Pig 67
I got a call from Col Marshall, owner of the sweet Charger featured in February Street Cruising and he said he had another car for me to feature. I asked what it was and he told me a 700 horsepower 1967 Chevrolet Chevelle. I signed him up straight away for the shoot, and when I saw the Chevelle, I was very glad I did. I met Col at Yatala service centre and the Chevelle was looking great. I followed him to the location for the shoot and half way there, he gave it a quick hit on the go pedal and the back end danced around with no effort. I knew this was a tough street car.
Now Col isn't the owner of the car. the owner is a guy by the name of Lance Batchelor. Lance bought the car and was happy with it until he got hosed by a WR-X on the M1, and decided that it would need a bit more power. The Chevelle was taken to Col initially for just an engine rebuild. Once Col got hold of it, it was never just going to be the engine. It was soon decided to add a little more and a little more until it was virtually a full ground up rebuild. 12 months on and it is now this awesome piece of machinery here.
When Col told me he had something special, I thought we are going to need a special girl to accompany such a nice car. I got straight on the phone to DSL Promotions who sent out the lovely Sarah. The car is very nice, but the lovely Sarah is stunning.
The Chevelle has a 502 big block Chev under the hood. It used to have a 6/71 blower but it was a little too police unfriendly so it was decided it would be removed to make the big beast a little more streetable. It has no shortage of the good gear in the engine though. There is a SCAT forged crank and SCAT H-Beam rods pushing a set of SRP forged pistons. The cam is a Crane roller pushing up a set of Crane rockers. Edelbrock provided the heads and the Super Victor manifold, and sitting on top is a Holley 1050 Dominator. The gases get out through Hooker headers and a twin 3" system. This setup has cranked out 730 hp on the engine dyno and since being in the car managed it's way down the quarter mile in an impressive 11.07 @ 125 mph naturally aspirated.
Underneath the old girl is a reverse pattern Turbo 400, fully manualised with a 3300 rpm Converter Shop converter. At the back is a Comp Engineering chrome moly 9 inch diff housing with 3.9:1 gears with a full spool and 35 spline Mark Williams axles. The Chevelle rides on a set of heavy duty lowered King Springs and KYB shock absorbers. The wheels are Dragway 15 x 10 rears and 15 x 6 front running on 295 tyres rear and 205s front. Brakes are twin piston 300mm rotors on the front and VN Commodore disks on the rear.
The entire interior of this car was rebuilt from brand new parts imported from the USA, except for the seats which are full leather and were retrimmed locally. There is a stereo in it but I am not sure it gets much use. Almost everything on the entire car was imported brand new from the USA.
From start to finish, this car took Col almost exactly 1 year to complete. And all of his hard work has paid off, with the big Chevelle winning quite a few awards including Runner Up in pre 1970 Tudor at the Brisbane Hot Rod Show. Not only is this a fairly rare car just to see, but to see one in such pristine condition is almost unheard of. It is a credit to Lance and to Col for his work.
