GASSER: Freaked-Out 1955 Chevy Vintage Gasser Drag Car | Nicole Johnson's Detour EP3

[Music] we're out in the nevada desert and we're gonna go check out my friend steve's place he's got a lot of freaking crazy cars you've probably seen him on youtube he's got one in particular that's just like horrific and we're gonna go check it out how are you good all right yeah nice to see you today guys yeah so this is my friend steve darnell we're here in las vegas yeah and you know what he's got this really cool shop welder up you've probably heard of him you've been like this totally like big superstar on tv before um i don't know i wish it i wish it paid like really good that's all anyway i'm here to check out one car in particular that is just like i don't know i mean you're gonna hate this car actually because not everybody likes it and that's what i like about it yeah it's pretty rude yeah it's mean it like breaks all the rules i know i pulled up next to the stop light the other day and there's these two old ladies and a prius and it just made him so mad that i was just and i'm trying to be real calm i'm like oh and you can't be calm okay so his 55 chevy gasser it's like kind of like just it's freaked out it's totally freaked out oh yeah you know in the 60s um when they developed the 427 side oiler they were putting the 427s in the fords and then on these old chevys they were putting like pontiac motors in them so they had like the big 389 pontiac motor and then they would change the rear end to a big rear end in them and it was really kind of a theory you know what i mean a lot of them ran a small block in these back then which would have been stock in this uh a 55 chevy wouldn't have come with a big block you guys no no 4.98 cubic inch yeah beast as soon as chevy come out with that v8 it was like on for for a long time really want to get their hands on that that 350 chevy they put it in everything um to me the 57 chevy was at its peak believe it or not four down sold them believe it or not it's kind of unbelievable wow but there's but there's there's tons of these but you don't see a lot of the fords yeah because these became so popular that people saved them and they restored them and you know and this and that and they look sleeker in general than the the cars that were older than that just because they're a little narrower and a little cleaner lines right by in the 60s and the late 60s the early 70s they were gastering them like this and it was a theory of weight transfer so basically they would take the motor and they would shove it back into the firewall they would raise the front end up they would usually take the rear axle and push it forward believe it or not and it would just be complete weight transfer so when you stab the throttle it takes off and they were still learning about suspension and how this how to transfer the weight to the back or it and so whether or not it was correct is what they did was lighten up the front end remove the front bumper go to these narrow tires switch it out to a solid straight axle and really you know curve those leaf springs to get it up really high yeah a lot of times and i this one's a little over the top yeah they didn't really raise them this high up right but it looks like most gassers are actually down here in the rear and not that far up in the front then they would take a ford rear end eight inch or nine inch rear end and they would put them in the back of a chevy because ford makes good stuff yeah i guess you would call it chevy tough with ford stuff kind of there you go but it's so cool that is such a cool era of time we've lost all of that um now it's um it's not about this anymore it's about you know can we get down get down at three seconds and you know how many sponsors we got back then it was like a team of guys they had their own they got their uniforms on that said you know busted nuts garage or whatever it is and you know they were out there working on this stuff and you know racing and that's when this was the fun era time really so when i built this car i wanted it to have that that feeling of what we looked at when we were kids at the rat fink magazines and the stickers and stuff well like time out for just one second because not everybody's gonna know rat fink or what that is and it was like this little cartoon rat that was kind of the anti-mickey mouse like you got this wholesome perfect little mickey mouse and then you got this gnarly sharp tooth just nobody wanted to like rat right right and that's kind of the style that kind of people picked up and put into the custom culture car yeah i mean these guys were basically rat rotting things yeah i mean because you know why because they couldn't just go to speedway or summit magazine or get on amazon and order a part right they actually had to go out in the junkyard and look around and be like let's see i've got a 29 i've got a 29.5 window coupe there's a 49 merc over there i'm going to pull the 49 merc motor out of that frankenstein you put it together you pull a rear end out of something different you put it in it they had a stick welder they stick welded and cobbled something together to go out and drag race it right and it kind of looked ratty and that's what i love about the history of racing and the guys that were progressing our industry for racing there's really no rhyme or reason for this this car really is not a bracket car where i would go out and just start running passes with it it's it could i mean it's got a a well-built big block chevy like it's got really good eagle crank eagle rods right it's all drilled in the bottom end so it's four bolt mained it's it's built to take 1200 horsepower but you've detuned it so you can cruise it around vegas and enjoy life exactly yeah i mean this car it's a early uh late 60s block it's got um good it's got a set of really nice elder brock heads on it that i had actually worked over i bought them originally and then i had them opened up a little bit more for the for what i have in it for camshaft i mean it's got a big old clay smith camshaft in it believe it or not there's a spacer in between the intake manifold and the blower because what i wanted to do is i really wanted to freak out and push the blower up and then i got these carburetor spacers here and i really wanted to bring the carburetors up so yeah you were going for a specific look i mean even like all of your plasma cutting on your hood is just like oh my dad freaked out he came in my shop i was on the shop floor and i'm cutting this hood out and he just pulls up he's just staring at me he goes what in the heck are you doing to that 55 chevy hood i go i'm making it cooler he's like no you can't i go dad i already have den in it anyway yeah i mean so was this here when you got it yeah this car was grey primered when i found it right a lot of times these cars the more you rub on them the more they tell you a story right and these cars have so much history and there's so much underneath them and when you paint over them and you cover them in bondo they don't tell a story no more right they just go how much money did you throw at that car until it looked cool yeah and i started rubbing on it and i'm like oh look at that cool green under there so i just rubbed it all out you exposed and left certain parts on purpose to kind of just just leave yeah so like if you look at this this car was metal black and then it was a red primer yeah and then the the factory kind of a metallic in there and it's a gorgeous color i'm gonna coat it right over it and just call it good mm-hmm like it you know this one here is uh one that you just dream about finding because it's not rusted out and you've got to upgrade that crankshaft get this huge belt that turns and powers that blower that blower actually spins over pretty easy believe it or not right not a lot of resistance inside of it not a lot you can take it with your hand and spin it over good you know what i mean like the teflon ones that are really tight they might be a little bit different but they're compressing so much more pressure that it doesn't matter right and the teflon keeps the air from leaking out really tight and this one here is pretty tight because like sometimes when you fire it up it gets mad and it'll backfire because it's just a long ways for the fuel to get down through the blower into the motor so all the inner fenders are taken out of it right and a lot of the accessories on it are gone that came with it um you know like the windshield wiper motor they're a hunk yeah heavy so it's all gone everything's kind of gone shaved off cleaned out you got a rear-wheel drive car all this weight and motor up front you got to put all the weight and that's what the whole theory is is to transfer weight and if you look at this motor i've got it shoved back almost as far as you can get you know what i mean get the front end up i mean these are hockey pucks i've got them on my cj5 yeah i'm serious they work great for body lift that's funny so it's disc brake all the way around on this one because you know i daily well i don't daily but i can drive it daily if i wanted to i mean yeah if you could put up with fuel mileage well in the noise yeah i think it's like two miles a gallon or three miles a gallon right right and then you got to drive it every day and then i run 110 in it all day so it's eight bucks a gallon seven bucks a gallon but that race gas or a leaded gas like what are you putting in it what's what well these here i put a leaded 110 in it okay because these old motors kind of like that lead in the fuel you know gas nowadays goes bad and these these carburetors don't like it so you have to coat it basically coat it with that little bit of lead okay but it's pretty nasty it's fun to drive and it sounds really good and it's cool i mean just the cam and it's really nasty and when are we gonna go peel out i don't know you ready how much money you got for those tires how much oh shoot how much did you guys what did you figure that in your budget i probably have like 11 bucks in my wallet okay you can just burp 11 worth of burnout okay you're the boss i'm gonna go ride it or what you want me to take you for a lap first so you can see how it goes kind of not i kind of want to just wing it do you trust me go right i've only crashed everything i've ever driven i've got a really good award for that actually okay are you ready i'm ready you ready sure let's do it all right pushing that clutch first gear you ready oh man oh i love this yeah that's fun huh this thing's got some get up you know i mean you felt torque horsepower yeah i was like get up and go for sure which way should we go i can't hear you go one more kind of ease down this street because all them horses will freak out through the fence we don't want to freak out the horses yeah they're like hundred thousand dollar horses to break a leg we'll go through there we'll turn right we'll just kind of go do another thing i got this are you good steve they're kind of used to me but you know yeah go right here my light is shaking [Music] it's a thrill [Music] oh now we're gonna have to flip around [Music] well let me go all the way over just back all the way out it'll be easier to try to turn around it doesn't have to oh right there yeah just let the clutch out easy it really struggles in reverse let it out let it out there you go good girl good girl is this your donuts in the um right here are these your brody marks my probably my kids oh you're steering are you live are you gonna be instagramming right now [Music] oh sir go right right here [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] that's so bad [Music] i love how it smells just awesome that's an expensive smell yeah it's cool thank you so much i appreciate it you know you got some cool cars and you didn't have to do this no you're awesome where are people going to find you well if you want to follow my social media it's welderup vegas yeah um our youtube channels welder up and you got a new new kind of episode thing that you're starting we have a new series on youtube called make it run again and we basically hitchhike to a destination where there's a vehicle for sale we buy it and then our way back you can bid on it all the way back you make it run and you carry your little tools with you get it going and then drive if it breaks down on the way we fix it on the way and it's just but usually we're trying to pick something really cool that people can bid on and have a nice awesome vehicle at the end of the day it's awesome well steve darnell is the man with the awesome cars that are all totally like horrific and i loved it it was a great day he let me peel out a little bit fun it was a little scary but it was fun he okay so he's never sat in the passenger seat not here never not in there never i've owned this guy i built this car 10 years ago and i've never sat over here because never like your kid has driven this but like my kids drove am i the first girl to drive your car oh yeah sweet for sure you're the first girl to ever drive there all right guys like comment subscribe keep all that engagement coming and we will see you guys next time see you um what was i going to ask you you were going to ask me don't shoot all of this this isn't you're not rolling you're not putting this in bloopers you're not cutting i'm ruining the shot for you fun size and how big it is that's what you were talking about that's exactly what you were talking about when we sat down put you on the spot okay we got that really cool back light on my hair going all right you have dust on your lens my eyes don't look too red okay thanks you

Channel: Nicole Johnson's Detour

Views: 72,171

Rating: 4.8943601 out of 5

Keywords: gasser, chevy gasser, big block, big block chevy, welderup, steve darnell, rat rod, rat fink, vegas rat rods, make it run again, patina paint, 1955 chevy, chevy 210, vintage drag racing, 1960s drag racing, 1960s gasser, nicole johnsons detour, tri five chevy, hot rod, gas drag racing, bracket racing, 671 blower, eagle crank, ladder bar suspension, double carburetor, holly carburetor, double pumper, big camshaft, supercharged engine, chevrolet, chevy, burnout, loud engine

Id: FLP7rjj4MhU

Length: 18min 3sec (1083 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 16 2021