The car community is funny. It’s only a fraction about the cars; the rest is about the people. Brad goes all-out on a clandestine operation to make over Brian’s Challenger in grand fashion with a one-day thrash featuring hot rod heroes, good friends, and a step toward a young car guy’s future, too. But no brunch.

After the completion of the Z-ing of the chassis, it was time to start modifying the stock inner fenders. Not wanting to eliminate them completely or going with an aftermarket inner fender, Alex took up the challenge to rework the stock units to make them look factory. At the same time, the firewall was repaired, reworked and painted as well.

Project White Trash gets its rear axle narrowed to fit the ET Super wheels that were restored in the previous episode. Alex also bends up new rear brake lines and decides on the ride height. Once that gets determined, the truck finally comes off of the jack stands and gets back on it’s wheels for the first time in a long while.

Episode two of Project White Trash picks up with the truck being loaded up and brought home, and serving an eviction notice to some squatters and stowaways. Naturally, the bees and Black Widow spiders that have called the truck home for years don’t give up without putting up a fight. Once they’re gone, it’s time to steam clean the truck and get rid of hundreds of pounds of dirt and grease.

Being a custom painter for the last 25+ years kind of helped when I was taking a basic, somewhat clean ’72 El Camino that belonged to my Dad and built him a pretty wild hot rod and lied to him about the WHOLE project. It was a lot of work over a period of 4 years but it’s been fun watching the world’s oldest 15 year old have fun!

Not only does a woman (regardless of her age) driving a classic Camaro get a lot of attention, it also gives her instant credibility with the racing community. Hauling the mail around a track in 3,000 pounds of steel with a non-compliant Super T-10 four speed, isn’t exactly lady-like. Suddenly my weekends were filled with friends, laughter and camaraderie. No longer was I ‘Rodney’s wife, who brought the salad’, I was Suzy the co-driver of the white Camaro.

Being a bit of an engineering-minded car geek, I like to tinker. However, with respect to having a warranty, I needed to restrict my tinkering to either factory-approved mods and pieces, or just throw all of that payment-offsetting goodness when it comes to repairs. Playing the grown-up, I opted for the former over the latter, and developed a cold air intake solution using budget-friendly, mostly factory parts. Follow along with long-term Project Life Partner, my ’16 Challenger R/T.