Dale Earnhardt Jr. Drives the Last Car Driven by Elvis

nytimes.com ^ | march 31, 2014 |  BENJAMIN PRESTON

[lowbridge]

Richard Petty may be known as the King in Nascar circles, but to many other Americans that title is reserved for Elvis Presley, the King of Rock ‘n Roll. One of Mr. Presley’s cars, the 1973 Stutz Blackhawk III he was photographed driving not long before he died, on Aug. 16, 1977, has made its way into the Nascar realm as part of a promotion for the Charlotte Motor Speedway AutoFair to be held at the track from Thursday to Sunday.

In a public unveiling after the car was mechanically refurbished, Dale Earnhardt Jr. drove the car around the Charlotte track last week. Mr. Earnhardt, wearing a pair of gold-colored Elvis glasses, baggy jeans and a red National Guard hoodie, noted that the car must have been cool in its day, but that it wasn’t really his thing.

With a custom body built in Italy on a Pontiac Grand Prix chassis, the Stutz Blackhawk III was an expensive car for its day. According to General Motors paperwork signed by Presley, he paid a $20,000 deposit on the car on Sep. 6, 1974, opting for bucket seats, a leather interior, a sunroof, wire wheel covers, 18-karat gold trim and an AM/FM tape stereo. The car was equipped with Pontiac’s anemic 230-horsepower 4-barrel carbureted V8 engine and an automatic transmission.

Upon learning that Presley’s Stutz had been farmed out for promotional duty at a Nascar track, some Elvis fans were less than pleased.

[Boogieman]

That’s pretty cool, but it would be even cooler to drop a deuce in the “throne” that the King died on.

[aposiopetic]

Upon learning that Presley’s Stutz had been farmed out for promotional duty at a Nascar track, some Elvis fans were less than pleased.

The LSM is always looking for a break in the NASCAR / music coalition.

[Yardstick]

Wonder if the “AM/FM tape stereo” was an 8-track or early cassette player.

[Senator_Blutarski]

Wonder if the “AM/FM tape stereo” was an 8-track or early cassette player.

I'm betting it was an 8-track.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHfQ-xsZtcg

[elcid1970]

In the spring of 1974 I installed an in-dash AM/FM/cassette in my Chevy. Eight track was already obsolete.

In Vietnam the 1971 PACEX catalog featured under-dash cassette units.

[SkyDancer]

And in other news, a friend of Elvis when Elvis was first starting out tried to get him to change his name to Johnny or Bobby - get rid of the Elvis name. It won’t work.

[Yardstick]

Yeah, early '70s was when they figured out how to make cassettes sound nearly hifi thanks to Dolby B and a few other tweaks. It's weird to think cassettes had actually been around for nearly a decade even before then -- but they sounded like crap and weren't used for much outside of dictation machines according to wikipedia.

[elcid1970]

Any early 70’s cassette deck with the word Dolby on it was presumed golden. Top loading just like the later early video decks.

My Dad’s Sony TC-127 (non Dolby) deck still plays just fine out of his Pioneer QX-8000 receiver along with the Akai GX-200D reel to reel deck through the CS-88A speakers. LPs sound great on the 1961 Garrard Type A turntable which was a better machine than the later stuff.

[John 3_19-21]

Heres a video of said event