One of the coolest wheelstanders to ever wow drag strip crowds is coming back to life due to the hard work and diligence of the original owner/driver’s son. That’s right, the monstrous Emergency West dually Chevy pickup is being refreshed, rebuilt, and repowered! The bug truck should hit the strip this summer and once again make people smile and freak out as it defies physics on the way down the strip. The huge Chevy truck has not been seen since Richard Scroeder passed away a few years back and his son Chris is making great headway on getting the truck ready to ride again. While the layout and basic premise are the same, the look of the machine has been updated as you’ll see in the photos below.

Instead of the steel 1977 Chevy truck body, the chassis has been updated to modern standards and specifications and a late model Chevy body (still a crew cab) has been hung on it. The new body is ‘glass in an effort to shed weight. The key elements of the truck remain the same, mainly the two blown big block Chevy engines that hand nearly off the end of the bed and provide the power shove the huge truck up into the sky. There’s not much more impressive a sight on the strip than to see a full sized dually truck with the nose almost vertical and sparks shooting off the “tailgate” for the length of the track. Outside of Ken Nelson’s crazed Cool Bus we have to believe that this truck is in the top three of the longest wheelbase wheelstanders of all time. It kind of smarts to hear that the original body is gonzo, but the new truck is cool looking and crowds will probably relate better to a new style truck.

Richard Schroeder made his living in drag racing for decades, driving a series of cool wheelstanders but we think that Emergency West was his crowning achievement in the entertainment category. We’re very, very glad to hear that his family saw the need to keep the original truck and to carry on their patriarch’s legacy by rolling this truck out again.

We’re going to keep you posted on the team’s progress but it sure looks like they are getting close. The engines have been built and test run, the body has been hung and painted, and work appears to be steaming ahead. When we learn about their timeline and schedule, we’ll keep you posted. Trust us when we tell you that you’ll not want to miss the reborn Emergency West wheelstander when it runs with its “chin up” down the strip!

SCROLL DOWN FOR PHOTOS OF THE NEW TRUCK AND VIDEO OF THE ORIGINAL AT GREAT LAKES DRAGOWAY –

CHECK OUT THIS VIDEO FROM THEIR FB PAGE!