Detroit Autorama Winning Alloway Speedstar LS1 4L60E

Bobby Alloway may have designed the SpeedStar's body but it takes a team of craftsmen to turn that body into completed rolling art. Built by ProRides, this hot rod has won plenty of awards including 'Best Radical Roadster' at the Detroit Autorama and the Hershey 'Fab 5' award. It has also been featured in 'Street Rod Builder' magazine and has enough trophies behind it to require a trailer to haul them all. Highly detailed and beautifully finished, this car is the very definition of hot rodding in the 21st century.

The body is a Rat's Glass piece, anchored to a matching frame from the same vendor. With the myriad of suppliers, designs, and fabricators out there, a lot of rods end up as cobbled together collections of mismatched parts that never live up to their potential. That's definitely not the case here. Everything was fully engineered and built to work as a unit and the result is a car that drives as great as it looks.

Though Alloway bodies are good right out of the box, the crew at Volker Auto Body went the extra mile in completing the prep and paintwork on this street rod. Between the Harley-Davidson Gray and Corvette Victory Red, you'll find a simulated TIG weld that was designed and applied by Thad Cunningham from ICON Graphics. Yes, it really does look like a very skilled welder joined the top and bottom halves of this body with the most beautiful welds ever seen. Even the trained eye requires a second look to figure out what is really going on. It's detail work like this that allows certain cars to place over others at shows and this one is a proven contender.

The big headlight look is timeless and this car wears it well, borrowing a pair of headlights from a '34 Ford truck. With so many cars sporting King Bees, the Ford lights are a refreshing look. The grille is a custom billet piece inside the Alloway-designed shell that's been raked, pinched, and chopped. Out back, Headwinds Concours rocket taillights are the finishing touch. It's a good thing they're pretty, because they're going to be the only thing a lot of guys see if they try to chase down this little red roadster.

Power comes from an aluminum LS1. No old tech 350 with a carburetor, this is a fuel injected powerhouse that features a polished aluminum intake (not plastic) and custom fabricated sheet metal valve covers. Ignition is handled by a set of eight separate MSD coil packs, and if you look closely, you'll note that the air cleaner is a trick unit that also houses the mass-air meter. There are braided hoses everywhere, but they're black with black fittings for a subtle look that stands out at shows. Rounding out the eye candy is a set of aluminum fuel rails that feed the injectors a steady diet of high octane - pieces that the LS1 never carried from the factory. Nice! Of course, there's a pair of long tube headers handling the exhaust duties, and the block has been bathed in more of that Corvette Victory Red paint. In all, a simple, clean, well-designed engine bay that lets the hardware do all the talking.

The chassis is equally well crafted using more well-regarded components. The transmission is a 4L60E automatic that is cooled by a B&M transmission cooler for aggressive driving. Up front, the suspension is from Heidt's with a custom crossmember and adjustable coil-over shocks. In back, it's a fully independent Winters axle with trick inboard disc brakes that keep this little roadster planted in the twisties. Brakes are from Wilwood, with big ventilated discs all around. The exhaust was custom fabricated and features Flowmaster mufflers for that sound that everyone will instantly recognize. Everything that can be polished has been, and if it isn't polished, it has been painted to match the body. Lines and hoses are custom pieces that fit beautifully and must have taken hours to fabricate. Wheels are Bonspeed Custom units measuring 18x8 up front and a gigantic 22x10.5 out back, all rolling on a set of BFGoodrich KD radials.

Inside, a bright red leather interior is sure to stop show-goers in their tracks. There's not a single piece that wasn't hand-fabricated and stitched together, from the door panels to the trick center console with integrated (and weatherproof) stereo controls. Every square inch was wrapped in gorgeous red leather and detailed just as thoroughly as the graphics on the outside of the car. Gauges are Bonspeed pieces called Viva Las Gauges. Their big, bold graphics match the overall theme of the car perfectly. The center console was custom molded to hold not only the Lokar shifter for the 4L60E, but also a cool round pod for the hidden entertainment system's control interface. The tilt steering column wears a tachometer as it should, and the Billet Specialties steering wheel has been wrapped in matching red leather. The trunk has had an equal amount of time, money, and attention thrown at it, and presents beautifully with a vintage-looking V8 logo embossed in the back panel, which hides things like the entertainment system and battery. This car is far from done winning awards.

Pro built rods aren't cheap. To win awards at the highest levels, not only does the design need to be jaw-dropping, the execution has to border on art. Every single component has to be finished to perfection and assembled with more care than a surgeon performing a double bypass. This is such a car. Guys who pay for someone to build rods like this understand that they'll never get their investment back, it takes cubic dollars to build a car like this. The upside is that it makes award-winning show pieces affordable for average enthusiasts who want a mind-blowing car but can't afford the build. This is an awful lot of car that cost twice the asking price to build. It is a proven show winner and a spectacular driver on the road. If you like the looks (and who wouldn't?), give us a call right away. You couldn't duplicate half of this car for the money.