For Shawn Calkins, all this horsepower madness started at the tender age of 16 with his first car, a 1963 Chevy Nova. “All I wanted to do was street race it!” Calkins said with a smile. Not long afterwards, Shawn would meet Bob Dye who became instrumental in helping him with the Nova, and also getting his feet wet in organized drag racing. Dye took Calkins to Carlsbad Raceway and put him in a Camaro for his first run down the dragstrip, where he clocked an 11.76 at 118mph. “I was hooked from then on and I started racing the legal drags at Pomona, Terminal Island, Carlsbad, Irwindale and Fontana.”
Years passed, but Shawn’s love of fast cars did not. He had always been a fan of the 1968 Chevelle and dreamed of having a fast street car. “I wanted a 7-second street car, but also something that I could take to a car show,” he added. After 3 years of searching for just the right candidate, Shawn finally found this 1968 Chevelle in January 2020, and built the car he had always wanted around it.
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