there homework and read stuff like this on the net. I really think the seller and BJ thought this car was gonna bring a lot more than it did, but bidders were aware of what happened when this car was restored..errr...rebodied. The original roof, roll cage (and other stuff I'm sure) was sold off to collectors for a profit, and some parts were put on Travis Bell's own GL clone.

Jason

[Indygenerallee]

He got the shaft..... 

[Mike DC]

 
There are hundreds of GL replicas and the vast majority of them are way nicer than the prop-cars ever were. 

What makes the TV prop cars interesting is seeing the battle scars.  Or at least seeing how it looked on-camera, and the differences between that versus how a replica gets built today.

[69 OUR/TEA]

I thought they pulled/straightened the frame,replaced some sheetmetal,etc, and that it "is" the same car from the first jump,AKA, Lee #1???

[Cooter]

I thought they pulled/straightened the frame,replaced some sheetmetal,etc, and that it "is" the same car from the first jump,AKA, Lee #1???

Um, .......Nope...Total Rebody...

[404NOTFOUND]

That's a lot of money for a firewall and a cracked windshield. If he sits on top of the door with his hands on the roof to pose for a picture, he still is not touching Lee 1.

[Cooter]

Everybody has a different idea on what's a "Rebody" and what's "Saving the original" car. From the DVD....

Don't know bout you guys, but this looks like the entire roof was cut off at some point. Looks like a duck, quacks like a duck......
Pics from CGLFC.com with respect to OP.

NO Roll cage in car (Lee 1?)


Welding in NEW!? Roll cage ..

[Indygenerallee]

Trav(ass) Bell took the original roll cage out, cut the original roof off and scavenged the rest of the parts (cluster, etc.) before selling it, It's a total rebody! But it looks like Bubba has cash and he really wanted it, so be it.

[Cooter]

Exactly, Bubba is content believeing it is Lee 1 so he has the cash, the rest don't matter IMO.

[Troy]

Looks like less work than what a lot of guys here are doing. No matter, the general public doesn't know and probably doesn't care. It's really only important to a select few. No matter how you spin it, the "bones" of the car are original so, technically, it's the only one that can be claimed to be Lee #1. That's more than a lot of other famous cars can say (the number of fakes in museums can be staggering). It does look pretty crappy (and I've seen it in person) - but the idea was to make it look like it did on the show (for all of 1.5 episodes or something).

Troy

[Mike DC]

  
That pic above is misleading.  That was probably taken when the original roof skin was being removed (for selling off).  



The front subframe/clip of the new car is original.  

It's been my understanding that the rear 2/3rds of the unibody are all one huge piece of a donor unibody.  Cut at the A-pillars.  The donor car contributed a much larger single piece of intact unibody than LEE#1 did.  

[Troy]

Agree, but the same could be said for a lot of cars. I think the argument is that it didn't have to be that way. But again, no one cares. I bet there may be 50-100 people in the whole world who are really bent out of shape about it. It's still more Lee #1 than any other car. In the end, the opinion of the person with the most cash is all that matters (and I was told as much by the guy who paid to have it resurrected).

Troy