Words: Chadly Johnson
‘Predictably unpredictable’ might be the best way to describe Ron Normann’s shift from collecting rare COPO and Yenko muscle cars into pursuing heavily raced, pedigreed Willys drag cars. Ron has always been a car guy, but through his business “McHenry Classic Car Parts,” which sources rare parts for even rarer muscle cars, he naturally feeds into an impressive collection of GM muscle. In fact, Ron has owned 9 COPO & Yenko models, including… drum roll please… Don Yenko’s serial #1 1969 Camaro. Even with this impressive resume of cars, Ron has always loved Willys, and eventually came to own the X Willys coupe.
Shortly after Ron purchased his first Willys, he sold the ‘69 Yenko, and his Willys collection rapidly began to snowball. Now, you might be thinking Ron got a chunk of change in his pocket and went around buying up turnkey Willys to stuff away into his private collection. In reality, Ron began seeking out Willys drag cars with deep racing history and restoring them back to their glory days of racing. As with most race cars, these track warriors did not lead easy lives… They were race cars, and when their time at the track was over, they were mostly forgotten and their parts sold off and scattered to the four winds.
It must be in Ron’s nature to breathe new life back into classic cars. I mean, at this point he had the money to simply purchase “finished” cars, but he has chosen to revive historical race cars with hard to find and expensive parts. Ron’s attitude is “never good enough” – he digs until the right parts are found to put each of his race cars back to the peak of their racing days. Once finished, Ron’s cars do not become dust collectors, but are both shown and, for certain cars, raced at events like the Meltdown Drags and other nostalgic racing events. The story of the ‘39 Merkel Willys is typical of Ron’s passion for resurrecting these historic drag cars.
Ron spotted an ad for an old Willys drag car called the BeeLine in Connecticut, and gave the seller a call. When Ron inquired as to why he was selling, the gentleman replied that he wanted to finish his “other” Willys drag coupe. When Ron asked what the other car was, the seller replied “the Jack Merkel ‘39 Willys coupe.” Ron about melted, as he already owned the Jack Merkel 1933 Willys coupe, and had dreamed of owning the pair of cars. Ron replied that as he was going to travel all the way to Connecticut, he would have to bring both cars home… and a deal was struck.
The ‘39 coupe was a nice car overall; it was in primer and pretty close to paint. Mechanically, though, the coupe had all the wrong parts, as it was currently running a stack-injected small block backed by a 4-speed, and a 9” Ford. The coupe did still retain its original front axle and front wheels and tires. Ron has become good friends with both Jack Merkel and Jr. Hopkins during the resurrection of both Merkel cars, and Jr. assisted Ron in locating many of the essential parts to making the Willys era correct. Jack had won events all up and down the East Coast with the Willys, but his most noted wins were at the US Nationals at Indy in the B/GS class. Jack was the Nationals runner-up in ‘62, and then the winner in both 1963 and ‘64 with his gorgeous black coupe. When Ron told Jack he was going to restore the coupe, he asked Jack which he would prefer – its appearance in 1963 or ‘64? Jack said to please put it back to the blue arrow appearance that it displayed in 1964. Ironically, Ron had all the correct parts in his collection to mechanically restore the Willys to its 1963 race components… but he was happy to carry out Jack’s wishes, as there was no denying the blue arrow styling was his favorite as well.
While the coupe’s body was being massaged to perfection for its black paint, Ron and Jr. were busy locating era-correct parts such as a floater rear end and B&M transmission. Ron already had a correct small block that they punched out, then topped with a four port Hilborn injection setup. Now came the most important and crazy part of the Willy’s resurrection… the glass ‘39 front end. Now as we all know, nearly every Willys coupe that was not born a 1940 or ‘41 has been given a nose job to “look” like a ‘40 – ‘41. Well, back in 1964, Pork Zartman and Charlie Hill had a fiberglass shop in Pennsylvania. Jack Merkel told them he wanted a glass ‘39 front end; they informed him that they had over a hundred 1940 – ‘41 front ends from which he could pick, but Jack said no, he wanted a ‘39. So Hill and Zartman built him two 1939 glass front ends… the only two ever built. Jack raced the Willys in 1964 with the glass front end (he ran a steel front clip in ‘63). It was critical that Ron have the glass clip to make the car correct for ‘64, but there were only two built… should be an easy thing to find 50+ years later!
After Jack sold the ‘39 coupe, it changed hands a few times. One of the new owners did not like the ‘39 nose, so he replaced it with a ‘41 tilt front end. The glass ‘39 front end was sold and ended up in California, where it was put on a ‘40 coupe and raced in the area. When the coupe was sold again, the new owner replaced it with a ‘41 tilt nose, and the ‘39 glass nose was put aside. Flash forward a number of years to Ron’s friend Joe Triola who was showing the Stone Woods and Cook Willys that he had just restored at the Grand National Roadster show in California. The guy parked across from Joe was displaying the Honkin Willys coupe, and after some chatting, the owner revealed that he had the glass ‘39 front end. Joe mentioned that his friend had the original ‘39 Merkel coupe, so Joe took down the gentleman’s information and passed it on to Ron. Ron and the owner of the Honkin Willys talked on the phone, and the owner of the Honkin coupe said he was basically afraid of it as it was a race car, and what he really wanted was a steel prostreet Willys coupe. Well, Ron just so happened to have a nice steel prostreet coupe in his collection, so after some negotiations Ron traded the prostreet coupe for the Honkin coupe, plus the glass front end. So in the end, the ‘39 glass front end traveled from Connecticut, to Pennsylvania, to Omaha, to California, and finally to Ron’s in Illinois, where it was joined to the original car on which it was raced in 1964 for the US Nationals Championship title… crazy.
The restoration of the ‘39 Willys became a quest to finish the coupe in time for the Hot Rod Reunion show as Jack Merkel was being inducted into the Hall of Fame, and presented with a Walley trophy. Ron was determined to have both of Jack’s cars at his side when he was inducted into the Hall of Fame. The goal was achieved after many late nights of blood, sweat and a few tears. For me personally, this shows the two sides of stories like this. There are amazing men like Jack Merkel who helped pioneer drag racing, and became legends and heroes to us all. Then there are men like Ron Normann, who work hard and sacrifice both physically and financially to restore and preserve these amazing historical cars so that their legend can continue to be enjoyed by all of us for many years to come. I’m truly thankful for folks like Ron, because without them, many of these cars belonging to our heroes would be lost to time.
