SR61 Starliner

If not for Summit Racing, many of our own weekend projects would take considerably longer than they do now. Summit is also responsible for the all-wheel-drive ’32 Ford known as the QuadraDeuce, and recently Summit decided it was time to build another car that would set the hot rod world on its ear. Summit contacted Denny Terzich and his partners at ProRides (724/244-7161) in Warrendale, Pennsylvania, to build an incredible new project car. At the time, though, ProRides wasn’t even yet up and running, so Terzich, his cousin Mike Terzich and Curt Ukasic turned to Jimmy Varacelli for help, and these two shops performed the bulk of the work on the car. 

The project is based on an Art Morrison 2×4-inch boxed perimeter frame, but the builders modified the frame by removing the centersection and adding a custom dual-level chromoly tubular center. They then added a Currie 9+ rearend with 3.91 gears and a limited-slip differential, all of which rides on a four-link suspension with Air Ride Technologies ShockWaves. Eliminating body roll in a car of this size is a priority, so the builders added a 7/8-inch Speedway sway bar. A huge set of Wilwood four-piston calipers and 12-1/4-inch rotors help bring the big car to a halt, even considering the terminal-velocity potential of its huge powerplant. To harvest the most traction for starting and stopping, Billet Specialties fabricated a one-off set of “Hubcap” wheels that measure 20×10 inches.

The front suspension utilizes tubular Mustang suspension arms and 2-inch-drop spindles with a Maval power steering rack to connect them. Another pair of ShockWaves keeps the nose out of the dirt, and the front Wilwood brakes are even bigger than those in back—six-piston calipers with 13-inch rotors. A big 1-1/4-inch Speedway sway bar helps keep the front end level, and 18×8 Billet Specialties wheels and 235/35ZR18 BFGoodrich rubber keep it all connected to the pavement

A company like Summit Racing couldn’t very well sit back and have its car powered by a crate motor. No, it had to go wild, so it contacted Evanuik Performance Engines for a truly fire-breathing powerplant. Evanuik began the buildup with an aluminum Ford Racing 460 block, which it bored out to 4.56 inches. Combine that fat bore with a long 4.5-inch Crower stroker crankshaft and you’ll end up with 600 ci of torquey big-block Ford. And the engine doesn’t rely on its size alone, either—forged JE pistons and Trick Flow R Series 460 heads fitted with Crane roller rockers produce a 10.5:1 compression ratio. The Comp Cams full roller cam isn’t what we’d call mild, either—0.740-inch lift makes for a lumpy idle but gobs of power throughout the entire rpm range. Twin Holley 1050 Dominators top the Trick Flow tunnel ram intake manifold, and the Holleys pull air through a pair of K&N filters and firewall vents.

The ignition system is worthy of the rest of these components, too—in place of the typical distributor and single coil, the car features an MSD distributor-less system with eight individual coils behind the firewall, keeping the ignition system extremely clean looking. Custom parallel step headers take the exhaust gases from the heads to the Flowmaster Delta race mufflers and Dr. Gas NASCAR-style exhaust tubing. Prism Powder Coating applied a thermal coating to the entire exhaust system. The final pieces of the puzzle were a Stef’s oiling system, a Powermaster starter, a Fluidamper balancer and ARP bolts to hold everything together. The result of this combination is a near-astounding 920 hp and 810 lb-ft of torque.

The engine looks amazing, too, thanks to polished Granatelli sheetmetal valve covers. All the other aluminum components are polished, too, and there are a lot of them, including an MSD alternator, a March serpentine system, overflow tanks, hood hinges and more. A custom air cleaner tops everything off and blends almost seamlessly with the firewall and cowl.

A 1,000hp Be Cool aluminum radiator sits in front of the big engine to keep it cool. And what sort of transmission do you choose to back a 900hp big-block Ford? If you said C6, think again. Summit instead opted to have ProRides install a Richmond six-speed manual transmission with a Hayes race clutch. We can’t think of a more fun combination than this engine and this transmission, but we bet it’s a handful!

Countless hours have been invested in the body to bring it to the state you see here. Modifications include the elimination of emblems, the door handles and all the cowl vents except for the middle portion for air induction. The bumpers, too, are smoothed, with the bumpers blind-mounted from behind for a cleaner appearance. The stars molded into the C-pillars were removed to be airbrushed later.

The builders removed many items, but they added new ones, too. They made new custom brass moldings, and Motorhead Jewelry made new emblems for the car. Under the hood, the firewall and radiator shroud are all new, and the inner fenders are actually welded and molded to the outer fenders, so there are no fender bolts to clutter the appearance. All of those items originally finished in nickel plate are now chrome. After all the bodywork was finally complete, the builders sprayed the car PPG ProRides Green with a pearl-white roof. 

Now the Starliner needed only upholstery, so off it went to Appleman Interiors in Columbus, Ohio. That shop created a set of custom seats for the car and covered them in bone-colored leather. The same goes for the hand-sculpted door panels, which also feature billet aluminum accents and body-matching paint. The same treatment was applied to the awesome center console, which flows rearward, splitting between the two rear seats. A pair of metal humps, one behind each rear bucket, lends a touch of Thunderbird Sports Roadster, too. The dash may look stock, but it’s been cut and welded and cut again many times over to gently massage and improve its look without losing the character of the original design. The dash, too, is painted to match the body, and the instrument cluster contains a set of Auto Meter Arctic White gauges. A Billet Specialties Outlaw steering wheel tops the Flaming River column, while Long supplied the shifter, also wrapped in leather. Tilton designed the gas, brake and clutch pedals, and ProRides even used a set of these pedals as door pulls.

Vintage Air climate control keeps the cabin cool, thanks to insulation from Dynamat. The Dynamat also keeps unwanted road noise out, giving the occupants a crisper, cleaner sound from the Eclipse stereo/DVD/navigation unit. The sound system incorporates six MTX midrange speakers, two 10-inch subs and three amps.

There’s something gloriously incongruous about seeing a car like this Starliner doing its best during hot laps around a road course, and we like that. Sure, compared to some of the Air Ride-equipped Mustangs at the Street Challenge, the SR61 may have been a bit outclassed through the twisty stuff, but it didn’t do anything wrong, either. On the straights, the car certainly lived up to its namesake as it did its best to reach Mach 3 prior to turn one. Okay, it might not have been quite that fast, but ProRides and everyone else who worked on the car did a great job of fulfilling Summit Racing’s vision and creating a project car worthy of that great speed emporium. Someday, Summit will feel the need to top this car with something even better—good luck, but we sure want to see what happens when they try!