Perseverance. If there was ever a word to describe what a car builder/owner must have in their psychic makeup it would be that word. You stick to the task absolutely until it is completed, no matter the punji pits or the Claymore mines in your road, and when everything that conspires against your forward motion, you don't quit. Paul Tortorici is one of those kind. It was like he was working with the Murphy's law encyclopedia. Virtually anything that could go wrong did, but none of it caused by him. As a young fish, Paul's indoctrination included his dad's 1967 Riviera GS and his uncle's 1966 4-4-2 when they were new cars. It was graphic. "I'll always remember [them] going out on Route 80 and racing one another."

His fable began more than a dozen years ago when the kid from northern New Jersey bought a car way out in freakin' Oregon. It was a genuine 138 SS396 Super Sport Chevelle, replete with bucket seats and a console. It had a tarpaper roof that has capped four paints: gold, red, white, and the glassy obsidian sheen it has now, and he declares that he'll defend that patch of vinyl forever.

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So the car is thousands of miles from New Jersey, may as well be on the moon, and all he had to go by were images he saw on the Internet. Of course, he discovered too late that the whole thing was misrepresented. The seller told Paul the car didn't need any bodywork, wasn't slathered with Bondo, and was ready to go cruising right now. But any hope of a complete numbers-matching deal was lost in the ozone. The engine wasn't original. The quarter-panel on the driver-side and both front fenders he had to replace with N.O.S. pieces. But there was a lot more that made Paul's stomach do a dirty boogie.

"Though the seller told me that everything worked, the car arrived with two flat tires and no brakes," he gasped. "You step on the brake pedal and all the lights would go on." It's only encouraging aspect was a clean, unmolested interior, which Paul could leave intact and save money doing it. "I decided to do a body-off restoration and mediablasted the body shell and the frame."

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Between the shaping of the combustion chambers and the configuration of the corresponding piston domes they tailored the compression ratio at 8.5:1 in anticipation of the world's most formidable-looking power-adder. Blower Drive Services (BDS) provided more than 40 years of experience along with its specific intake manifold and 8-71 smokestack that Paul decorated with Demon carburetors and an airscoop that's about as subtle as an elbow in your eye socket.

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He and Pino built the drivetrain unorthodox, again shunning the typical stuff for things people would likely remember about his car. Instead of the noted TREMEC five- or six-speed transmission, they were enthused about a McLeod flywheel and pressure plate assembly and a Richmond Gear Super Street five-speed overdrive. Rather than a power-eating Ford third member, they put up the minimally parasitic Moser 12-bolt knowing that they had nine inches of small-tire failsafe that would erupt long before anything could compromise the mechanicals.

Paul wouldn't be intimidated by popular notion or current trend. He gathered some truly '60's cues and did the throwback. After setting the stance with conventional coil springs (not coilover adjustable shock absorbers), he went after the candy. He found the eye-popping polished Tri-Ribb rims at Radir Custom Wheels just down the road in Montville, New Jersey, and stacked them with modern Mickey Sportsman Front tires and really old-school bias-ply Pro-Trac 60 skins.

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The glassy exterior was created in two places. Colors Auto Body in Budd Lake, New Jersey, purified the sheetmetal, where Ryan (son) and Steve Korek (dad) of Korek Designs assembled and finished the front clip. Then they sealed the contract at their shop in New Berlin, Pennsylvania, worrying over the mile-deep Mercedes Black.

So what did Paul's perseverance reveal? A capital offense, that's what. Buying something sight unseen often means disappointment along with a lot of expense that could have been avoided. On the other hand, sticking to his guns was an experience he'll never forget. "Taking the car out for the first time after seven long years of working on it when I had time and trying to run my screen printing business at the same time."

And at that stage of the game that's all that really mattered. CHP

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Tech Check

Owner: Paul and Pino Tortorici Butler, New Jersey

Vehicle: 1967 Chevelle SS 396

Engine

Type: Bow Tie block

Displacement: 540 ci

Compression Ratio: 8.5:1

Bore: 4.500 inches

Stroke: 4.250 inches

Cylinder Heads: Canfield, 2.25/1.88 valves, bowls blended, ports matched

Rotating Assembly: Callies crankshaft, Manley 4340 connecting rods, JE pistons

Valvetrain: Comp lifters and retainers, 1.7:1 rocker arms, Manley 3/8-inch pushrods

Camshaft: Comp solid roller (0.600/0.580-inch lift; 268/276-deg. duration at 0.050; 112-deg. LSA)

Induction: BDS intake manifold, BDS 8-71 supercharger (at 12 psi), Demon 850-cfm carburetors, Speedway Motors airscoop, 12-gallon fuel cell

Ignition: MSD 6AL, Blaster 2 coil, Moroso 8mm primary wires

Exhaust: Stainless steel American Racing headers w/ 2-inch primary pipes, 3.5-inch collectors, 4.5-inch outlets, MagnaFlow mufflers

Ancillaries: Be Cool fans and radiator, Tuff Stuff alternator, Mr. Gasket water pump

Output (at the crank): 1,000 hp



Built By: Paul and Pino Tortorici

Drivetrain

Transmission: Richmond Super Street five-speed, McLeod flywheel and twin-disc clutch assembly

Rear Axle: Moser 12-bolt, Detroit Locker differential, 3.73:1 gears, Strange Engineering 35-spline axleshafts, custom aluminum driveshaft

Chassis

Front Suspension: Strange Engineering spindles, tubular control arms, coil springs, QA1 adjustable shock absorbers

Rear Suspension: QA1 Drag Racing Level 1 (coil springs, adjustable upper control arms, adjustable shock absorbers, lower control arms)

Brakes: Strange Engineering 11.25-inch discs, four-piston calipers



Wheels: Radir Tri-Ribb III 15x4 front, 15x8 rear

Tires: Mickey Thompson Sportsman Front 28x7.50 front, Pro-Trac 275/60 rear

Interior

Upholstery: OE vinyl

Material: OE

Seats: OE

Steering: ididit tilt column, manual box, SS rosewood wheel

Shifter: Hurst

Dash: OE

Instrumentation: AutoMeter

Audio: OE

HVAC: Vents pulled, wing windows wingin'

Exterior

Bodywork: Mike McBride/Korek Designs at Colors Auto Body (Budd Lake, NJ)

Paint By: Mike McBride/Ryan Korek (New Berlin, PA)

Paint: PPG Mercedes Black

Hood: Stock

Grille: N.O.S. SS

Bumpers: N.O.S.

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