For a young Eara Merritt, one Hot Rod magazine image stands out more than any other: that of the Pro Stock driver Don Carleton launching the Motown Missile from the starting line at the 1972 Pomona Nationals, wheels reaching for the sky. It was an iconic image that stayed with Merritt throughout his adult life.
But his automotive interests didn’t favor Chrysler products. Merritt liked Fords, especially Shelby products. “I used to go to all the Shelby conventions in the early days,” says the 66-year-old civil and mechanical engineer. “That’s where I met Mark Williamson and his brother Dan, two straggly guys from Canada who used to hang around with me at those Shelby meets.”
Like Merritt, Mark Williamson fell in love with Shelby Mustangs, but never seemed to have enough money to purchase one. “I’d see Mark at Shelby meets year after year, and we became friends,” Merritt says. “One day in 1983 or ’84, he called and said he found an old racecar that quite possibly could have been the original Motown Missile. It was for sale for $5,000, and he wanted my advice on the car’s value. I told him to buy it, then we lost track of each other for the next 20 years.”
In 2007, though, Williamson called Merritt and asked if he’d like to ride to Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance with him. “Of course!” Merritt said.
En route to Florida, Merritt asked, “What ever happened to that old Cuda drag car you bought?”
By being nice to a couple of Canadian vintage car enthusiasts, Merritt was able to negotiate a transfer of ownership for a wheel-standing factory ’Cuda. Merritt had the car brought from Ottawa to a restoration shop near Jackson, Mississippi. EARA MERRITT
“Oh,” Williamson said, “it’s sitting in my backyard.”
Merritt almost had a stroke. The image of the wheel-standing Motown Missile from Hot Rod magazine from 40 years earlier came to mind. Williamson showed him a photograph of the decrepit racecar, which had sat beside his house for the past 20 years.
One of the most prolific Super Stock racecars in history, the former Motown Missile was featured in many magazines in the 1970s. After a terrific racing career, the 1971 ’Cuda was put out to pasture. EARA MERRITT COLLECTION
It was too much. “How about selling it to me?” Merritt asked.
“I’ll think about it,” Williamson said.
One year went by, then two. Finally, in 2010, Merritt made Williamson an offer: “Mark, I’ll pay for the restoration, and we’ll be partners in the car.” Williamson agreed.
The car was moved from Ottawa to Star, Mississippi, and into Paul’s Body Shop, Merritt’s favorite restoration garage. And there it sat for two years as they researched, documented, and collected the right parts to complete the restoration. Merritt even had the car’s original car builder, Dick Oldfield, verify that the car was the authentic Motown Missile.
In 2012, the car went into “full restoration mode,” according to Merritt. It was dipped in acid for the second time in its life; when it was new, it had been dipped first to make it lighter for drag racing, and now it was dipped again to remove decades of rust and corrosion.
The restoration took a sabbatical for a little while in 2012, when it was brought to the annual East Coast Drag Racing Hall of Fame in Henderson, North Carolina. There it was united with the three other Motown Missiles that were built and raced from 1970 to 1972.
“It was just out of the dip-tank, and it looked like the photos of the car when it was first built in 1971,” Merritt says. This was a bonafide Chrysler factory racecar that was built to make the Hemi the dominant engine in drag racing.”
The rest, as they say, is history.
