What is the fastest you have ever gone in a car? 100 mph? Maybe 150mph? Perhaps a few of you have even broken past the 170mph mark. The fact is though, many people go their whole lives never even approaching the 200mph mark, and there are others for whom 200mph is a regular occurrence. It must be nice to be those guys.
For those of us left wondering just what it is like to go 200mph, there is this video. Jalopnik came across this shotgun-view of a twin-turbo ’57 Chevy that competed in this year’s Hot Rod Magazine Drag Week.
This ’57 Chevy actually belongs to one Jeff Lutz, and was a participant in the Unlimited Class at the 2010 Drag Week. This monster ran a best of 7.03 before the cam bearings went and seized the camshaft, essentially shutting him out of the competition after just two races and a few hundred miles. However, those two runs were of epic proportions and helped set the tone for the event. And yes, that is a wiper that flies off of his windshield halfway down the drag strip.
While it had the body of a ’57 Chevy, this car is all business with a purpose-built tubular chassis. The engine is a monster 640-cubic-inch Rat with two turbochargers, a huge camshaft, solid lifters, and an EFI setup. Power comes through a Powerglide transmission. Watching this car rocket down the track from the inside, there seems to be a lot of play in that steering wheel and quite frankly the whole thing looks as nerve racking as it is exciting. Not that that would stop us from hopping into the driver’s seat on any given day.