The boys, Teddy and Freddie (on the right) somewhere on some Power Tour.

Teddy ran his Vega on the street and then turned it into a full-blown drag strip violator. When he undertook his next 4-wheeled venture, he sold the car to pal Fred Kobasiuk, who puts in his day hours at the Brookhaven National Labs as an engineering supervisor on Long Island. A born tinkerer and collector, he stashed the Vega for years. Family grown up, Fred clearly needed a project to get him invigorated. Teddy nudged, chided, threatened, and regularly busted Fred’s hump to get him moving. After years of PRI shows and several sojourns with Ted on the Hot Rod Power tour, Freddie folded.

For many years, Hardy senior has had a very successful business supplying irrigation engines and related equipment to the agricultural community. A month ago, I ran into car-builder Donald Hardy (Don’s son). He said that his dad and he would be doing “front ends” for Vegas again, that there was resurgence in the marque. They thought it could become a small profit center for Don Hardy Race Cars. More on this as it unfolds.

So Freddie’s Vega is on the schedule once again, this time as a pure street machine. He’ll be keeping the tube frame but chucking the drag race straight axle for conventional clip with upper and lower control arms. For drive, he’ll be using a fooled-with, small-displacement big-block, a Turbo 400 transmission, and the Hone 300 2-speed overdrive (30 percent gear reduction) that Ted used in the first outing. Knowing Freddie’s immense penchant for procrastination, we are reluctant to inform you when the next progress report will appear in MaxChevy. In the meanwhile, stay semi-tuned for this act. We’ll be flogging Fred every chance we get.

Waiting for Fred…