Kimmo “SIX-5” Nevalainen is a madman. When there were no more asses to kick at the dragstrip on his native continent, and after achieving his goal of a 200 mph standing mile pass, he packed up his 1965 Corvette, put it on a boat headed for the New World, and booked a flight for himself and his new wife from Helsinki, Finland to Baltimore, Maryland.
Once here in the US, he drove the Chevy cross-country to run Drag Week 2015, where 1320video caught up with him. That wouldn’t be the end of his American adventures, either – After Drag Week he was headed for Los Angeles, then through Texas on his way to dropping the car off for a stay at the National Corvette Museum in Bowling Green, Kentucky. In all, he had an itinerary topping out at 6,200 miles (not counting the miles he put on the odometer, one quarter at a time) and even the road miles weren’t easy, with a litany of broken parts and late-night repairs to keep things on track.
The SIX-5 runs mid-11s on the motor (there’s a NOS nitrous system for those times when 1,000 horsepower is necessary) thanks to a 427 cubic-inch small-block Chevy based around a Gaerte aluminum block topped by AFR heads and running Edelbrock EFI. The engine runs an LS firing order thanks to a custom COMP cam, with an LS-style coil-per-plug ignition as well. And we can’t forget to mention that it’s all backed by a Tremec T-56 6-speed manual transmission with a McLeod dual disc clutch.
Bookmark this page, so that the next time you get discouraged from being “too ambitious” in your road trip plans, you can remind yourself that Kimmo is out there, ready to come to where you live to kick your ass with SIX-5 if you’re too lazy to come to him…