World’s Fastest Street Rod Moreland’s ‘Project ’40’ the Original ‘Pro-Street’ Outlaw скачать в хорошем качестве

World’s Fastest Street Rod Moreland’s ‘Project ’40’ the Original ‘Pro-Street’ Outlaw

The history of hot rodding can be charted more or less in decades from the earliest Model Ts through the "gow" jobs, to post WWII hot rods, to resto rods, street rods, fat fenders, Boyd’s smoothers, traditional hot rods, rat rods and what we have today. Like most things, some trends have not aged well whereas others stand the test of time. One era that stands out as something special in the mid-80’s the trend for fat-fendered rods, particularly the spectacularly fast variety. The movement came along with the birth of nostalgia drag racing that took off around 1980. Yes, nostalgia drag racing when drag racing was but 30 years old. Folks were dragging out old racecars and burning up that quarter-mile just for fun and perhaps a trophy T-shirt. However, racers can't help but get serious and a battle brewed as to who had the world’s fastest street rod. In the left corner was ‘Fat’ Jack Robinson with his giant orange ’46 Ford and in the right corner was Jerry Moreland with his wicked black ’40 Ford slope-back Sedan. These were two big fat Fords but they were blistering the strip in less than 10 seconds—unheard-of speeds for streetcars in the ’80s. Everybody had their favorite. Sadly, Fatty’s orange whip made an unscheduled right turn at Baylands/Fremont strip in 1987 and was demolished. Moreland’s Project ’40, on the other hand, is a survivor and is owned by Gary and Scott Lorenzini who watched the fat attack when he was just 10 years old. Project 40 began as a dream of builder Bob Bauder. It became a possibility when customer Jerry Moreland came calling and it became a reality when they found a 46,000-mile, rust free, original paint, Arizona two-door at Pomona for $10K. From there it went to Tom Vogele’s Stanton, CA shop where, Tom and Al Rocha boxed the original 1940 frame but narrowed the rear 20 inches to accommodate a Halibrand Champ quick-change located by Alston 4-bar links with Koni coil-overs. Up front, Vogele built a MacPherson strut IFS that was tied into the roll cage. For power the team turned to Sonny Bryant and Dave Butner of BryantRacing.com who supplied a monster (for the day) 466.87 ci big-block Chevy based on a 490 ci P&S Pro Stock aluminum block otherwise known as a Yenko block. Atop the block Bryant stacked an impressive array of equipment including a BDS intake, an 8-71 Mert Littlefield blower, and Enderle injection. C14 race gas was pumped by an electric Holley fuel pump (nobody had to stand there and squirt fuel into the intake). First outing for the black attack was May 4, 1985, at Baylands Raceway where Moreland recorded an out-of-the-box 9.35 and the next day a speed of 148.27 mph. Pretty amazing for shakedown runs. Smokey snakin’ burnouts and twisted, wheels up take-offs had the crowd sloppin’ their Slurpys and they loved it all the more when it turned what were for the day blazingly consistent sub-10 times at 150 mph. Project 40 was a huge hit championing the ‘Pro-Street’ look with its 10-inch kick up and 14.5x32-inch Goodyears tucked under the stock fenders. Bob Bauder’s son Danny, who was there with Scott Lorenzini recalls, “When that thing rolled out of the staging lanes it got your attention. It was wicked, loud, and nasty and Jerry could drive. In the second 1/8-mile, he just hauled ass.” In 1988, Moreland divested some of his collection including the ’40 that went to Dave Geiger in northern Indiana. Dave began accumulating the car’s history and more importantly returned it to its racing configuration after Moreland had somewhat streetified it. At some point, the car went to a consignment company whose assets, including the ’40, were seized by the Federal Government. It was later put up for auction and disappeared. Geiger got a small payout, a fraction of its value. The car changed hands several times until sitting in a meeting, surfing the Net, Scott saw it for sale. As soon as the meeting was over, Scott put in a call to the snowed-in North Dakota dealer who had no idea what he had but knew he needed cash and quickly. Scott’s next called his dad Gary; he was in. The money was transferred and the ’40 was on a truck back to the sun. “I wasn’t planning on buying it,” said Scott, “but the dealer needed cash and it was a fair price for such a piece of history. Considering it was MIA for 30 years it was in remarkably good condition and took very little to make it run. And, it’s every bit as wicked to drive as you would expect.” Video Credit: William Teets    / @williamteets