Destination: Bel Air

How Dave Murphy’s layover became his permanent vacation

- Chris Shelton

Who among us hasn’t wanted a race car at one point? Think about it, a car that’s so fast it can’t be driven legally on the street … it’s the utmost expression of speed. It says dedication. A race car is badassed.

A race car is also a ton of work. Dave Murphy will tell you; he ran an Outlaw 10.5 car, a turbocharged Fox-body Mustang that ran low 7s. “After dropping a ton of money into the race car, along with the stress involved with running a car of that caliber, I decided it was more than I wanted,” he admits. So he sold it.

Well, you can take the boy out of the race car but you’re not going to take the race car out of the boy. “Not being sure if I wanted to get completely out of racing, I kept my eyes open looking for something easier to maintain and run at the track,” he says. Then opportunity knocked.

“One day while surfing eBay I came across this Bel Air and had to have it!” he says. What he found was one of Boris Maryanovsky’s listings from Street Machinery, an account Dave followed for years. “He always has cool stuff for sale.”