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Function Before Beauty: Get An In-Depth Look At The “Hoodrat Hot Rod” Malibu!


Function Before Beauty: Get An In-Depth Look At The “Hoodrat Hot Rod” Malibu!

We know this 1979 Chevrolet Malibu well. Nevermind that the primered A/G body Malibu with one red fender and a Northwest Territories “Polar bear” license plate up front can be spotted anytime it’s out and about in Bowling Green or whenever the car is parked in the lot at Holley’s headquarters in town. No, this car we’ve known about because Holley’s marketing and PR guru Keith Jessee is a friend of ours, and because of the absolute throwdown he threw out at the first burnout contest at LS Fest 2017. He didn’t win that event…he lost to the Three Pedals’ Pontiac Safari station wagon…but he threw up a strong challenge, throwing caution and his wallet to the wind in the name of competition and absolute savagery. The “Hoodrat Hot Rod”, as it’s known, is a form-follows-function kind of build that we can get down with…and one I truly appreciate. The Malibu is core essential: one LS swap up front that is cranking out the power, one American Powertrain-supplied TKO600 (as of writing) translates the commands coming from Jessee into marching orders, and the Currie Enterprises 9-inch rear axle follows diligently. The car doesn’t appear to be much to most eyes, but to the knowing, it’s easy to see that the money went right where it needed to go: RideTech suspension parts, C5 Corvette discs up front with Explorer discs out back and a whole truckload of goodies from the people who provide his paycheck.

If you can look past the mostly spray-bomb primer gray, the rough spots in the body that aren’t going to be hidden for anybody and the VFN Fiberglass dash that is more or less to keep some kind of visual proof that this isn’t the ultimate strip-out job, what Jessee has to play with is the dream machine most people claim they want until they actually get it. Think about it…nobody here will shut down six hundred horsepower and a third pedal, but would you drive a car with no heater around in December? Would you be willing to kick the hell out of the throttle until something breaks just so you could go back and make it stronger? Probably not. That lack of fear and disregard for creature comforts in the name of perfecting the performance earns the thumbs-up from us.


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One thought on “Function Before Beauty: Get An In-Depth Look At The “Hoodrat Hot Rod” Malibu!

  1. jerry z

    Now that is a Malibu I like to own! May not look pretty but bad to the bone! 600HP will take out vehicles on the road.

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