All image credit: NZV8

There is definitely a strong love for American muscle beyond the homesoil, but no where can the international taste for Bowtie pro street be seen stronger than with New Zealand local Ryan Sheldon and his Dart powered, ’66 Impala.

NZV8 Magazine, New Zealand’s top authority on street and strip bring us this bad ass street racer, the result of 6 years of hard work and a push from dad to build a radical street car. Ironically though, building a pro streeted sled out of a B-body wasn’t Sheldon’s first choice.

Actually, the idea to build a street car that could fulfill the needs of drag racing was the idea of Ryan’s dad, Des, who at the same time had just come across a 4.25-inch Eagle crank. Des insisted, according to Ryan, that “we, as in me, should build a 500 cube-plus street car.”

The way in which Ryan ended up with an Impala was actually a move of the cosmos, as he originally intended to build a rod out of a Pontiac Catalina. After buying a Catalina that was supposedly a full roller car, progress was halted when the car turned out to be an array of pieces that needed to be put together.

Cosmic powers, however, kicked in for Sheldon when he stumbled across a neatly buttoned drag car from Wellington drag racer, Andrew Killis. Killis owned the ’66 full-size, but had the car prepped for drag racing by fellow racer, David Green.

As luck would have it, Killis’ need for a full tubed chassis drag car would work in Sheldon’s favor, and Killis decided to sell the Impala as is. Killis turned out to be just as much of a Catalina fan as Sheldon, and soon Sheldon would be taking the B bodied pro street off of Killis’ hands to his home near Auckland.

Sheldon entrusted Tony Marsh from Marsh Motorsport with the task of machining the Impala’s Dart, Big M block for Sheldon’s Eagle crank, Mahle pistons and Eagle rods. With this being accomplished, top alky driver, John Neilan assembled the car with Ryan’s assistance.

The end result fulfills Sheldon’s original purpose for building the B body drag car, and that purpose was to build something that was fast that could still be streetable. For this reason, Ryan’s hefty Dart motor is a 540 cube mill, which produces an estimated 800HP; chased by a TH400 trans with 4,000rpm stall to provide space launch.

Its full sized and its fast, and with plenty of support from John Neilan, Tony Marsh and others, Ryan Sheldon’s clean pro street Impala is among the best in B body muscle that New Zealand has seen.