Just imagine the combination. An old-school pony entitled to wear a license plate but also a land missile at the drag strip. This is exactly Mark Urban came up with, a steel-bodied Camaro that runs 7.68 seconds in the quarter at more than 180 miles per hour.
The belly of the beast is a 427-cubic-inch LSX, a big-block V8 with two BorgWarner turbochargers located on either side of the engine. An air-to-air intercooler, Corvette exhaust manifolds, and a two-speed Powerglide transmission with 3.25 gearing for the rear end complete the picture.
Only the hood is fiberglass while the remaining panels are all steel for durability. Leaf springs at the rear complement fat, sticky slicks, and the car tips the scales at 3,460 pounds (1,570 kilograms) in drag specification. With 1,520 horsepower and tons of torque on tap, does it come as a surprise the 60-foot acceleration run is done in 1.3 seconds? Right, moving on...
Urban runs a homebrew intake for the turbochargers made out of gutter piping when he’s driving from strip to strip. The streetability of the ’69 Camaro also includes v-banded side exhaust pipes, making the long haul a bit more bearable for the driver and passenger. On one occasion, however, earplugs were worn to overcome the unrestricted exhaust system's drone.
For the upcoming Drag Week, Urban’s car will receive windshield wipers and mufflers to improve street usability. Trailering the ‘Maro with a Silverado 1500 pickup truck would be a much simpler ordeal, but then again, what’s the fun of owning such a monster without enjoying it on the public roads as well?
The seven-second spool master from Urban Racers is all the more impressive if you compare it to the NHRA-ready COPO Camaro. Not even Chevrolet can match this first-gen pony with a bad attitude, and that shows the time and effort that Mark Urban put into the sinister-looking build.
After a 1:43 scale model of a Ferrari 250 GTO sparked Mircea's interest for cars when he was a kid, an early internship at Top Gear sealed his career path. He's most interested in muscle cars and American trucks, but he takes a passing interest in quirky kei cars as well. Full profile
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