Marty Robbins Race Car Restored for ‘AmeriCarna’

A recent episode of the Velocity channel show 'AmeriCarna' featured the restoration of one of Marty Robbins' old race cars.

The country legend was known to have a passion for auto racing, and the show fixed up his 1964 Plymouth Belvedere before presenting it to his son Ronny Robbins, who had worked on the car when he was a teenager in the '60s.

“It was the first one that we built in-house. It was built in our shop on the family farm [near Nashville],” Ronny tells Country Weekly. “I was about 15 or 16 at the time. I really didn’t have much to do with building the car but I always enjoyed watching that. Mostly, my job was sweeping out metal plates and things.”

'AmeriCarna' host Ray Evernham acquired what was left of the vehicle a couple of years ago and had it restored at a state-of-the-art shop in North Carolina, with specialty parts shipped in from New Jersey and Iowa in order to stay as close to the original as possible.

“Ray made a promise that he would bring it back after the restoration and I would take it around the track again,” Ronny says.

Evernham presented the vehicle to Ronny last May in front of Nashville honky tonk the Stage. The event was emotional for Ronny, who says that while he and his dad didn't always see eye to eye musically, they shared a deep connection over auto racing.

“They had it covered up because Ray wanted to keep me in the dark,” Ronny recalls. “When I saw the car, I just lost it. It was pretty emotional for me because I remembered being there with my dad and seeing it built. It was like a trip back in time.”