How old were you when you got your first car? Most people say sometime around driving age. But if your story is like any one of us here at Car Craft—and if you're reading this it probably is—you may not remember when someone pressed a die-cast car into your chubby palm. It was probably a toy that set your life course down this path.

"I still remember my first Hot Wheels," Brendon Vetuskey says. He was three. "Yeah, I can still remember things from when I was three years old," he explains, acknowledging the audacity of the claim. "It was an orange Large Charge with basic wheels. I can remember having cars like that all through my childhood."

Inevitably Brendon graduated to larger cars, beginning his full-scale journey with a first-gen Camaro (which burned to the ground thanks to a backfire into one of those tricorn foam-element filters—we beg you to learn from his mistake). A string of hot cars followed, but it was a '67 Firebird—Verdoro-green with a black vinyl top and interior—that really motivated him. About a decade ago he found one.



For what he paid he didn't expect a perfect one but he didn't expect what he got, either. "It was a very rusty car," he laments. "As I took it apart I found more rust. Tore it apart further and even more rust. Had it stripped and it came back like Swiss cheese." So bad was his '67 that he bought and cannibalized a numbers-matching 400 car, a car that most of us would've just kept and built instead of a crusty 326 car.

Thankfully for us Brendon didn't. Forever optimistic, he perceived that car's shortcoming as a kind of freedom—this was a ponycar that most of us would've sent to the glue factory after all. This was a blank canvas. For example, instead of jamming the wider wheels in just tubs, Brendon took the artistic license to split the quarters and widen the body. He also made the faux quarter scoops honest by opening them up and diverting their flow to the brakes.



It was actually the protracted build schedule and a seemingly endless capacity for dollar bills that gave the car its most distinctive feature: its naked finish. "My Belvedere sat in paint-shop purgatory for seven months and I had a good fifteen grand into it," he says. "I remember putting that car back together and getting dings and scratches. On fresh paint. So I figured I'd clearcoat the thing, throw it together, and work the bugs out before I painted it.

"But the reality is, the car has an unusual popularity," he continues. "If I take it to a car show, everyone comes up and wants to touch it. It's a great conversation-starter. 'Oh, I can see this. I can see that,' people say. It draws them in—they say it looks like it came out of Mad Max: Fury Road or out of The Fast and the Furious. It just draws attention. Plus I can just get into the car and drive it. I don't have to wash it. I don't have to detail it. No clay-bar. No dusting. I just wipe the window off and drive it. I can take it to track day and not have to worry about it getting scratched up or dinged. I don't have to freak about where I park it. I don't have to freak if someone touches it at a car show. I can just enjoy the car. So I've just been enjoying it."



In fact you could make the case that Brendon literally created the car for everyone's enjoyment. Remember the thing about die-cast cars? Well upon graduating from design school, Brendon took a job at a company that acquired a Hot Wheels license. "By weird coincidence I mentioned on my resum that I collected Hot Wheels," he explains. Just before buying this car he landed a position at Mattel, Hot Wheels' parent company. "I've been designing Hot Wheels cars since 2010 but moonlighting, doing a little extra work on the side," he says." He's been on the die-cast team officially for a year as of this feature.

We tend to think of Mattel as a toy manufacturer but realistically it's in the dream-fulfillment business. And who doesn't dream of seeing their pride and joy rendered in scale? That's right, Brendon designed a 1:64-scale Hot Wheels of his car, a highly detailed version faithful down to the recessed tail panel, flared quarters, open vents, LS powerand even the DSE suspension. So even you and I can own Brendon's car, and at far less cost than the original..

But if you buy one, may we make a suggestion? Get two. And the next toddler you come across, press it in their chubby little palm. The world needs more dreamers.



Tech Notes

Who: Brendon Vetuskey

What: 1967 Pontiac Firebird

Where: Long Beach, CA

Engine:

Though a corporate LS1, the engine actually came from a 2001 Pontiac Trans Am. Superior Automotive Engineering rebuilt it as a 383 with an Eagle crank and 6.125-inch rods and Mahle pistons. An LSR-series cam actuates the valves in a set of GM 243 cylinder-head castings (Corvette ZO6). Brendon mounted the engine three inches back to improve weight distribution but it meant reworking the Edelbrock headers, recessing the firewall, and notching the crossmember. Brendon painted the engine Pontiac blue to make the engine feel at home.



Induction:

Long-term plans (dreams) call for a turbocharger or Whipple supercharger but for now a 95mm Holley throttle body on a FAST 90mm manifold with an Airaid induction kit gets the job done. Tuned by Tad wrung it out to 518 lb-ft torque at 4,700 rpm and 553 hp at 6,000 rpm on pump gas.



Transmission:

A GM LS7 clutch couples the aluminum flywheel to a wide-ratio T56 Magnum transmission. The Driveshaft Shop built the carbon-fiber 3.5-inch driveshaft.



Rearend:

Moser Engineering built up a 12-bolt case with 3.73:1 gears on a limited-slip carrier.



Chassis/Suspension:

Brendon's neighbor Brett Campbell cut down the crossmember for the relocated engine and welded up all of the seams. Brendon built up the front with a Detroit Speed Stage III kit and fast-ratio steering box. The front suspension also uses the stock drum-brake knuckles and fast-ratio Z28 steering arms. Brett also fabricated the bar-ends for a 1.25-inch sway bar up front, and bent and welded the tubing for the full cage. A DSE Quadralink suspension with a Panhard rod locates the 12-bolt. Koni coilovers with 750lb front and 300lb rear springs support the ends.



Brakes:

A Corvette-style master cylinder urged by a Hydratech hydraulic-assist pressurizes Corvette C5 brakes prepped by Kore3 Industries.



Wheels/Tires:

The US Mags Bandit wheels invoke the image of the Pontiac Rally II that debuted the same year the F-body hit the market. But instead of stamping them from steel, US Mags forged these from aluminum. They measure 18x9.5 and 18x12 and feature a custom brushed finished (the first of their kind). They mount Toyo R888s in 275/35R18 and 335/30R18.



Paint/body:

Whew! Where do we start? Brendon recessed the firewall 3 inches, raised and widened the tunnel to accommodate the T56 and dual exhaust, and relocated the battery to a box sunk into the trunk floor. He also equipped said floor with a hatch to access the fuel pump and added bracing for the DSE rear-suspension mounts. He moved the doors back to tighten the gap and moved the front clip back to match. The hood extends forward to better fit the nose and a fabricated close-out panel fits between the bumper and grille. Spoilers by Randy built the front splitter.

Brendon mounted the quarters stock at the jambs but pushed them out approximately 1.5 inches wider than stock to accommodate the bigger wheels and fit the '69 Trans-Am spoiler. The inner fenders/wheel tubs attach to the fenders and quarters higher than stock to give the suspension full travel from lock-to-lock. Removing the wheel arches' inner lip offers yet more tire clearance and gives the car a more contemporary look. He also recessed the tail panel, which mounts LED taillights. Naturally he had to widen the rear bumper to fit the body's new shape. He also added drain tubes to the rear-window frame to prevent water from standing.

The body isn't actually bare; Brendon prepped it with KBS Coatings' adhesion promoter and finished it with the company's Diamond Clear. The black on the fenders, hood, and door meatballs is actually Eastwood Rust Encapsulator. He wrapped the trim and splitter with flat-black 3M vinyl.



Interior:

Brendon says the silver lining of an east-coast car is an intact interiorâeven the dash pad and door panels are original to the car. But citing poor support, Brendon says he ditched the stock seats for Corbeau-style sport seats. He also had the stock gauges rebuilt with electronic movements to work with the late-model drivetrainâAutoMeter made the tachometer in the likeness of a gauge it produced early in the company's history. The car came with the optional fold-down rear seat but Brendon sacrificed it to the cage.

