Part 1
Every car magazine has a project car of some sort. So the powers that be (and remember, we have only your best interests in mind) at MaxChevy figured we should have one too. Unfortunately, the paper magazines have already laid claim to the neat project names and have scoured all of the recycling yards in Southern California and ravaged all the really neat doorslammers that could have been transformed to street-stormers for chump change.
So, we’ve chosen the path less traveled. We know that building a nice street and strip cruiser is not easy or cheap, especially if you don’t have a couple of years to search for the parts or be able to frolic in a fully equipped garage. It’s going to cost the average guy or gal
a good chunk of money or the equivalent to get a hot rod finished in reasonable time. The sad fact for most of us is that building a hot rod means we had to burn up favors, barter, or (gulp!) spend.
If you’re still with us let’s get on with it. After paying an Encino think tank a considerable retainer to develop a name for the endeavor, they came up with what we think is a very unusual and catchy name: the Wednesday Night Warrior or as the Burkster himself refers to it “El Camino Nitrouso”
The name fits because what we wanted was to have a car we could take to Wednesday test and tune and also drive the crap out of. Actually, the plan was to do massive burnouts and then smoke the tires the length of the dragstrip without damaging anything except the rubber and maybe our ego. We also wanted a car that anyone could drive at the track without worrying about hurting it. And yes, it had to burn pump gas.
We found just such a car. MC’s street guru Bill Weckman had bought a ’67 El Camino with 31,000 miles from local St. Louis Pro Stock and monster truck racer Fred Shafer. Fred had bought the “Elk” in Oklahoma and while it had only 31,000 on the odometer ( could that have been 231,000?) It had obviously been as we say in Texas “rode/road hard and put away wet” and hadn’t been licensed since 1985. It had a bench seat, a Turbo 400 transmission, a 12 bolt posi rear end, a SS hood with a rat motor under it but the heater and heater controls were trashed, and it looked like someone used a chain saw to cut that messy excess wiring out from under the dash! Never the less I bought it and had Bill rebuild the 402/396 that came with it. Everything inside the motor is stock including the hydraulic cam. As part of the deal, Bill had the tranny freshened and a shift kit installed by the shop that does the one for his blown street ’Vette. Bill generously allowed us to make time payments on the car while keeping the car at his shop and doing the work.
We (mostly Bill Weckman) have done a lot of work on the El Camino since. My contribution usually means writing the check, but occasionally Bill allows me and some of my miscreant friends to help just as long as we don’t screw up more than he or any else can fix.
