When we were first approached by builder Greg Friedrich of Gizmos” about a “special” project that he is involved in, we’ll admit that we completely miscalled it. We even tried to gently explain to Greg how RPM does not cover “rat rods” or street rods that don’t pack a pretty serious ET behind them…whoops, sorry Greg, we had no idea! Land speed and street car are not two things that would normally go together, so what exactly is it? The car itself is an original steel-bodied (yes we said steel) 1934 Ford three-window coupe. It’s fast—actually, brutally fast—as it is powered by an injected 572-inch Hemi. And are you ready for this? It is regularly street driven in marathon fashion then thrashed on the strip…just not a drag strip!
Let’s start at the beginning. Around 15 years ago, car owner Tom Conlan purchased the original 1934 Ford body with only one intention—to build a land speed car that he could drive to and from the salt flats. Most of you are probably picturing some type of extremely altered rocket-like creation and thinking, “… how the heck could he drive it on the street?”
Once the car arrived at Conlan’s home, the transformation started immediately. In… Read more of this article. Just click on the digital feature below this introduction.
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