The competition in the “Street Outlaws: No Prep Kings” series is as intense as anywhere in the sport, thanks in large part to the debut of world-class racing machinery to replace the myriad of former street-driven (and raced) vehicles that were never intended to run nearly 200 mph in 660-feet.

Among those still utilizing their original cars — albeit with significant modifications over the years — has been the 405’s own Jerry “Monza” Johnston,” with his twin-turbocharged split-bumper ’72 Camaro Rally Sport. But, noting the rise in performance from his peers in the no-prep arena, Johnson has been hinting at the need for a newer, more capable car to marry to his impressive Pro Line Racing 481X powerplant. After months of chatter, it’s now becoming reality.

Johnston confirmed on Thursday evening that he has tabbed Cameron Johnson Race Cars in Florida to construct a new 1970 Chevelle SS, that will be painted in a timeless silver hue with black rally stripes. In an effort to retain as original a look as possible, Johnson and Johnston will finish the car with a factory-style black vinyl top, along with the factory headlights, taillights, and door handles.

“As most of you know, we have been struggling this year, and here a while back we put a post out on Facebook looking for a chassis builder, and Cameron Johnson Race Cars reached out to us and said they’d like to build us a car,” Johnston said. “After seeing Justin Swanstron come in here with a brand new car this season and sitting at number two in points going into the season finale, I decided that they’re probably the right people to build us a car. Obviously they know what’s going on.”

“You’ve got to spend money to make money,” he added of the major investment in his program. “We’re going to make more money if we go rounds and win some of these, and it boosts t-shirt sales and everything else. We want to make ourselves relevant again. We’ve had hell tuning a chassis that won’t work. It’ll run down to a certain number like a bracket car, but once you try to go any faster, it just creates big problems and doesn’t want to cooperate, so we’re going to put it back on the street and we’re going to  build a purpose-built “No Prep Kings” car that will run with the Ryan Martins and Justin Swanstroms. We’re going to go out and make things weird on them next year.”

The rendering received rave reviews in the hours following the reveal. Johnston is in Florida this week competing at the “No Prep Kings” season finale in Bradenton, and hauled a trailer of parts down from Oklahoma with him to allow CJRC to get to work on the Chevelle. The pair intend to have the car complete and ready to test ahead of the as of yet unannounced season five opener in 2022.

“It’s not only going to be fast, it’s going to be a sexy mofo,” Johnston said matter-of-factly. “We tried to pick a car that there wasn’t a lot of these in No Prep Kings, There is one other Chevelle and it’s a ’68 or ’69, but it don’t look nothing like this. We’re just trying to be a little different, because I’m old school — I’m not a Lexus fan, or this new-school sh*t fan. I like the old muscle cars. We’re going to sacrifice a little in aerodynamics, but we’ll be fine.”