MANY FAITHFUL READERS OF HMM will recall the ’68 Bel Air we’d enhanced with a 500-plus-horsepower, 460-cu.in. Chevy big-block and TH400 (“Immaculate Deception,” HMM #221, January ’22), hoping to pull off a reasonable recreation of Baldwin-Motion’s legendary “Street Fighter Special.”Their bare-knuckled boulevard brawler was cloaked in a lightweight Biscayne body and motivated by a potent 425-horse, 427 big-block backed by a Muncie four-speed.
The imminently popular Chevy was the everyman’s muscle car. Even with a few upgrades to make it an even more intimidating adversary, it still rang up for less than three grand. While they called it the “Street Fighter Special,” we called it “Sleep on the Cheap,” and the combination
