Street- Freaks !

* Street Freaks *

What is a Street Freak? It's a street driven Drag Strip dropout, de-tuned for Sorta-Legal on-road cruising. Take a fugitive funny car with a dynamite engine and jacked up suspension, add mufflers (rarely), lights and the biggest street tires (most only had slicks) and drive it on the street !

I grew up in North Jersey in the early 80's, reading every car magazine I could get my hands on. Yes, you could still hold something in your hands and read it ! I had a subscription to Hot Rod at 9-years old and renewed for at least 10 years, until it got over run with ads. I would also purchase Car Craft, & now defunct Popular Hot Rodding & Cars Illustrated at the news stand / magazine store .

This was my only education about Hot Rods or any cars for that matter, as I was the only one in my family who was interested in cars. And as luck would have it, my house was the only one on my street with out a driveway or garage. So convincing my father to buy a project car was out of the question.

The 1980's on my street was still exciting tho, my neighbors had all kinds of hot cars. Because I was just a kid many wouldn't bother talking to me, so I became friends with their little brothers or sisters just to get close to the cars .

Directly across the street from me, my sisters friend had a boy-friend with a 1973 Camaro. This thing had Side Pipes, a chrome bolt in roll bar, L88 hoo , Cragar S/S wheels with huge 60's on the back and bright yellow traction bars. And it wore bright candy-apple Red paint.

I got to ride in it once when I was 10, I didn't want to get out, we cruised around for a few hours then it was over.

I don't have any pictures of it, but it looked just like this Vega .

There were a lot of other GM products in my town that were also pretty hot.

Other cars on my street included a 1970 W30 Oldsmobile 442, it was brown with white stripes, of course the rear was jacked-up and it was fitted with the biggest Cragar wheels they made. Like this Chevelle here.

This is very close to how the Oldsmobile looked .

Up the street from me there was a bright yellow 69 Nova, it was a weekend race car ,but the guy had plates on it and drove it on the street. It had the old-school seven-inch high snorkel scoop, air shocks to fit the big slicks, that were mounted on light-weight Super Trick wheels. I think it just had headers and glass pack mufflers on it, when it would pass my house it would rattle the windows .

The Gasser look was hot then too ,after the 1970's those cars were hitting the streets because they were considered outdated by then .

Here are some examples .

Of course you had to get those big tires from somewhere, companies like Pro-Trac , McCreary and Good/Year made extra large sizes to fit those wide wheels. Mickey Thompson was a big player then and still is today .

The Ansen Sprint was a popular choice of wheel design, as most Funny Cars and Altered's ran them on the Drag Strip, and what ever was on the track made it to the Street Freak crowd .

E-T Mags were also popular with the Street Machine crowd in the 70's.

Even the Compact Ford Pinto can be a little Street Freak but this one is mild compared to others and can be classified as just a Street Machine.

This 1967 Nova is an example of a 21st century Street Freak !

Of course every Street Freak had to have headers !

Doug's headers is still in play today.

This is another example of a modern build of a Street Freak.

The name of this 1977 Mustang II is called Sudden Death, it was built like a Pro-Stock car and driven on the street. This was the start of the Pro-Street movement. It was originally built with a twin turbo 460 by Jack Roush back in the 70's for a street racer, it now resides in Jack's personal collection .

This Nova has the Street Gasser stance giving it Street Freak status !

Some people might call these two cars Pro-Street's, but because of the crazy dual superchargers I would fit them into the Street Freak club , because you just don't see two superchargers very often .