Just Cool Cars: '55 Chevy honors Michigan town
COSTA MESA, Calif. -- Allen Ankelein has built his own time machine.
It's a 1955 Chevrolet hot rod that's a homage to the age when cars were loaded with performance parts and taken out to a drag strip around Orange County, Calif., on weekends to see just what they can do.
But the car, dubbed the "Time Machine" is even more. It's also a nod to Ankelein's roots in Livonia, Mich. The Detroit suburb's name is on the door and he wrote a tribute to his parents on the back of the car. The phone number on the doors was the family's home phone.
"I wanted to do a little tribute to my hometown," says Ankelein, who lives in Fountain Valley, Calif.
The Time Machine is technically a "gasser," a type of street rod that ran off gasoline straight from the pump rather than special racing fuel.. It's powered by a 427-cubic-inch Chevy engine that makes it "scary fast," says Ankelein.
He says he's only had the car for about a year. "My goal was morph it into a '60s race car," he adds.