May 2015
DACC FEATURE CAR
When I was a
boy I always wanted to build a matt black 1955 2 door Chevy with a big block. I
wasn’t like every other kid, I didn’t want a Z-28 Camaro or a 1969 fast back
Mustang. Everyone has one of those. I wanted something that would turn heads
that no one else had. The older I got the more I wanted something I could drive
every day and truly enjoy.
When I turned 15 my father and I found this ’56 Bel Air in Clyde, Texas and I
fell in love. Betsy (my black and white 1956 Bel Air) was the reality of all my
dreams as a kid. For the next 6 months I got her ready. Fixing all kinds of
electrical issues and making her street legal. We installed seat belts, an
alpine stereo system, headers, a straight exhaust with silencers, and wheels.
At first glance she looks original but she’s quite the sleeper. 'Betsy' will do
zero to 60 in eight seconds flat. When Betsy hits 70 mph the front end will
shake lightly, at 85 mph the font end will shake and go from side to side, at
100 mph the engine drops and the front end picks up to where you can no longer
see the road, and at 135 Betsy taps out. This has only been done once and was
by far the scariest 3 minutes of my life! Betsy is my daily driver and you can
see her every week day in my high school parking lot beside my girlfriend’s ‘63
Ford Falcon. As my daily driver, Betsy gets driven like she did back in 1956
through rain, shine, snow, or ice. Every day is a new adventure with Betsy,
often times she is driven with something half fixed or hanging apart under the
dash, but by every weekend with the help of my girlfriend, my father, or my
friends another project gets finished.
My car attracts a lot of attention everywhere I go, and it’s a common topic
between the teachers and the students at Ryan High school. I was worried that
she would be a target for students to attack in the parking lot, but to my
surprise there were more gear heads and car lovers than one would think. I have
several friends who are major gear heads and absolutely love ‘American Muscle’,
and then you have the tune up kids who love imports, the drag racing kids, and
the mudding kids. But they are gear heads all the same who appreciate cars just
like myself. Many of the kids in my high school are like this but the cold hard
fact of why you see so few classic cars is because they are more expensive to
maintain, upgrade, and pay for gas. But there’s my friend Lauren at age 17 who
is building her 1969 Mustang. My girlfriend Audrey drives ‘Henry’, her 1963
Falcon to school every day (she got Henry at age 15). One of my shop buddies is
currently working on a 1969 Nova to build for college and he’s 18. There are
tons more at my school just like them who dream to build, it’s an appreciation
that you can’t teach. I plan on building and restoring other cars of all makes
in the future, but no car will ever be as special to me as Betsy. That’s why a
few months ago I set off looking for my father’s first car, a 1973 Ford Mustang
with a 351 Cleveland for power.
You can give a man the car of his dreams with everything he can’t afford and a
blower. But the simple truth is he will take a rusty old Pinto full of holes
with a smile on his face and a tear in his eye, because a man’s first car will
always have a special place in his heart.
Thanks, Bobby Wallace
BE SURE TO CHECK OUT THIS INTERVIEW WITH BOBBY TAKEN AT THE
2015 Tri Five Nationals in Bowling Green, KY!
SEE MORE PHOTOS HERE
LINK