UPDATE 1

Sorry guys. Some shoddy reporting (and total lack of fact-checking:) on the first draft of this article below!

Richard Petty started racing in 1958 at the Historic Columbia Speedway, so this 1960 model-year Plymouth was definitely not his first NASCAR ride.

A bit of Petty trivia? He returned to this tiny dirt oval in 1959 to score his first win. The track is still around today, but in a heavily ‘disused’ state with much grass growing through the paved sections, which were laid down in the late 1960s.

We do believe this body Plmouth Fury was his ride for his Daytona 500 in 1960, where he brought in third place. This Mecum auction car was created by Velocity television for the program Dallas Car Sharks season two finale.

What legendary piece of Americana came along before muscle-cars, and was much faster than most so-called sports-cars of the era?

Those would be race cars. Until the late 1950s (for Ford) and the late 1960s (for GM), the quickest American steel out there was on the budding sport of Stock Car Racing. These road-based cars were stripped and souped up to their maximum potential for oval and straight-track racing duties that took them around the country to blast their loud engines and fight for glory and checkered flags.

The street cars of Plymouth and MOPAR brands were the first to adopt race-friendly designs right from the factory, to better perform on the track. This Plymouth Fury is no exception, and a car just like it powered “The King” of the sport, Richard Petty, to his first podium — on perhaps his first race.

The Plymouth Fury here is a near-perfect recreation of the long-lost Petty third-place-earner. It has come full circle now: with a street car modded heavily to be just like the race car, and then made street legal once again.

The result is an icon in design and one that racing fans should all know and respect.

This very-cool and gigantic 1960 Plymouth Fury is still available after not meeting its reserve. The high bid at Mecum Kissimmee 2015 was $32,000 — and seems worth every penny of that, and more, in the history of American racing.

1960 Plymouth Fury NASCAR