Ever Wonder Where All the Spoilers Went?

We recently received a photo of our 1969 Cale Yarborough Spoiler 428 Ram Air car from previous owner Gary Baker. Gary and his wife live in Central Iowa and had for years heard rumors of a Cale Yarborough big block Spoiler in the area but could never locate it. Eventually he did find the car and purchased it from the owner who lived in Oskaloosa, Iowa (my hometown by the way) in 2003. Gary had, and still has, a Cale Spoiler II and thought this would make a great pair. When he managed to purchase the car he was able to learn some more of its history and over the years he continued to hunt for other previous owners.

As time went on, Gary did some work to the car but had many other Ford projects also underway. I ran an ad looking for a Spoiler and Gary responded out of curiosity. He wasn’t really looking to sell the car but realized by selling it he could move on to some other projects he wanted to complete. I made an offer, he fixed the car up some and sold it to Katrina and I in 2005. In 2006 we decided to give it a complete rotisserie restoration.

So what does all this have to do with missing Spoilers? It just so happens that Gary recently met and visited with one of the earlier owners of our Spoiler. The photo above was given to him by another previous owner who runs a body shop. At the time this owner owned the car he hated the flashy two toned red and white paint with the bold stripes down the side. His intent was to repaint it differently. This photo shows that effort in process. He sold the car before completing the repaint. Luckily, the new owner gave it an inexpensive but proper Cale Yarborough paint job.

Would you recognize this car as a Spoiler if you saw it? Back in the day factory paint was not all that great and repaints were common. I owned a new Z28 back then and remember it needed a repaint in a little over a year! Many folks placed in this situation did a color change so they had a “new car” for the cost of a paint job. Few would pop for the added cost of a two tone color or even the stripes down the side. Likely, this happened to many of the Spoilers. Once they were all white or some other color they were unrecognizable as a Spoiler to the average buyer. Remember, they were just used cars. Few people thought of them as future collector cars. Back then it was all about what was new and what was the fastest.

How many Spoilers might still be out there today but we don’t take a second look at them because they are not red and white or blue and white?

Here is picture of our Spoiler today.