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FlexFuel Chevy Hot Rod
Photo by Ed Hellwig
FlexFuel Chevy Hot Rod
Photo by Ed Hellwig
A body with classic rod proportions has been superimposed on an alcohol-drinking drivetrain of the 21st century.
(Illustration courtesy of General Motors Corporation

FlexFuel Chevy Hot Rod

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What is it?
FlexFuel Chevy Hot Rod

What's special about it?
GM Performance Division (GMPD) has built a 1934 Chevrolet Coupe hot rod powered by a turbocharged 2.0-liter Ecotec inline-4 that drinks E85. Apparently they have a lot of free time over there.

Actually, what looks like a '34 Chevy contains no actual '34 Chevy at all. The frame and chopped-and-sectioned body were both scratch-built by GMPD with a solid front axle (complete with ultra-bitchin' lightning holes) and a four-link solid-axle suspension in back. The rear axle is a Winters Quick Change unit fitted with 5.20:1 gears — a solid match with the 35-inch-tall rear tires mounted on custom 20-inch Budnik wheels in the kidney-bean style. (The front wheels are 18-inchers inside 29-inch-tall tires.) About the only GM production part in the chassis is the steering box, which was taken out of a Corvair and reversed.

Inside, the cockpit is trimmed in "earth-friendly" materials and equipped with aluminum racing seats. The instrumentation consists of Stewart-Warner gauges chosen for their vintage appearance. Because the car is lowered so radically over its chassis, the most prominent feature of the interior is actually the custom-built driveshaft tunnel that runs down the car's spine.

The drivetrain takes most of its components straight out of GM's Ecotec Performance Book. First among those are the GM Performance Parts Stage III performance kit and an oversize turbocharger. The conversion to E85 has been accomplished using a kit that GM is considering for inclusion as a regular production option. The transmission is GM's 5L40 five-speed automatic.

Rhys Millen's Pontiac Solstice GXP drift car runs on an E85-fueled engine similar in specification to the one in this hot rod that makes somewhere around 500 horsepower. This seems a reasonable guess for the '34's power plant, even though GMPD hasn't announced a figure itself.

Within GM's overall theme at SEMA this year of environmentally sensitive performance, a '34 powered by the alcohol-rich E85 makes sense. But why should a hot rod make sense?

What's Edmunds' take?
A hot rod for both the cornbelt and the salt flats. — John Pearley Huffman, Contributor