This Weekend's Question: Your First Street Car  

Remember this like it was yesterday! Bought a 1955 Chevy (2 door 210 with a post) when I was 15 years old. That gave me two years to work on it before I got my license at 17. Bought it for $150 at some junkyard on Old Bridge-Englishtown Road. This must have been 1973. Did most of the work myself so that I would learn. Ended up having a fully blueprinted and balanced 11:1 327 (angle plug heads, Isky with solids, Edelbrock, 780 Holley, Accel fire and Hooker pipes) M-22, Lakewood blow proof bell-housing, 3200 lb clutch/pressure plate, old style Pontiac rear with locker and 4:56 Schiefer gears, and those yellow Lakewood slapped bars. Put on a one piece fiberglass tilt nose that had a “Grump Lump” and shaved the side spears off the body. Anson aluminum mags. Black tuck and roll interior with Camaro buckets. Gray primer, ran out of money for paint (paint don’t make you go faster). Was also my first “race car”. Best time was a 12.3 at somewhere around 115 on 7 inch street tires. Ended up selling the motor to some guy who put it in a Jersey speed skiff and the body went to another fella from somewhere up near Newark. That car was followed by a black and white 1956 Bel Air with a 302 out of a Z28, but that’s a story for another day......