Thursday, July 28, 2011

Doug Hoppe and Roger Burman build an award-winning, '55 convertible...


     Usually, when someone tries to make a radical custom out of a Tri-Five classic, the result is an original car that might have lost a lot of its integrity during the process of tweaking the original bodylines. When this happens, it's a sad day for every motor enthusiast.
     Not in the case of Doug Hoppe and Roger Burman's radical '55 convertible, however. In this instance, the final result of their collaboration was a clean, ground-up custom that also incorporates the driveability that most rodders are looking for in a contemporary showpiece. Driveable because of its custom front-end with independent suspension, complimented by rack-and-pinion steering. Maintaining integrity because the Frenched headlights, custom LED taillights and other styling cues are done in a way that  pays tribute to that era of bodystyling, while still accomplishing that polished, car-show finish. No wonder that Hoppe and Burman's clean '55 won the title of 2004 Goodguys' custom rod of the year.
     The clean custom is backed by a 502 motor with a 4L60E trans, so performance is definitely not an issue with this show-horse. Hoppe and Burman's '55 custom tears-up the tarmac while stealing the spotlight, true to the street rod craft.


- Sal Alaimo Jr., B. A. (7/28/11)

S. J. A.

Wednesday, July 6, 2011

Scott's Hotrods 'N Customs and Classic Car Marketing's SWEET '55...

One of these things is kinda like the other...
Scott’s Hotrods’ custom ’55 deviates big time from Skeeter’s ’57 drag car

In my last article on Tri-Five Chevys, I had chosen the pro-street ’57 built by Skeeter’s Performance Fabrication because of its coherence to tradition. In today’s installment of my on-going series covering the 55-57 era Chevys, we’ll take a look at a more modern custom, a ’55 210 sedan from Classic Car Marketing and Scott’s Hotrods ‘N Customs, because it stands in brilliant contrast to yesterday’s feature.
The difference is in technique; Skeeter Performance’s nitrous-fed, ’57 Chev used a lot of old-school styling and engine-building cues, where Classic Car Marketing’s Viper-red, ’55 sedan uses the most candy-coated paint and up-to-date interior possible to enhance an already-brilliant design.

First, notice the difference in the interior. A lot of what you see inside this Tri-Five are not 
implements that you would find in a lot of cars from this era, even if they are custom; the gauges are white-faced, the dash is solid-painted and the leather seats are camel-colored. Again, the paint is a shade of red off of a Dodge Viper; most early-model Chevs that you see customized use the PPG variant that is usually sprayed on ‘Vettes. And what we see from under the hood is where the “culture clash” begins; the chromed, mechanical fuel injectors against the Viper paint make the car look a little like it doesn’t know what decade it’s in.



But one thing that can definitely be said about this radical ’55 210 is that between it and Skeeter Performance’s ’57 post, neither of them are lacking in the best drivetrain/powertrain components available. In fact, Classic Car Marketing boasts of the car’s 750-horse, 555-cube Lambert Racing big
 block. Aside from a monstrously-huge V8, Classic Car and Scott’s ’55 rides on a hand-crafted frame with air-ride suspension from Scott’s. The car as a whole is a creation of Scott’s, a rod shop based out of Oxnard, though the Viper paint was done by Palmer Custom Paint with the interior being finished by upholsterer-extraordinaire, Ron Mangus.
The clash between old and new tech is complicated, though a lot of times, a successful car-builder will know how to make the contradiction work. In the case of this beautiful ’55, the gap has most definitely been sealed.
- Sal Alaimo Jr., B. A. (7/6/11)

S. J. A.

Skeeter's Performance Fabrication's NOS-injected '57...

The lost art of keeping tradition...
Skeeter’s Performance Fabrication builds a nitrous-fed shoebox that’s actually a time machine

      Within the hot rod market, we usually run across an awesome, Tri-Five Chevy that captures the “Americana” corner of our hearts, the part that craves everything nostalgia. Here in our great country where 55-57 era shoeboxes always have a huge part in the landscape, there are a great many builders who either do custom conversions that leave us in awe, or else clean restorations that resurrect the showroom quality that was intended back when the car(s) was new. Every once in a while, however, an automotive writer like myself comes across that “bad boy” hot rod with slicks and centerlines that brings out the “bad boy” in them.

For me, this is what the pro-streeted, ’57 Chevy post built by Skeeter’s Performance Fabrication does; it brings out that little “greaser” who is buried deep inside of my psyche. It makes me want to run 
 back to the days of Van Nuys bench racing and “Super Shops.” Where Skeeter’s has been successful is in the maintaining of old-school, hot rod tech. For example, Skeeter’s ’57 does not use anything that is high-tech or over-the-top to make brute power. Where a lot of modern hot rodding has shifted in the direction of LS heads and EFI, Skeeter stays true to the backyard ethic of engine-building with a 468-cube big block (454 punched .030 over). The motor is built stout with a nice set of Brodix BB2 Plus heads and 4-bolt mains. The bottom-end consists of a forged, 4.00” stroke crank with an ATI balancer, and the pistons and con rods are aluminum pieces from Childs & Albert.

The valvetrain of this over-bored big block is tapped by a Comp Cams, .735” lift, 313/330 duration roller cam and lifters. The push rods are also from Comp, and the rocker arms are Crower, stainless roller rockers. Topping off the whole platform is a Holley 1150 CFM Dominator Series carb with a Brodix, HV2001 intake. 

As if Skeeter’s Performance hasn’t done enough to bring back the lost art of rat-rodding, their bad-boy ’57 gains most of its competitive edge from NOS’ 4500 Plate with Pro Fogger solenoids and a 15-lb. bottle. This unbeatable combination of Brodix heads and intake, Comp cam and NOS make for a screamin’ street car that runs an easy 9.83 ET at 130 mph on 110-octane fuel with nitrous; without the NOS, the car runs 10.51 @ 127.
Transferring all of this power is a Turbo 400 trans built by U. S. Speed Research. At the rear is a set of 4:56 gears from Richmond, backed-up by a Dana 60 rear-end. Launching the 3600-pound sleeper into the next dimension is a 5500-RPM stall from Neil Chance.
There’s always a certain sense of sentimental value when it comes to the Tri-Five Chevys; almost everyone who thinks “American” thinks “Chevy Bel Air.” But there is also a certain sentiment that comes with old-school built drag cars, because how often in our Web-based world do you see even the most prolific hot rod builders build super-fast sleepers with tunnel ram scoops and Centerlines? In the case of Skeeter’s Performance’s nitrous-shot, roller motor-powered ’57 sedan, these once common elements of hot rod mania have been brought back from the dead in a way that only a certain kind of “Shadetree Mechanic” can successfully do.

With some cars, it’s the little things or features that count the most; the subtlety of the ’57 Chev’s Centerline wheels and Saturday afternoon drag race hood are what make--ironically enough--the car remarkable. But what’s most remarkable about Skeeter’s ’57 are the thoughts and memories that it evokes. For myself, the car evokes a feeling of, “Hey, I’m the ‘Fonz’ and this is ‘Fonzie’s’ car, so don’t be messin’ with it!” Growing up in the San Fernando Valley around a lot of much-older people who told these kinds of stories from Van Nuys Blvd and the “Old Road,” that was exactly the feeling you got, that there was a certain license of “machismo” that came with owning such a car as a ’57 with a roller-
cammed big block on NOS. These cars represented, for me at least, a certain edge or stigma that a lot of guys were able to achieve, while a lot of other guys like myself were not. One thing that could be said about a lot of the suburbs’ toughest is that they either drove a fast car or rode a motorcycle; for many of these, they drove ’57 Chevys with roller-cammed, nitrous-injected big blocks.
- Sal Alaimo Jr., B. A. (7/5/11)

S. J. A.