55' Chevy Gassers

Superbe ce breack 55 il aurait même mérité un post pour lui tout seul (et il ya de quoi en photo )

The Chevy’s history as a trophy-winning Gasser goes back to the mid-’60s and ends abruptly in December 1972. It had been originally built at the famous Blair’s Speed Shop. The late-Don Blair opened the shop (which is still in business) in Pasadena, California, in 1946. That was still a few years before drag racing as we know it even existed, but Blair was well known by the racers at the dry lakes. By the time drag racing emerged and exploded in popularity, Blair’s Speed Shop’s reputation was well established. By the time of the Gasser Wars, it was one of the most prominent shops building cars—particularly ’55-57 Chevys—for the class.



This ’55, however, was built for the street. The owner was a teenager with loads of money who wanted to drive a big-block-powered, tube-axle ’55. After the car was stolen twice in quick succession, he decided to sell it.



The interior is Gasser simple and ’60s nostalgic. Famed racer and builder Tony Nancy notched the seat to make room for the shifter handle, in this case a ’55-57 Hurst.Don Nunes was drag racing a ’57 Chevy at legendary Lions Drag Strip in Los Angeles when he met the street Gasser’s young owner and decided to buy the kid’s car, minus the drivetrain. Nunes transplanted a Hilborn-injected 301ci small-block into the ’55 and raced it successfully in various Gas classes at Lions and several other Southern California tracks. When Lions closed on Dec. 2, 1972, the ’55 was there. Then that was it. Nunes parked the Gasser in his yard and didn’t race it again.

Bill Fowler was looking for a ’55 Chevy Gasser to build when he learned about Don Nunes and the Blair’s Speed Shop–built car that had raced at Lions. Nunes was planning on moving out of state and the old Gasser hadn’t moved in almost 30 years. Even so, it took more than a year of phone conversations before the racer agreed to sell his car.



After all those decades of hibernation, rust, rats, and sap had camouflaged almost all traces of the Chevy’s history and glory. Remarkably, all traces have been restored. Not only restored, but improved upon in a few ways—in honor of Blair’s Speed Shop.



Hilborn injection fed the 301ci Chevy during its racing years. Now, a 780-cfm Holley 4V carburetor does the job.Even though the old race car was worn out when Bill bought it, it was untouched and intact. The 301ci Chevy engine, Hilborn injection, and four-speed were there. Bill removed the injected small-block, replacing it in the ’55 with another 301 built by Fischer Engineering in the ’80s. Instead of injection, it runs a Holley 780 four-barrel carburetor on an Edelbrock Scorpion manifold. Bill found the Hooker headers on an abandoned ’55 Gasser in the Nevada desert. They’re now hooked to a Flowmaster exhaust, built at Royal Muffler in Chatsworth system. HP Transmission in Chatsworth, California, built the Muncie four-speed using M22 gears in an M21 case.

The chassis was cleaned up, but left essentially unchanged. The original ’rails and the Blair’s Speed Shop tube axle frontend from the mid-’60s are in place, with leaf springs and tubular shocks. The axles were replaced and the 4.11 gears in the Pontiac rearend were rebuilt by Curt Hamilton in Van Nuys, California, and Jerry Harris in Bakersfield rebuilt the rear suspension. The brakes are stock ’55 drums in front and Pontiac drums in the back.



The Chevy’s story can be told in decals. Lions, Bakersfield, Riverside, and Irwindale were all tracks where Don Nunes raced the ’55 in the Gasser days.Anyone who remembers the car from Lions Drag Strip will recognize some original race decals in the quarter windows, but not the paint or the lettering. When Don Nunes was racing it in the ’60s, the Chevy was dark green with no lettering. Not anymore. Bill sent the car to Jack White in Campo, California, who straightened the sheetmetal and sprayed the gray primer paint. The race lettering was applied by Brad Barrie (who also owns a historic ’55 Gasser). The new appearance is part of Bill’s effort to build the car as well as he could instead of reproducing the original look.



The rear wheelwells had been radiused in the ’60s but were redone and flared during the revival. Bill filled those wheelwells with 10.00-15 Radir slicks on 8x15 chrome reverse wheels. A pair of original Cragar front runners, measuring 4x15, with 5.60-15 Firestones ride up front.

In the ’60s, guys would wait in line for an interior by the late-Tony Nancy. One of the signatures of a Nancy interior was a square cutout in the bench seat, to allow a floor-shifter conversion. This ’55 has that modification, and when Mike Ambrose Custom Interiors, in North Hills, California, reupholstered the seat that square was preserved. The dash is free of all non-essentials—just a Sun Super Tach II on the column and a trio of gauges in a below-dash bracket added by Bill.



The first time we saw Bill’s ’55, the door lettering said Blair’s Speed Shop—part of the tribute to the renowned shop that had originally built the Gasser. He changed the graphics to Solo Speed Shop out of courtesy after Blair’s started getting calls about the Gasser Don Blair built almost 50 years ago. But Solo Speed Shop is not a shop in the traditional sense. It’s the name of a website (www.solospeedshop.com), but more significantly, it’s the name for Bill’s participation in hot rodding. “Anyone can have their own Solo Speed Shop,” Bill says. All you need is a car, a place to work on it, and the passion to see a survivor revived.



Article original: http://www.streetrodderweb.com/features/1211sr_1955_chevy_gasser/viewall.html

This is not your grandfathers 55 Chevy.



I built this car starting with a bare rust free frame. I built a rottissary to swivel the frame at a comfortable height.



There was no rust in body at all. This car was a race car since the 60's. The wheel lips in the rear are rolled leaded in.



Every suspension item was sand blasted and either powder coated or painted. All new springs, ball joints, bushings etc....



Front disc brakes, drum in the rear.



This car was featured in Hotrod magazine June 2004

Ambiance Two-Lane Blacktop pour la dernière

Y'en a un qui à le gaz dans le coffre ...

ChevyDave a écrit:Y'en a un qui à le gaz dans le coffre ...

Bein ouais, c'est un gazeur

1955 Chevy Strait Axle Gasser 60's style, Set up for Big Block Chevy with standard or auto trans, pedals are there, this car has totally been redone, new 2 piece full floors with braces, custom old school ladder bars with an open dana 60, speedway strait axle set up with disc brakes and a new vega steering box all custom fabrication, this is a 150 2 dr sedan all steel with custom tilt front end. Has a roll cage and itd tubbed, was putting a big block with an 871 blower in it.

Predicta a écrit:

j'aurais aimé voir la totalité de celui dont proviens l'avant !

street freak ca compte ?

Oui ça compte

A very nice example of a 60's gasser. I have owned the car for over 40 yrs. It was raced at Spokane Raceway in the 60's. It was built again in the 80's and used very sparingly since. It has been kept in a secure shop. It has a wolverine front straight axle with drum brakes. Sports a 350 with a Weind high rise with twin Holley 450's.Fender well headers. Muncie 4 spd. Stock rear end. Blow proof bell housing. Wheels are center line large in rear narrow 4" in front. One piece fiberglass tilt front end. Aluminum radiator. Black roll and pleated period correct interior. Factory power windows still work well. Body was metal finished at time of build.

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1955 Chevrolet 150, 60s style Gasser.

This was a body off build, the body was dipped and all the bad spots were replaced. The rear fenders were cut out to clear the 31x10 Hurst racing slicks. The bottom was undercoated and the top was sprayed with Sunpoppy Yellow. The interior is done in a nice camel tan cloth and vinyl combo. The wheels are American racing torque thrust 15x10 and 15x4.5. All the chrome was either redone or replaced. This car was finished in 2009 and has seen road use, there are some paint chips and wear.

The chassis was completely rebuilt new bushings, ball joints, springs and mounts. The rear end is a ten bolt gm with an auburn posi carrier, 4.11 gears and moser axles with screw in studs. The frame was sandblasted and shot chassis black along with all the control arms, nuts, bolts, brake drums and brackets. It still has the drum brakes all the way around with a corvette dual master cylinder for safety.

The engine is a.030 over 350 chevy hooked to a 4 speed Muncie with a Lakewood bellhousing. The engine has a 274 comp cams extreme energy cam, lifters and springs. The exhaust is handled by metallic ceramic coated hooker fenderwell headers and a pair of flowmaster mufflers tucked under each side. The fuel delivery is an edelbrock Air gap performer manifold toped by a 600 cfm 4bbl edelbrock carb. The tripower set up in some of the build pics is no longer on the car. The heads are old school double hump chevys with 2.02 valves and comp springs. The spark is handled by a Mallory dual point distributor and belden wires.

I have been running and showing this car since 2009 and it has all the required safety equipment to pass tech at the dragstrip. It has a driveshaft loop, Lakewood scatter shield, external battery shut off switch, clutch safety switch, coolant recovery tank, simpson racing seat belt, and trunk mounted fuel cell. This car has no radio, no wipers, no power steering, no power brakes, an no Kleenex dispenser. It was built as a 60's style gasser and it runs and drives like a 60's gasser.