There have been lots of neat pro stock cars through history. Harry Scribner’s Mercury Cougar, the famed four door Tijuana Taxi, AMC Gremlins, and more but there are a select few that stand above even that crowd for us. As it turns out the Warren Johnson operated Hurst/Olds from the 1983 season is one of them. In this video we need the nasty looking Olds taking on the early third generation Camaro of Rehr and Morrison as driven by Lee Shepherd.
The Rehr and Morrison team was nearing the height of their amazing early 1980s run of four championships in a row (1981-1984) and Warren Johnson was on his way up in the world. Both are established named but the cold reality of the situation is that people had to have been favoring Shepherd in this matchup. By this point in 1983 (the end of the campaign) the Rehr and Morrison team had won four races, Johnson had won none.
Everyone has their favorite era of pro stock. Some guys really love the earliest version of the NHRA class in early 1970s. Some guys love the cars of the 1990s but for us? For us the early 1980s and the variety it bought were the best. Seeing a Chevy Camaro and an Olds getting after it like this is fantastic. The best part of these cars is that they were very close to stock in body appearance but they had that low, raked stance, massive rear tires, and far more basic chassis than the car have now. They twisted and moved, pulled wheelies, pulled dry hops, and just strike us as huge and mean.
Evolution has seen the rules, the shapes, and the elapsed times of the class change over time but if we had to freeze it in one era it would be this one.
