PRO STREET PRESERVATION

COREY WEGRZYN'S TUBBED NOVA IS A PIONEER OF BACK-HALVED STREET CARS

- BARRY KLUCZYK

Scott Sullivan's tubbed Chevy II is credited with igniting the Pro Street movement upon its debut at the 1979 Car Craft Street Machine Nationals. It was a show-quality car with trendsetting style and great attention to detail. But was it the first car to hit the streets with a narrowed rear axle and other strip-oriented aesthetics? No. Not at all.

It wasn't long after NHRA's fledging Pro Stock class adapted back-halved chassis setups and narrowed axles that the designs migrated to the boulevard. That was especially true within the fiercely competitive street racing scene around Detroit. About three years before Sullivan's Chevy wowed the crowd at the Indiana State Fairgrounds, Steve Lisk was decimating Motown comers in a tubbed Challenger. His only reported serious competition was the Jack Roush-built Mustang II of Joe Ruggirello. It didn't have the full back-half treatment that would become the defining identifier of the Pro Street genre, but it nonetheless had rear axle mods. Today, we'd call the car mini-tubbed.

There were other back-halved street heaters prowling in the shadows of the Motor City, and they included this 1969 Nova, which has been tubbed since at least the late '70s. According to owner Corey Wegrzyn, it was commissioned by a street racer and built by renowned fabricator Carlos Purdue, who was known locally for his “Bad Rat” race cars.