In The Raw

You'll be shocked when you find out what powers this off-the-wall Nova!

- Stan Smith 

The West Coast. It’s often the place for trend setting—where styles and looks originate. Why is it that something cool is even cooler when we can say that it started in Cali? Maybe the west coast is a haven for the more outrageous of new ideas—a kinder place where the absolutely outside-the-box thinkers can go, knowing they won’t be labeled by the haters and naysayers for being different as they plan their next creation.

We gotta come clean: when Alex Gutierrez approached us about featuring his Nova, so many things went through our minds. We had doubts, but with an open mind we forged ahead and arranged a photoshoot during the recent Street Car Super Nationals in Vegas. Since the inception of RPM 18 years ago, we have always tried to be open to everything horsepower-related and give the people that bust their knuckles on their hot rods like Alex the shot at some serious coverage in a mainstream magazine. And sometimes that means stepping outside of our own comfort zone and daring to be different ourselves.

It used to be that sticking one North American manufacturer’s engine in another’s body was taboo with most everyone in the circle of hardcore car enthusiasts. The purists—who were the majority at the time—would call it things like cross contamination, bastardizing etc., and sometimes it would even stir up some pretty strong feelings in a select few.

So going one step further was almost unheard of, and for those who dared to dabble in using an offshore manufacturer’s motor in an American car, well that offending individual would often end up very lonely at most any car event. Today however, changing times and a worldwide economy have led to acceptance of things that even just a few years ago were grounds for instant ostracization.