Driveway Finds '56 Chevy
John Brito and Dustin Hallinan, from Santa Rosa, California, met ten years ago when John was a shop teacher and Dustin was a student in his very first shop class. Years later, still sharing a common love of getting old cars back on the road, they founded the Driveway Finds YouTube channel. One of the builds they have chronicled is this 1956 Chevy.
“This car was buried in the weeds in Hopland,” said Dustin. “It used to be a dirt track car in the ‘70s.” They paid $500 for the shell of the car and its plumbing pipe roll bar about five years ago and got to work making it road worthy. They’re still trying to piece together the history of this car, although from what they can tell it was campaigned by a high school student for just a couple of races. The car is relatively unscathed for a dirt track car, which often wears the scars of trading paint. When they found it, the doors were welded shut.
After sitting for so long it required all new fuel and brake line plumbing, as well as a new powertrain. First it used a ratty junkyard big-block. The current engine is an LS2 from a Corvette that supposedly had blown a head gasket. It had been removed and shelved for nearly ten years. In the month or so before LS Fest West, they tore it down, re-gapped the rings for boost, bolted on the 6-71 blower, and topped it with a pair of Sniper Stealth 4150 throttle bodies. Dustin wanted to run the dual four-barrel system with a Terminator X ECU, so he spliced an LS2 harness and a Terminator X harness together. Now it churns out more than enough power to roast the tires, at least enough to win Friday’s burnout contest at LS Fest West.
With no set goal in mind, the car has evolved into its current iteration as a car that’s fun to take to car shows, burnout contests, and cruise. Even though it’s got a fuel-injected LS, most of the parts surrounding it don’t look modern at all, and even the LS doesn’t look out of place thanks to its patriotic red, white, and blue paint scheme that was inspired by a Popular Hot-Rodding cover featuring an engine swap. For example, the blower is vintage, and so is the Muncie four-speed and GM 12-bolt rear axle. Peek inside and the Sun tachometer and Hurst Ramrod shifter also fit the vintage vibe.
Of course, the outside of the car looks the part. The livery painted on the passenger side was touched up a bit, but only to restore what it used to look like. The Blvd Shell lettering denotes a fuel station on Petaluma Boulevard in Petaluma, California, just south of Santa Rosa. That’s its past. The lettering on the driver side and trunk lid is new, representing its second lease on life. Its present.
