Doug Thorley of Doug’s Headers fame got into drag racing when he stepped into Hubert Platt’s match race car while Platt was nursing a burned hand. Two passes was all it took for Thorley to want to get in on the fun. After building his own Chevy II, Platt’s wife, after seeing the car’s paint scheme, led her to say, “That Chevy is toooo much.”
Chevy 2 Much was born with an alcohol-injected 396-inch Chevy with a four-speed, and reportedly, at one time was the only so-equipped car to run 150 mph in the 1/4-mile. However, the bad thing about old race cars is that they were either wrecked into smithereens, or sold after the original owners were done with them, and then wrecked into smithereens. However, if they were able to survive the 60s, they are out of reach for 98-percent of us.
This car is a mix of both. Though not the original Chevy 2 Much, which lost a fight with a guard rail after Thorley sold the car to build a Corvair Funny Car, Thorley and many of the builders on the original car built this one to place in the NHRA museum. Dubbed Chevy 2 Much II, it sat in the NHRA museum for 11 years before being pulled out and sold to Ron Maxwell.
Thorley wanted to see the car be used in its original intent, so Maxwell added a 496-inch big block Chevy, a Turbo 400 transmission, and a nine-inch rear. Up front is a period-correct leaf spring solid axle with Bilstein shocks, while out back is a four-link set-up with adjustable shocks. The original Chevy 2 Much was one of the first cars of the era to feature wheelie bars, and the re-creation is also likewise-equipped. It’s possible Chevy 2 Much II needs the wheelie bars more than the original.
The look of the re-creation is just like the original with the same Bright Candy Tangerine/Red paint scheme with gold leaf graphics, while legendary Cragar wheels live at each corner.