1971 Chevrolet Vega Funny Car

Funny cars are the caricatures of drag racing, bearing surface resemblance to production models, without a trace of mechanical commonality. This Chevy Vega is typical of the genre. Its also typical of many race car restorations, an orchestration of old and new. The Vega body shell, for example, is new. The lifespan of fiberglass race car bodies rarely extends beyond a few years, let alone three decades.

Similarly, the original engine is long gone. Powering the car is a nitro-burning Keith Black 426 cubic-inch Chrysler Hemi supercharged V8, as it did back in the day. The original Logghe Brothers chrome moly tubular frame was intact, though it presented a challenge of its own. 'People welded all kinds of tubes and brackets onto it over the years,' the current owner recalls.

The Vega-bodied dragster was the first in a series of 'Motown Shaker' funny cars that ran from 1971 through 1982, when Bergler retired from racing. He was later inducted into the Michigan Motorsports Hall of Fame. In the early seventies, the Vega's Hemi generated 2500 horsepower, modest by today's standards. But the car was quick. Its best quarter-mile run, set in 1973, was 6.14 seconds at 240 mph.