Dragzine

Lets face it, we all wanted to be that guy with the coolest hot rod in the school parking lot, and if you’re anything like me, you even made a couple of horrendous financial decisions to do so. While attending York University and just starting to really follow along with the muscle car and drag racing scene, Matthew picked up a typical grandma car – a ’71 Scamp that had some rough paint, vinyl top, and a slant six engine. It didn’t stay that way for long however, as Tamburro was ready to make the car his own. Tamburro even got some appreciation from his school in their in their newspaper, just a couple weeks after the car made regular appearances there.

He didn’t have a fancy shop, but he did have the tools and plenty of ambition to get it done right at home in his own garage. After making a bunch of headway on some light bodywork, the slant six was sent to the scrap pile to make way for a freshly built 340. When she came back from paint, Tamburro ordered up some Billet Specialties Street Lite wheels front and rear to give it the modern look. Into the guts, it’s a mildly-built 4 barrel 340 with headers, a custom 3″ exhaust, Borla race mufflers and a nice aesthetic touch being the old-school Mickey Thompson valve covers.

Keeping it traditional, this car is a slushbox no more with a T5 5 speed transmission. Juggling tight school schedules with pumping 600+ hours into an old Mopar is no easy feat, but Tamburro has done an excellent job. Just a couple days ago, Tamburro brought his Scamp to a Test N’ Tune at Toronto Motorsports park, where he only managed to get an extremely slippery 13 second pass off, spinning from launch to past the 60 foot. Tamburro might make a couple trips back with the current setup, but is pretty certain it’s these street tires that are holding him back, and is planning to get some drag radials on there soon to make a shoot for the 12′s, perhaps even the 11′s. It might not be setting the world on fire on the strip, but it lets Tamburro have fun, and we’d call that a job well done.