All Images Courtesy: Andy McCoy Race Cars

Andy McCoy Race Cars has been in the business of building winning ADRL and NHRA Pro Mod machines for years, and we expect to see the bar raised yet again with this incredible ’68 Chevelle. What’s so special about it, you ask? Well, for starters – the all-clear, carbon-fiber ’69 Chevelle bodyshell — it’s a completely new design from the AMRC team and has been kicked up a notch in this application.

“The car was built to run in ADRL and NHRA Pro Mod, and was put together for South Carolina’s Russell Miller and his son, driver Taylor Miller. Russell wanted our first turnkey Chevelle, and this is it,” says McCoy. Back in 2005, McCoy had built himself a ’57 Chevy to run in NHRA Pro Mod, with the clear carbon body, and the design was a huge hit.

Once the multi-year process of creating the ’69 Chevelle body was underway, many phone calls started pouring in, with questions from the customer base regarding how straight the body was and how much bodywork it would take to get it “ready” to be used. As you can see, there simply isn’t any bodywork involved – the gaps and seams on this body and doors are that tight. Weighing in at only 55 pounds, the Chevelle skin offers another option for Pro Mod teams.

Thanks to the hard work of AMRC shop foreman Scott Wymore, McCoy’s father, Stan, and painter James Eads, you can see the incredible fit-and-finish of the body that was built completely in-house by the team in the AMRC composite shop. During the completion of the project, Stan suffered a heart attack, yet was back in the shop within a week to help get the car finished up. Now that’s dedication.

Chassis work was all performed in-house at Andy McCoy Race Cars, from cage construction to carbon-fiber wheel tubs. There’s also a carbon wing built to keep the rearend of the car under control at speed.

The Chevelle relies on a blown Brad Anderson Stage 8 Hemi, a billet supercharger from Chuck Ford, and a two-speed Rossler Turbo Glide with a Neal Chance NXS billet torque converter. Power distribution duties are handled by one of Strange Engineering‘s new Modular rearend assemblies. Strange also supplied their Ultra Struts for the front suspension and a set of carbon-fiber brakes mounted at all four corners. Electrimotion‘s command center is used to control all vehicle electronics, and all of the safety equipment, from parachutes to window net to seatbelts, comes from STT Safety.

There are a bunch of other cool tricks incorporated in this incredible machine, like the 495-gram, suede-wrapped carbon fiber steering wheel that has a Racepak dash incorporated directly within its confines. Even cooler, the design allows for the wheel – and the Racepak – to be removable without a single visible cord anywhere. It’s mounted on a carbon-fiber steering shaft that’s designed to help keep total vehicle weight down while retaining strength.

Another nice touch that McCoy raves about are the sweet MVM Motorsports carbon-fiber wheelie bars. Weld Racing‘s Delta-1 rear wheels are in place wrapped in Hoosier 34.5x17x16 slicks. 

“Laying up the clear ’69 Chevelle was very difficult in itself. You have to lay out your weave so that when you look at the car the weave is all matched up. The front end has to roll over, then roll into the door, and the weave has to go in the same direction.  You have to look at which direction it’s going, and then when you lay it out, it has to be done backwards for what you’re seeing. When you lay it out in the mold, it’s the opposite of what you’ll see when the finished product is popped out,” says McCoy.

“On top of that, when you lay the carbon in, if you tug on it, it will pull the weave around and ruin the finish. It takes a few guys to hold the carbon so that one guy can lay it out real nice. It’s a very difficult process, but I have to take my hat off to the guys in my shop on this one.”

The car was completed just in time for the PRI show, but if you can believe it, McCoy struggled to find a manufacturer that had space to display it at the last minute.

Despite thrashing for a nearly a week straight to get the car completed and to Indianapolis in time for the show, the team was forced to turn around and head home when no space could be found to display the car.

Currently the plan is to have the car tested and ready for the beginning of the 2014 season. As Russell is part-owner of Darlington Dragway, he’s got a built-in resource to prepare the car for the rigors of a full season of Pro Mod racing. Russell and Taylor are still determining the best place to race it with the upheaval currently taking place in the Pro Mod world. They’ll be testing in February and be ready by the end of that month to race with whatever organization is ready to rock in March.

“Last Sunday Russell and Taylor came to pick the car up, and it was the first time Russell had seen it in person – and the first thing he said was how pictures just didn’t do it justice. He was so absolutely in love with it and tickled to death with how it turned out that he ordered another car right on the spot. He ordered another Chevelle, this one to be white with a black stripe, for Pro Nitrous. We’re really excited about where we’re headed in 2014,” says McCoy.