If you look closely at the market, the street machine is the new street rod. As sheetmetal becomes more expensive and bodies become scarce, the sheetmetal fab and custom parts creation that used to be the realm of '32 Fords are now required to build muscle-era rides. Take Les Boudewyns, for example. He's a street rodder who got into musclecars about 10 years ago when he began to admire the looks and stamina of some local street machines at the drag races. "I think that musclecars are a lot faster and they don't break as much," he says. His string of street rods began with a '40 Ford coupe with a small-block and a Muncie four-speed transmission. It was a cruiser, plain-Jane rebuild that went to rod runs and car-club meets back in the '70s. That car was sold when he found a '32 all-steel five-window Ford with a small-block and a B&M 144 baby blower; it was more of the same.
Everything changed in the mid-'90s, when Les got a ride in a friend's Buick Grand National that ran low 12s without an intercooler. Remember, 12s were fast for that era. Inspired by the easy speed and durability, Les bought a basket-case '85 Buick T-Type so he could go fast too. That Buick introduced Les to the dragstrip with an 11.14 at 121. While he was there he got a good long look at a '66 Chevelle and quickly got used to the body style. "After that, I decided I needed one." He found a rust-free '67 disassembled in Sacramento, brought the shell home, and got to work. The body had been modified in the trans tunnel and there were some dents, but nothing too major.
About two years ago the ProCharger was the big rage, so Les bought one for the Chevelle. Since he's always been a small-block Chevy guy too, he decided to put the two together and go drag racing. He contacted a local engine builder and sent him the parts to get the short-block assembled. During the bench racing, someone suggested that if you want to go real fast on pump gas, you should inject the supercharger with methanol, so that's what Les did. With some ported Dart heads, 17 pounds of boost from the ProCharger, and a light mist of methanol on the inlet side of the supercharger, he went 10.75 at 127 mph the first time out.