This month I’m taking a break from Maserati Monday’s to return to a short run of pick up Monday’s featuring some interesting highly modified pick up’s.
A couple of weeks ago Johnny “Wicked in Suede” Martinez posted today’s first photo taken by his wife Linda, of himself and his friend Barry Buchanan standing next to Barry’s ’62 Studebaker Champ Pro Street Rod, my first excited reaction was to find out more about it and to see if I could get some more photo’s for today’s blog.
The Studebaker Champ was a pickup built between 1960 and 1964 with a cab based on the Lark compact and is probably most notable for having a novel, for the time, sliding window at the back of the cab.
Early champs had a choice of motors including; a 170 cui flathead 6 the design of which dated back to 1939, 259 cui V8 or 289 V8, sitting in front of the recessed firewall of Barry’s ’62 Champ is a ’67 Dodge Coronet big block 383 good for an easy 335hp in unmodified form when it was manufactured.
Modifications to this Champ include lowering the body on the chassis by 4″ a process known as “channeling”, it has also been “tubbed” meaning that large interior wheel arches have been welded in to accommodate the 295/50/15 rear BF Goodrich tyres which are fitted to American Racing 5 spoke rims.
The Coronet 383 is fitted a an A727 transmission which I believe is better known as Chrysler TorqueFlite the original push button variations of which were first seen in 1956, the custom interior easily accommodates Barry’s 6′ 4″ frame.
Barry has shortened the pick up bed, which houses the 12 gallon fuel tank, by 18 inches, mounted on the back of the bed is a spoiler sourced from a Pontiac Fiero .
The rear axle is a Ford 9″ which would orginally have been used in; Fairlane, Mustang, Falcon, Torino, F100 and F150 applications.
Linked here is a youtube clip of Barry talking about his Champ and some wonderful footage of him driving it on a California cruise.
My thanks to Barry and his girlfriend Kathy Junge who also worked on the Champ and took all but the first of today’s photographs.
Thanks for joining me on this “Shortened, Channeled and Tubbed” edition of “Gettin’ a li’l psycho on tyres” I hope you will join me again tomorrow when I’ll be looking at a vehicle with an aero engine that had a reputation for catching fire when in operation. Don’t forget to come back now !
