The Untold History of Project X

This '57 Chevy's backstory from an insider might be more interesting than the official one.

- Text and photos by Johnny Hunkins

This is a love story of sorts. Project X is the 1957 Chevy 210 two-door sedan that Popular Hot Rodding (PHR) magazine bought in 1965 for $250 with the intent of modifying it in accordance with readers' wishes. The love story part is complicated, as many things in life are. Popular Hot Rodding readers loved it, and by all accounts, so did the original staff of PHR. The magazine had started only three years prior, in 1962, as a competitor to cross-town rival, HOT ROD, and what the magazine needed was an affordable project on which to try various new speed products that were being developed by folks like Hedman, Edelbrock, and Alston. Although building a reader-centric project car today sounds corny and a bit threadbare, Popular Hot Rodding was a leader in this area at the time, and readers became empowered overnight, flooding the mailroom at PHR with suggestions and encouragement.

I say this is a love story because it was my honor to serve as the editor of Popular Hot Rodding and principal photographer of the Project X 57 Chevy for 11 years between 2003 and 2014, and during those years I spent a lot of time with Project X, but by design, none of it in the driver's seat. The of sorts part is a deliberate asterisk; I never wanted to drive Project X because by the time I landed in the editorial seat of Popular Hot Rodding the '57 Chevy was already famous and had become worth too much money to too many people to risk driving it. In those days, I was never more I than two bad decisions away from selling kitchen appliances; if I had a mishap with everyone's favorite Tri-Five, I probably wouldn't have lost my job, but I opted not to have the sword of Damocles hanging over my neck at every turn of the wheel.