Cole Reynolds' 1974 Chevrolet LUV started with the kind of idea that sounds almost reasonable if you say it quickly enough: small truck, LS power, manual transmission, and Ford 8.8 rearend. Fun, light, different from the Camaros and Mustangs that are commonplace at today's autocross events. Then the plan kept growing. The more Cole cut into the little truck, the less sense the original frame made.

"At some point, [we asked]: Why aren't we just building our own, utilizing different suspension geometries that would suit the truck and what I'm going to be doing with it a lot better?” Cole said.

That is how a 1974 Chevrolet LUV becomes a tube-chassis, center-seat, mid-engine, turbocharged LS track truck. You know, the normal path.

The LUV's first official outing, under its own power at least, was at the 2026 LS Fest Texas. We've known about the truck for a while, and it has been displayed at Holley events before, but this was the version we'd all been waiting for: running, race-ready, and weird in all the right ways.

Cole grew up around racing, so none of this came completely out of nowhere. His family built and raced cars, mostly in drag racing, with some autocross mixed in. "I'm a third-generation racer," he said. "I knew I wanted to do something. I just didn't want to do something that exactly followed in my family's footsteps. I wanted to do something that was kind of off the wall a little bit."

Cole bought the LUV when he was 13. It came out of Tucson, Arizona, and cost $750, paid for with money saved from photographing car shows for RideTech and picking up whatever small jobs he could find. The truck was originally a four-wheel-drive rolle, mostly complete but missing the engine.

The first version of the chassis was built around a more conventional front-engine layout. Cole had no formal fabrication training. He started tinkering with friend Kristopher Miller and built the truck to the point of being a rolling chassis. Then he took it to Mike DuSold, whom Cole had known since he was a kid.

Cole wanted to add a roll cage. Mike had more extreme ideas. "He was like, 'Dude, you should put the engine in the back,'" Cole said. "And then that day I was 18 or 19 years old, I cut the truck in half and started building the rear chassis." That sounds like the kind of advice that either ruins a project or makes it worth writing about. Cole built the chassis himself in a small room in his grandfather's warehouse, with guidance and inspiration from DuSold and Ferris Kartumi. He'd build a section, ask questions, mess something up, redo it, and keep going.

The result is a full tubular chassis with a No Limit Engineering front suspension based around Mustang II geometry. Out back, Cole built around fifth-gen Camaro rear suspension geometry, narrowing the layout 7 inches in the center and using RideTech control arms. The driveline is built around a SADEV SL90-20 six-speed sequential transaxle, which puts the transmission and differential in one unit.

"I'm able to just go flat to the floor on the gas and bang gears," he said. "There's nothing cooler than just ripping down a straight and grabbing gears, not having to worry about clutching in or doing anything else."

In the form you see here, it's powered by a 180,000-mile, stock long-block iron 5.3-liter from a Tahoe, with a Holley EFI Hi-Ram intake manifold, LS-swap oil pan, valve covers, modified Hooker headers, and twin Xona Rotor XRC62/64 turbos backed by TiAL components.

Running on 93-octane pump gas, the combination is estimated to produce 450 to 500 horsepower while weighing just 2,600 pounds.

The truck has already evolved beyond the configuration shown here. Cole has upped the ante with a BoostLine 388-cubic-inch aluminum LS. The engine makes around 600 horsepower naturally aspirated and is expected to make over 1,000 horsepower at full boost. But for autocrossing and road racing, it'll remain detuned to make around 750 horsepower.

Controlled by a Holley EFI Lightweight Dominator ECU, Holley EFI Pro Dash, Racepak SmartWire PDM, and Holley GPS speedometer. The Dominator made startup and setup straightforward, but the SmartWire solved one of the bigger packaging headaches. "One thing that I didn't want on the truck was a ton of relays and fuses," Cole said. "So, I integrated the SmartWire into it."

Shop Holley EFI Lightweight Dominator ECU here.

Shop Holley EFI Pro Dashes here.

The LUV is not exactly center drive, but it's close. The seat is offset about two inches to the right, which technically makes it right-hand drive, while still giving the look and packaging benefits of a center-seat layout. Cole is 6-foot-6, so legroom was not optional. With the engine and transaxle behind him, there was no traditional transmission tunnel in the way, and the center layout helped with packaging and weight balance.

The Holley EFI Pro Dash sits right in front of him, set up around the important vitals like RPM, oil pressure, coolant temperature, intake air temperature, and battery voltage.

Cole said roughly 10 percent of the original truck is still present, including the cab, grille, headlight bezels, and core support. The rest is composite, with fiberglass, carbon fiber, and plastic replacing the original panels. The truck wears a Nine Lives Racing front splitter, Nine Lives triple-element rear wing, DuSold Designs rear diffuser, a full flat bottom, barge boards, and a custom radiator duct that exits through the hood.

Aero matters here because the engine placement loads the rear of the truck. Cole wanted real front aero to keep the nose planted rather than let the front end get light at speed. Cooling is handled by a DeWitts front radiator and heat exchanger, with a Tick Performance air-to-water intercooler sandwiched at the Holley EFI Hi-Ram.

The truck rolls on 18x12 Forgeline GA1R Open Lug wheels with Falken Azenis RT660+ tires at all four corners. QA1 MOD shocks give Cole the adjustability needed to keep sorting the truck as it moves from LS Fest-style autocross, drag racing, and speed-stop events toward GridLife and Global Time Attack-style road-course use. Stopping power has been enhanced four corners of high-performance Baer brakes. Cole is running a Baer Extreme+ system with the XTR caliper upgrade.

Shop Baer Extreme+ high-performance brake systems here.

Originally, Cole thought about building the LUV for Ultimate Street Car competition, but the tube chassis pushed it toward outlaw/unlimited territory. Rather than fight the rules, he leaned into the build.

"It morphed from trying to fit into classes to let's just build the craziest thing that I can build and see where it fits," he said.

Cole also built the truck as a rolling conversation starter for CR23, his automotive marketing agency, but that never feels like the main reason the LUV exists. The business angle explains why the truck needed to grab attention. The rest of the build explains why people keep looking after it gets their attention.

That is what makes it work. Cole did not build the most logical track car. He built the one that stuck in his head when he was a kid, then kept cutting until the idea finally made sense. We like his mindset.