There aren’t too many of us that can say a ’69 Cutlass 442 was our high school car. For most, whatever car we drove in high school was lucky to make it to graduation, much less to college, or into the workforce.

The 442’s frame is ready to go with its TRZ suspension components and Moser M9 rear housing. This time around the 442 will wear Champion Speed Series wheels.

Chad Mullins, from Wakeman, Ohio, drove this 442, in Hurst/Olds livery, while in high school in the mid 1990s. Mullins drove it on the street and raced it up until 1998 when it was pushed into a corner of his dad’s garage.

Thankfully, a couple years ago Mullins dragged the car out of hibernation to get her back on the street and the drag strip. You could call it a frame-off restoration, but this is more like a frame-off race-storation, since the car’s primary goal will be to do battle in the Renegade Racing Association’s 9.90 index class.

Mullins bought the car as a Hurst/Olds clone, but will be painting the car silver with black stripes on the hood in traditional 442 form.

First things first: no self-respecting Olds enthusiast would ever put a non-Olds engine in a 442, and Mullins is following that line of thinking by working with M&J ProFormance’s (Louisville, Ohio) Mark Smith to build a 494-inch big block Olds engine. M&J specializes in Oldsmobile engines, so Mullins should be in good hands. Mullins is undecided at the moment on the car’s transmission. He is either thinking a Turbo 400 or a G-Force G101A four-speed. What’s already set in place is the car’s TRZ Motorsports front and rear suspension systems, while a Moser M9 housing replaces the Oldsmobile 12-bolt rear.

At the moment Mullins and another Olds enthusiast, Ben Smith, from Elyria, Ohio are working on smoothing out the 442’s body and building the car’s mini-tubs to fit either a 315 drag radial or a 29.5×10.5W tire.

Mullins hopes to have the car ready by the 2016 Dick Miller Oldsmobile Nationals at Norwalk. Last summer he won the DOT-legal class at that event driving his grandpa’s ’65 442 he bought new. His grandpa died 25 years ago, but Mullins still has the car.