Chevrolet
Once a West Coast gasser, this ’55 Chevy made its way to Lebanon, Ohio, thanks to longtime Chevy enthusiast Freddie Green. That was back in 1978, when his son Jason was just four years old. Fast forward a few years, and Jason, professing to be a Chevy man since birth, took ownership of the car from his father at the age of 10.
One look at a car is generally all it takes to determine pretty much what it’s made of—whether it’s fast, incredibly slow or falls safely somewhere in between. There are always typical small details that reveal a car’s true identity, whether it’s a huge exhaust, healthy underpinnings, aggressive rubber on wide wheels, a large, efficient cooling system, a well-laid-out induction with appropriate fuel delivery, sturdy engine mounts and/or mounting, the size and scope of the ignition, as well as the inlet air system.
If you’ve got a 2020+ GM V8 truck or SUV and you’re not running E85 yet, you’re leaving power and money on the table. Enter the ProFlex DXI—the easiest, fastest, and flat-out smartest way to slap flex fuel capability onto your rig. No tuning, no ECU unlocks, no headaches—just more horsepower and lower fuel costs in about 15 minutes.
Even in a crowd of first-rate ’69 Camaros, few will mistake the look and sound of the limited-edition RCR Series3 Camaros, a stunning expression of automotive passion, excitement and history.
“Corvette Bill” Bartenstein and his son, Bill Jr., are renowned around the state of Hawaii—more specifically Kailua—for their car-building talents. But that’s not all—at the 2007 Barrett-Jackson auction at Scottsdale, Arizona, a candy-blue Bartenstein-built ’69 Pro Touring Camaro fetched a record $182,000. It just so happens that this Firemist Red ’66 Corvette Sting Ray resto rod—another Bartenstein creation—rolled across the B-J auction block that same weekend and sold for an incredible $130,000. So what makes a Bartenstein-built car so attractive? Let’s take a closer look.
As we’ve come to learn, there’s something special about a ’55 Chevy, particularly when it is fitted with one of the popular Chevy engines that have become so common today. But that’s not the case when the hood is opened on this ’55. It is not the celebrated 265, or one of the more respected LS engines, or even a Chevy big block that captures your attention here. This is something different, and not a Bow Tie at all.
Maurice and Lynne Hoover were already the veterans of two wild project car builds—a ’67 El Camino and a ’67 Camaro—when Maurice decided he wanted to build yet another. He says, though, that when he brought up the subject of another project, his wife, Lynne, was not particularly pleased. Maurice went ahead and brought home a ’67 Nova anyway. While in some situations such a move could have worked out for the worse, before long Lynne came to like the car, and the two dove into the project.
Some car guys choose a path to automotive nirvana through the purchase of a car that someone else built or by having a shop build the car of their dreams, but Albert Alvarado is not one of those guys. Like many of us, he doesn’t mind getting grease under his fingernails and overspray in the garage. You see, Alvarado had completed this Bel Air once before. Back in 2004, it was a beautiful red-and-white car, but Alvarado was disappointed by the number of red-and-white Bel Airs he was seeing at all the shows, so he decided to make some drastic changes.
There are SEMA vehicles, and then there are SEMA vehicles. Do you want an explanation? Okay, all SEMA vehicles are built to show off a company’s part, but some vehicles are “built” with only that part on it and are otherwise stock. While we won’t say that these vehicles are totally a waste of time—some have shown a great deal of imagination—for the most part they don’t capture our attention, nor are they what you would consider to be mainstream vehicles.
In 1994, Denny and Dawn Johns picked up a ’55 Chevy two-door sedan. Along with Dale Johns, the couple runs Van Buren, Arkansas’ D&D Specialty Cars (479/414-2654), so it was no huge deal to think they would quickly rebuild the ’55 into something very special; after all, they had sold the car and its rebuild to Ed Johns, Denny’s father.
But about a year later, a major tornado tore through Van Buren, and along with most everything else, it left the ’55 demolished from bumper to bumper. Since the car wasn’t the only thing destroyed in the tornado’s path, it took a back seat as the Johns family rebuilt their homes and their business. Then in 2003, Ed sold the ’55 back to Denny and Dawn, and the couple decided to rebuild the car for themselves. Apparently the original plan was to build a nice driver, but once under way, Denny says, “We couldn’t find a good stopping point.” So they didn’t—stop, that is—until three years later.