SHOW ME THE MONEY —
CHEV GASSER
This tough 1937 Chev gasser was completed in the spare time of a bunch of mates after they first helped finish fellow club member Jock McGilvray’s 1948 Chevrolet pickup when he became too ill to complete it. Sadly, Jock passed away in November last year but not before he was able to drive the pickup a handful of times thanks to the team’s hard work. That work wasn’t un-rewarded though, as Ophy explains: “Jock told me, ‘That motor has to stay with the car, and you boys have fun with it’. I’ve always owned the car, but, before he passed away, Jock came and saw me and said that [that] motor is staying with it. In a way, he did give it to me, but then, in a way, it’s sort of all of ours, and I didn’t want to take sole ownership of it.”
A long-time member of Downtown Rod and Custom Club, Jock was a relatively recent member of Lurkers Car Club in Invercargill, only joining the club some two years ago. Ophy is the club president, and his gasser joins the growing ranks of this class in the South Island.
“Jock found the coupe at Beach Hop in March 2019,” Ophy says. “He actually went to look at a Model A Roadster pickup and saw this sitting beside it. He pretty much talked the guy into selling it. Jock said to me, ‘I’ve come across this car. Do you know anyone who would be interested in it?’ I said I could be keen, and he said, ‘Well, I’m going to buy it anyway, whether you want it or not.’”
Jock loaded the Chev onto a trailer and headed back south, but then he had an idea. “On the way back, he rang me up and said he had changed his mind,” says Ophy. “He was only going to sell it to me if we built it into a gasser, put his big motor into it, and went racing together. So that was pretty much how it started. As he became more ill, it became more urgent for him to see it race, so we had a big push to get his truck done first. Once the pickup was done, it was straight back into the gasser. We tried to get it done before the Nostalgia Drags [Meremere, April 2020] but we didn’t make it because of Covid-19.”
A dedicated gasser and not road registered, the car carries the interesting title of ‘Milk Money’, although Ophy and Jock’s wife, Lisa, are unsure of the name’s exact origins.
“I don’t know how that name came about. Lisa and I were talking about it, and I think Jock might have come up with the name after a few beers one night. We always all had a Wednesday-night beer together to talk cars and plan what to do and the name sort of came about and stuck.” Powering the gasser is a 572ci big block Chev that began life as a ZZ572 crate engine from GM. That said, the internal specs are a bit of a mystery due to its entirely different performance use earlier on in its life.
“Jock got that motor out of a marathon jetboat when he pit crewed helping out Roger Preston and bought the motor off him,” Ophy tells us. What’s known is that Jock rebuilt the engine himself and added a Mooneyham 10-71 blower fed by twin 1060cfm Holley Demon carburettors. When it was completed, he installed it into his ’33 Ford coupe street rod. The strong-running motor proved to be a handful in the ’33, as Ophy recalls with a grin: “It got to the stage where that motor wasn’t really streetable, and he wanted to go back to something he could drive. I know he dynoed it in the high 700hp range; it kept wheelspinning on the dyno, so they had a couple of boys sitting in the boot to hold it down, but it still kept skidding off! It could have been 800hp or 900hp. Jock had some extra pulleys for the blower, which he gave to me, saying, ‘When you get some bigger balls, put these pulleys on!’”
When getting into the gasser build, it was time
“HOPEFULLY, IT WILL LIFT THE FRONT WHEELS!” OPHY STATES
to check over the motor. Removing the sump revealed some special bits, including a forged steel crankshaft. It was also a challenge when it came to setting valve clearances and trying to sort out what the camshaft was. Up top, it runs what look like standard Chevrolet cylinder heads.
“Rob Grayling went through the carburettors for me. Most of the work was done by myself, Jock, Dave MacDonald, and Rob Grayling. Heaps of guys got involved near the end of building the car, but it was mainly just a few of us boys who did it all. It runs an MSD ignition, but it’s pretty much a factory GM unit. I should also mention Graeme Eyles, who crews for Karl Boniface’s ‘Nitro Flashback’. Graeme helped out a lot at the start and went over the motor for me, as we didn’t know anything about it,” Ophy recalls.
The cooling system would prove to be a challenge, with the car overheating in its debut run in March at Southern Dragways.
“It’s now got two radiators. The second one is in the boot underneath the floor with a circulating pump trying to keep it cool. I won’t know until I race it again if it’s enough — Jock always had problems keeping it cool,” reveals Ophy.
As per gasser-class rules, electrics are basic and the sole fancy item is an electric transbrake. The Turbo 400 transmission has a shift kit with a reversepattern manual valve body.
“The gearbox was built by Logan ‘Widget’ Dickson out at Switzers Mechanical, in Waikaia,” says Ophy. “He went right through it for me and said it was a good trans.”
At the back, it’s a full-spool Ford nine-inch, suspended on QA1 coilovers and a ladder bar that runs almost all the way forward to the transmission mount. “Hopefully, it will lift the front wheels!” Ophy states. “I built the front end myself and made my own axle springs with early Ford spindles, Holden VN calipers, and a Holden HQ steering box.” On either end of that straight axle are 15x4.5inch wheels wrapped in equally skinny 185/70R15 Maxxis rubber, while out the back are 15x10-inch American Racing wheels wrapped in Hoosiers. Derek Orr completed the paint job. It is currently in a white primer, something Ophy has grown to like, and he may leave the car in that format for the time being.
Plenty of effort has gone into the body, with most of it being carried out by Ophy and friend Dallas ‘Delboy’ Ryan over the Christmas and new year period. Down below is the original chassis, which has now been boxed, fitted with a custom K-member, and topped with a full roll cage that sandwiches the body through to the chassis to create a unibody structure. Inside, it’s strictly business, with Jaz race seats from Cardwells and a custom dashboard made by Ophy and fitted with custom gauges. Orange-tinted polycarbonate gives a distinct highlight, replacing the original side and rear glass.
“I’ve used Moon gauges, and I’ve done them in retro style with my own machine-turned panel for the gauges and Moon rev counter,” Ophy says. Thanks to a healthy diet of a 50/50 pump and avgas mix, the tacho needle can happily see 7000rpm, which, as you can imagine, sounds amazing through the Ophy-built headers.
On its debut run at Teretonga, the motor pulled well despite a few carburettor linkage and tuning problems, and remained impressively stable on all of its runs.
“I was taking it pretty easy for a start,” Ophy tells us. “I used three-quarter throttle off the line and backed off to half for the rest of the track until I got used to it. Once I get it sorted, it should do a whole lot more. My aim was to get my licence sorted and my last licence pass was an 11.3 at 122mph, so there’s still plenty in it.”
Ophy looks back on the gasser project with a considerable degree of satisfaction. Like many, he misses the racing action and also acknowledges the influence Jock had on his interest in hot rodding. “He really was a big influence in the hot rodding scene. I started doing a lot of work for Jock through Southern Mechanical, the firm Jock owned. He always helped me out and guys looked up to him. He always had cool cars over the years and always liked a good time, as did us younger fellas. That’s probably how he got along so well with us younger ones. When I went out on my own, I contracted to him, and I always did a lot at their workshop.”
Ophy is also grateful to his own wife, Paige, and family, as well as a host of mates for their support throughout what turned out to be a tough 2019. “I need to thank Paige and my family, who put up with the hours I did on the truck and the car. I’ve taken a bit of a step back and a break after doing these two cars,” he says.
That said, the car’s not quite done yet.
“The signwriting is still to be brushed on, replacing the current stickers. I always wanted it shiny, but I’ve sort of grown to like it how it is. I might get the hand lettering redone on it too, instead of transfers.
“Hopefully drag racing will start up again shortly and we will be going through to
Muscle Car Madness. I hear a lot of gassers are being built around Christchurch and the south. It would be cool to start up our own South Island gasser series, as it is becoming so popular in the North Island. It’s not all about who is the fastest. It’s a great way to have a lot of fun and it’s a great way to have a lot of fun without spending a fortune.” Jock’s wife Lisa is still very much involved, and was on hand for the gasser’s debut run at Teretonga in March.
She comments, “Jock had been with Downtown Rodders since he was a teenager and was invited into Lurkers two years ago. He just loved those young fellas, and they are so keen on hot rods, so he just decided to gift that engine to
Ophy and get that car going, and I’m very keen to see it happen. The day Ophy ran it at Teretonga, I put Jock’s work shirt over the passenger seat as a tribute, and it’s still there.”
Lisa was amazed at the support she received from Ophy and his mates.
“They are unbelievable. The way they came together and got that red truck finished and then got stuck into Milk Money — just amazing. I really can’t thank them enough for what they did helping finish Jock’s truck. They really busted their guts putting months of work into it, then helped finish Milk Money. I think Jock said the motor was worth about 20 grand, and it couldn’t have gone to a better bunch of guys to carry it on!”