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Old Chevy Caprice Pulls Massive Wheelie, Destroys Jeep Trackhawk In Drag Race

Unlike the Impala and the Malibu, the Chevrolet Caprice has always been a rather unassuming car. Things got worse in the late 1970s, when Chevy turned it into a boxy family car, also downsizing it in the process. The third-gen Caprice soldiered on without significant changes for a whopping 13 years, until 1989.
Chevrolet Caprice vs Jeep Grand Cherokee Trackhawk drag race 1 photo
Photo: Jmalcom2004/YouTube
While it delivered significantly better fuel economy and performance than its predecessor, the third-gen Caprice was no muscle car. Not surprisingly, it's a nameplate you won't see very often at the drag strip, especially in four-door sedan trim. However, someone was stubborn enough to turn a 1987 Caprice into a drag racer, and it's amazingly fast.

The cool thing is that the owner of this drag Caprice, dubbed "Obama," maintained the car's unassuming look. Sure, the wheels and the big bulge on the hood are clear signs that this isn't a regular four-door, but it looks like an unrestored 1980s car beyond that. The top is dirty, there's some trim missing, and the front bumper is crooked.

But none of that matters at the strip, especially if you hit the quarter-mile with a nitrous-fed mill. There's no info about what exactly lurks under the hood, but you can bet it's not a regular Caprice engine. The sedan was offered with a wide variety of small-block V8s in the 1980s (and even an Olds V8 diesel), but this rig most likely packs a modern LS.

Whatever it is, it's powerful enough to send the Caprice into brutal launches with the front wheels up into the air. And we're talking about a four-door that's 5.4 meters (212.6 inches) long and tips the scales at almost 3,500 pounds (1,587 kg). It's quite spectacular on its own, but things become even more interesting in the second half of the video when it drag races a Jeep Grand Cherokee Trackhawk.

Not your regular Jeep, the Trackhawk hides the same supercharged 6.2-liter V8 Hemi engine as the Challenger Hellcat under the hood. Rated at 707 horsepower and 645 pound-feet (875 Nm) of torque, it pushes the SUV down the quarter-mile in less than 12 seconds. But the modified Caprice is way quicker than that, despite jumping into the race with a massive wheelie.

There's no official timing to run by, but a quick stopwatch count reveals that the Caprice ran the quarter-mile in about 10.4 seconds. The Trackhawk seems to be at least one full second slower. An impressive gap for what might be the quickest third-gen Chevy Caprice out there.

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About the author: Ciprian Florea
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Ask Ciprian about cars and he'll reveal an obsession with classics and an annoyance with modern design cues. Read his articles and you'll understand why his ideal SUV is the 1969 Chevrolet K5 Blazer.
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