Kevin Fontenot is one of the most hardcore AMC guys on planet Earth. How do we know that? The dude has a Gremlin that runs in the 7-teens at nearly 190mph in Outlaw 10.5 trim. This car has a custom built (by Kevin) 498ci AMC engine based on an Indy block and heads with a billet Rody built crankshaft anchoring the whole thing. The motor snorts nitrous and is backed by a Liberty five speed manual transmission. It is literally one of the neatest drag cars we have ever seen. Kevin posts a lot of video on his YouTube page and they show the performance improvements that the car has seen over the years. They also illustrate the sometimes tricky nature of getting a small tire, short wheelbase car down a drag strip in a straight line! He’s one driving son-of-a-gun on lots of these runs but that’s half the fun, right?
We included three videos below. The first is the in car perspective of blasting to a seven second elapsed time while gear jamming. The second is also in-car video but this one features an awesome “save” that Kevin made when the car got super out of shape on a run, and the third is just a compilation of launches showing the thunderous little car getting after it at Milan. It sounds awesome inside and out and Kevin is making some SERIOUS power out of that 498ci engine to hustle the car down ever closer to the six second bracket. We love seeing guys doing things differently than everyone else and this personifies that!
Long live the Gremlin from hell!
PRESS PLAY BELOW TO SEE SOME AWESOME VIDEOS OF KEVIN FONTENOT’S BAD ASS GREMLIN DRAG MACHINE!
Back in the eighties, I had a 66 Impala SS, with a 350, nice strong running car. Had fun street racin’ won a few lost a few, you know the game. One night a butt ugly green Gremlin pulled along side and sparred with me for a couple blocks. So, at the next stop light, we hit it! Man, this dude SPANKED me! I couldn’t freakin’ believe it! A GREMLIN!! Haha! 15 years later, working for Cobalt Boats, I met him! We were sittin’ around talking cars when I regaled him with the tale. He laughed, and showed me a picture in his wallet! He was one of my bosses!
Great story Don
Isn’t it strange how life makes a full circle on some things.
Thanks for the write up, way cool.
FWIW, the best the car has gone so far is 7.03 at just under 197 mph. Last year I won the Milan 10.5OL points.
http://www.milandragway.com/media/4485/2012_friday_heads_up_points_program_6_use.pdf
This year I ended up in third:
http://www.milandragway.com/media/8136/2013%20Heads%20Up%20Points.pdf
Some very tough competition.
[img]http://i462.photobucket.com/albums/qq341/stickshifter75/RaceInfo/ba74ae49-5a92-40ca-b53e-40d9a16fffcc_zps89fbd1c5.jpg[/img].
I like the vortex generators around the back of the car–probably to break up the vacuum caused by the flat back of a Gremlin–interesting car
Great write up Brian, Kevin has done an amazing job with this car and will continue. Whats more amazing is that it would probably run a 7 second pass N/A if he would have kept working on it instead of going to the dark side hahahahaha.