Random Car Reviews: Two Of The Biggest Hitters Of The 1990s: The Red ’57 Chevy And The White Camaro!


Random Car Reviews: Two Of The Biggest Hitters Of The 1990s: The Red ’57 Chevy And The White Camaro!

Growing up in the 1990s, if you even had a passing interest in drag racing, you knew who these two guys were. One was a mouthy mother who could curb-stomp and opponent at will in a car that had the aerodynamic efficiency of a barn door. The other was a guy who got tired of driving a Pinto, picked up a Chevrolet-branded doorstop, and proceeded to become a spectre on the track. In the land of Fastest Street Car Shootout, these two might as well have been generals going into war. Tony Christian and Mike Moran battled for years in these two cars, the red 1957 Chevrolet that was originally built by Stan Shaw, and Moran’s infamous “Casper” Camaro, which started life as a 1994 before being re-skinned as a 1998. Now, before I begin my review, I want to throw out a mulligan: in 1994 I was eleven years old, and in only a few short years this kind of racing was gone. Christian wound up switching over to a Firebird body (if I remember correctly…) before everything seemed to vaporize, and I lost track of Moran about the time the Casper Camaro was retired, when he was building up a Monte Carlo. So, if my information is a bit off, correct me instead of blasting me out of the water this time!

christian 57 chev

Christian was known for being confident…or cocky…or maybe tons of both. He certainly had the right to be. The red Chevy was a legend, being one of the three Stan Shaw cars (if I understand right, this is #3) and it was ballistic. Packing a 638ci Reher-Morrison that ran either a single four-barrel or dual quads, running through a Lenco and out to whatever rear axle had been sentenced to death by torture that week, the Chevy was less Body By Fisher and more Body By Yunick. Effectively, this was a freaking Pro Stocker masquerading as a street car, and it was a stomper. If the Chevy wasn’t radiating noise, Christian was, especially if a reporter asked a question that involved Pat Musi’s name.

moran casperMoran wasn’t off the pace that Christian set down any. Having appeared on the scene in the first Hot Rod Fastest Street Car Shootout in 1992 in a street-racing Pinto wagon that surprised a lot of the heavy-hitters, Moran really came into his own in 1994 when he debuted “Casper”, a salvage-title Camaro that had been turned into a full-kill racer by way of a Jerry Haas chassis and a 632ci naturally aspirated bullet…well, until 1996, anyways, when Musi put both Moran and Christian down with his nitrous-swilling ’69 Camaro. Then Moran switched to dry-fogging nitrous, before moving to turbochargers.

 

 


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2 thoughts on “Random Car Reviews: Two Of The Biggest Hitters Of The 1990s: The Red ’57 Chevy And The White Camaro!

  1. Danno

    LOL, yeah I can’t recall a racer who tried to verbally intimidate everyone around him more than Tony Christian. One cocky dude for sure. And Pat Musi was not that far behind him. Quite the pair for sure which made for some great interviews back then.

  2. Ian

    I remember the old Fastest street car magazine from this period with the Camaro and ’57. I couldn’t believe that there were street cars running those numbers.

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