The namesake of this one-of-a-kind North Carolina operation takes us inside the vault and reveals the untold stories of preserving vintage race cars, supplying race props to the TV and film industry, and even non-profit work that gives American military personnel an opportunity to find out what it’s like on a pit crew.

Bill Rhine is an inspiring success story from the American business and racing community. A native of South Florida, Rhine entered motorsports in the 1990s on the very bottom rung as a rookie crew member with a team competing in NASCAR. Pursuing his dream of working on a professional NASCAR team, Rhine followed the path from Florida to Georgia to South Carolina and finally North Carolina. After honing his mechanical skills and earning greater team responsibility, Rhine later joined Petty Enterprises as fourth-generation driver Adam Petty was moving into NASCAR Busch Grand National competition. Petty lost his life on May 12, 2000, in a crash at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. Amid his grief, Rhine stepped away from team involvement and forged a new path as a self-employed business owner.

Twenty-one years later, Rhine Enterprise is regarded as a premier resource in the restoration and preservation of vintage race cars, having overseen more than 100 such projects. Located in Denver, North Carolina, Rhine and his small crew have accomplished big things, including building and preparing racing machines for various television and film productions. A keen researcher, Rhine proudly displays his amazing collection of vintage racing iron, a collection that offers priceless insights into a rich, earlier era. Rhine Enterprise has also played a key role in the preparation and maintenance of show cars for various entities through the years.

Rhine can best be described with a combination of the phrases “hard knocks” and “old school.” He runs his business today with a flip phone—don’t bother asking about text messaging—and a steady combination of work, sweat and worry. Rhine has survived the hair-raising highs and lows of business ownership amid the ebb and flow of more than two decades of economic cycles. PRI recently visited with Rhine to tap into his honest and straightforward view of life as a small business owner. 

PRI: Let’s begin by talking about Rhine Enterprise, Bill. Give us a look at the various work you and your crew are involved in.

Rhine: We do just about everything, really. Our favorite thing to do is restore vintage stock cars. We are considered the world leader in vintage race car restoration, of the NASCAR variety. We also like vintage Can-Am, we like vintage Trans Am, and we’ve restored some of those cars in the past. We also handle Toyota’s entire NASCAR show car program, and the building of some of their custom projects. We do custom builds for the NASCAR Hall of Fame, and different amusement things. Sometimes we get involved in unique projects, so it’s many things. 

We’re trying to ramp back up a little bit after COVID. Pre-COVID, we had four people in the shop and one in the office, with two on the evenings and weekends shift. We’re down to two in the shop, two in the evenings, and one in the office. We’re trying to get back to those levels, and we’re trying to find help. We’re like everybody else.

PRI: You experienced a unique series of circumstances that led to you becoming a business owner. What do you remember most about the genesis of Rhine Enterprise?

Rhine: After Adam Petty passed away [in 2000], I decided to get out of racing. When I started working for Adam and at the Richard Petty Driving Experience, that was Adam’s rookie year in the Busch series. We worked out of a building in the back of the Richard Petty Driving Experience, and I watched them build show cars for different clients. I remember looking at various show cars at that time and thinking, “For the money these customers are paying, I could build a much nicer product and make good money.” So that’s how we started; we went after the show car business. The goal was to build a nicer piece than everybody else for roughly the same money. The margins would be a little tighter, but the goal was to get more work. It worked out really well for us and grew and grew and grew.

PRI: Here we are 21 years later. Could you have envisioned the pathway you and your company have traveled?

Rhine: No, not really. And I don’t say that in a negative way. I was under the naive impression that at some point it would get easier. Maybe five, 10, 15 years into it, it would get easier. It’s never gotten easier (laughing). But it has never been not worth doing, if that makes any sense.

We love what we do, we love building cars, we love the people. I joke and say that my business hasn’t made me wealthy to the standards I’d like to be at someday, but it has made me wealthy in the friends and the race car people I’ve come to know. I’ve made some amazing, awesome friendships. That’s the big fun of it, meeting the crew guys and drivers from the past and showing them that somebody still cares about what they did 20, 30, 40 years ago. That’s the cool part.

PRI: Nostalgia is an interesting proposition, and it triggers powerful emotions. There are people who say the past is gone and forgotten, but it looks like your work restoring vintage race cars blows that idea away.

Rhine: Yes, absolutely. It’s a funny thing. We hear from tons and tons of NASCAR fans from the past, and they say they don’t even watch the [current] races anymore. But they still love those old [drivers] and those old cars. They are very passionate, and it’s cool to see. What’s great when restoring an old car is when the people who were involved in the car’s original days come look at it and get emotional when they see the car. Those are the moments that will stay with me forever.

PRI: Your collection of vintage race cars continues to generate lots of attention. How many cars are currently in your collection?

Rhine: I think it’s right at 65 cars right now, restored and unrestored.

PRI: Wow, impressive. How do you typically find new cars to acquire? Is there a network that keeps you up to date when cars become available?

Rhine: Yes, there is a network. An amazing network of friends! There are three or four who regularly call me about something they’ve found, and why they think it’s real. I’ll report this to another friend and say, “This is the car we think we have. Who can help us verify what it is?” They’ll help me track down the original people—car builder, driver, crew members—who can verify that this is a legitimate car. And when we restore the car, we go back to those original guys. I love to get them to sign the dash. We haven’t done this in a while, but sometimes we sit them down, buy them a steak dinner and a beer, and film them as they reminisce about the car, telling stories. Nothing polished or professional, just catching it naturally. We don’t use that footage or sell it to anybody, but we archive it. We just want to have it.

PRI: Have there been missed opportunities? Are there cars that got away?

Rhine: Oh, yes. I was at Barrett-Jackson probably 12 to 15 years ago, and I saw a No. 50 Inman Brothers Racing 2+2 Pontiac. It had been raced in vintage and abused. It was all there, but it was worn out. When I looked it over and read the car’s background, I was skeptical because I didn’t believe it was real. It went across the auction block and sold for something like $22,000, and a friend of mine later bought the car and asked me to help document the car’s history. As soon as I started digging, I discovered that this was the car in which Tim Richmond won his first [NASCAR Winston Cup] race at Riverside and won again at Riverside six months later. Richard Petty also drove the car, and also Al Unser Sr. I immediately thought, “Damn it. I missed a great opportunity to own a great car.”

You develop a cynical view when you look at these cars, and rightfully so. There are so many fakes out there. I hear from people all the time who purchase a vintage car and discover that it’s not at all what it was represented to be. 

PRI: Your work with the television and film industry is interesting. Tell us what you do in that industry, and what is the key to success there?

Rhine: The key? Be patient (laughing). We’ve done a lot of TV commercial stuff. We did all the race props for the Will Ferrell NASCAR movie [“Talladega Nights”]. The TV and film industry is interesting, and I’ve worked with some awesome people there. Mike Brewer, the “Wheeler Dealers” guy, they came and did an episode of their show at our shop. His entire crew of people are some of the greatest I’ve ever worked with. We’ve also done some commercial shoots for different companies—I won’t name them publicly—who were the absolute most miserable people I’ve ever met. The whole, “Don’t you know who we are?” thought process. So the industry is a mixed bag. The Will Ferrell film, 99.5% of those production people were the most wonderful people you could work with. But there are always a few in every group, it’s kind of hit and miss. I guess every business has some of that.

We have turned down three TV shows in the last few years. My team and I have worked hard to build a good reputation, and TV can destroy that reputation as quick as it can make you famous. There are lots of different ways to be famous, and being the most famous person at Walmart is not the type of famous I’m interested in. I’m not going to make my team look like fools just because some producer thinks that if you throw a wrench at Thomas today it will be good television! No, I’m not going to do that.

The TV and film industry, especially the companies producing reality show content, they know that most people would do anything to get on TV because they think it will make them rich and famous. They’ll sign their life away because they want that chance to be famous. We are the most not-famous famous people in the world, and we’re good with that.

PRI: Let’s talk about your early days. Working on a racing crew is far more demanding than most people realize. How did those early years shape how you run your business today?

Rhine: The most fortunate part of that experience was learning to deal with people. When you’re on a race team you’re not going to get along with everybody. You never will. There will always be some guy—and he might be your boss—who makes life difficult. Learning to get along with people, even when you don’t want to, was a big part of that education. 

I was also fortunate to come along before racing teams became so compartmentalized. Today they have specialists: The duct work guy just builds duct work; the crush panel person just does crush panels. But when I started, if you did finish fabrication, you welded tailpipes together and mounted pedals and did crush panels and duct work and side panels and valances and bezels and everything. I’m so fortunate and so glad that I had the opportunity to do so many different things. “Oh, you’re done making crush panels? Good, go make some brake lines!” Absolutely, that was a good education.

PRI: As you transitioned from crew member to owning your own business, what was the first business lesson you learned?

Rhine: Mistakes cost money. And you’re only going to survive if you make minimal mistakes, because there is only so much money. I’ll be honest, when I first started the business, I was so young. When I’d go to vintage races the first two years, I’d fly to California on my own dime six times a year and go to a [vintage] race just to help people. When we got there, they wouldn’t give us the time of day because, “What could this kid possibly know?” We had to work very hard to prove to the community that we were real, and we were okay. We did this for two years, just proving to everybody that we weren’t just some dumb kids from North Carolina trying to step into somebody else’s swimming pool.

PRI: Did you have mentors in those early years? As you tried to get your business going, were there people who helped advise and guide you?

Rhine: In racing, there were a lot of mentors. People I really appreciated. If I was willing to listen, they would point me in the direction of the answer. Ray Stonkus, he was absolutely one of my mentors. Bill Pink the carburetor guy, Butch Lamoreux from Hendrick Motorsports. Many guys in racing won’t teach you what they know because they’re afraid you might take that knowledge and do it better than them, but I was fortunate I met people who were willing to help me. And I was always willing to listen; if it meant staying until 10 o’clock that night, I’d do that. I’ve been lucky all through in that way.

PRI: You devote some of your time and energy to a very interesting non-profit, the Military Pit Crew Challenge. Tell us about the organization.

Rhine: We started this project 10 years ago. We travel to military bases with four Cup cars, five sets of pit equipment, all kinds of spares, 80-some sets of tires and wheels, and we train teams of 10 personnel from different commands and squadrons and we do NASCAR pit stops. Real impact [tools], one-pump jacks, the whole deal, the real stuff. We’ll train up to 40 teams in a two-week trial, and we’ll have a huge competition on the last Friday or Saturday for prizes and awards. For seven years in a row that was the only vacation I took each year, because I loved it. I love working with our military, because they are awesome. When people today worry about the youth of America, we’ve still got good kids in America. They’re in our military.

So I love doing that. I also started building large-scale metal naval ships. I’ve got one on display at the naval museum in Pensacola [Florida]. I’m building another one now. I started horsing around with those in the evenings and weekends. I’ve also got a couple of other [hobbies] on my mind. I still love restoring old race cars, and I never want to stop doing that.

PRI: When someone looks at one of your restorations, what’s the most meaningful thing you can hear them say?

Rhine: One of the best was Bobby Allison. Years ago, we found his old Buick Apollo Busch car and restored it to original. We sat it in Don Miller’s museum in Mooresville, at the North Carolina Auto Racing Hall of Fame. Bobby came to look at it one day, and I was so excited for him to see it. We had the hood up, the trunk up, and he was looking all over this thing. He finally said, “Bill, I’ve gotta tell you. I have one problem with it.” 

“What’s that, Bobby?” 

“It never looked that shiny when I raced it (laughing).”

And that’s the trick, to keep a car looking good and looking correct, without overdoing it. These cars are wonderful show pieces when they are restored, so you take the time to make them shine a little better.

PRI: What advice would you give a young person today who is launching a new business? Any words of wisdom?

Rhine: I would tell them to turn off the Internet and turn off the television for the first five years of their business. Everything on TV tells you how great and how wonderful it’s going to be tomorrow, but the reality is that to build your business correctly takes a long time. I’ve been doing this for 21 years, and there are a lot of people who grew faster than we did because they used social media or did this or that, but a lot of them fell apart down the stretch. Doing it right takes time, and you can’t believe the hype or the Cinderella stories. There are Cinderella stories that are great, don’t get me wrong. But the mindset today is that it’s going to be easy, it’s going to be quick, and it’s going to be no problem. Well, business doesn’t work that way. It’s not easy, it’s not quick, and there are many problems. Deal with your problems when they come up. Don’t hide from them, don’t wait a month to discuss something with somebody. If it’s an issue now, fix it today. That’s probably the biggest thing I would tell someone.

PRI: As an employer, is it difficult to find people who are as driven by passion as you are?

Rhine: Yes. And it’s funny that you use both of those words: driven and passion. You find a lot more passion than you find driven. If you can find both, hire ’em (laughing)! There are a lot of things people are passionate about, but when things become difficult, the passion kind of cuts back a little bit. But the driven people, they are going to march through it and get it done regardless of what comes up. And it is difficult right now in that way. I was fortunate that we had such a really good group for a while, and unfortunately COVID kind of forced us to cut back a little bit. But we have a core of people that have been with us for a long time. 

For example, the gentleman who started wiring my cars when I opened my company over 20 years ago is out in my shop right this minute, wiring another car for me. He’s wired everything that’s come through this place in 21 years. He’s not a full-time employee, he just comes in when we need him. And we’ve got a lot of guys like that. They’ve been here for the long haul with us.

PRI: You’re on the front lines on this topic, and I’m curious. Where will the next generation of people come from to work in racing shops and for manufacturers?

Rhine: That’s a great question. What we see in kids today is different. For example, we used to have an intern program with a local school, but we had to end the program because we fired too many kids. The school that was giving us interns decided not to send us interns anymore. They worked here for a week and they’d come sit down in my office and say, “I don’t want to do the crap work anymore.” Well, everybody sweeps up at the end of the day, even the guys who have worked here for 12 years. So it’s not the crap work, it’s cleaning up after yourself at the end of the day. You’ve got to learn to take engines apart before you learn to put ’em together, and you’ll take a lot more engines apart than you’ll put together, you know? You can’t make a quarter-panel on an English wheel until you can make a flat crush panel and make it fit properly. They don’t want to hear that. What we’ve found is that they don’t get that, because of the environment they grew up in. The influences. 

We had a kid work here for three days and then tell us they weren’t going to do the work we assigned. “I came down here to build engines, and that’s what I want to do or I’m going to go home.” Well, you aren’t going to build an engine for any team for two or three years; you’re going to take engines apart and you’re going to clean parts. I was really disappointed in that whole intern program. Of 27 kids who came through the program, I think we got three kids who were good, and those kids are still in racing.

PRI: But that probably goes back to that dedication and drive we were talking about. You either have those things or you don’t.

Rhine: Yes, exactly. When I got the opportunity to go Busch Grand National racing for the first time, stepping into what I felt was the big time, I left a job in Georgia that paid $500 a week. I drove to South Carolina and slept in my truck for the first two weeks. I got paid $150 a week cash for those first two years. I almost starved to death! I know what a $2-a-day food budget looks like. But again, that was the greatest thing for me because I learned. I learned how to save money properly, and I learned how to live on nothing. The team took the chance on this kid from Georgia, that I could work like I needed to. I did, and they kept me. It was great. Now, it wasn’t fun at the time; it was a struggle. But it was exactly what I needed, and there is a limited number of kids right now who are willing to do that.

PRI: In addition to finding help, it seems that one of the greatest challenges of running a small business today is how to promote yourself properly. Would you agree?

Rhine: That’s absolutely true. We don’t advertise and we don’t promote our work like we should, and I regret that sometimes. A lot of times, we’ll have a really cool project come through the shop, and after it’s gone out the door one of us will say, “Did anybody get any pictures of that?” Nope. There wasn’t enough time. We could post more on Facebook, and we should. We have a nice Facebook page—I haven’t been on there for five years, but I hear it’s really cool (laughing). But on the other hand, our business has been everything it needed to be. I don’t have any complaints.

PRI: We’ll wrap it up with this, Bill. What’s coming up for your business? Any new things on the horizon to talk about?

Rhine: We have some Gen-7 projects coming up, the new NASCAR stuff, which is exciting. We have a lot of cool vintage cars we’re working on now. You know, it’s funny, we never really know what’s coming next. The phone has just kept ringing for 20 years, and when it rings, something new is coming. There are eight cars in the shop right now and two more on the way, and a commercial shoot in LA we have at the end of the month. It just keeps coming.

PRI: We appreciate your time, Bill. Until next time, keep that car collection shined up.

Rhine: Thank you, Dave. Tell everyone at PRI to come see us.