“You’ve got to be nuts!”…….. my brain keeps telling me. I spent a weekend with some of the rarest beauties of the diecast world and I end up with a crush on the little mongrel of questionable parentage! How could that be?

A couple of weekends ago I spent some time with the folks from GMP at the Monterey Historics and watched as Bob Bondurant brought most of the staff from his driving school over to the GMP booth to see the beautiful new 1:8 scale Gurney Titanium (and magnesium) Eagle that Dan won with at Spa but that Bob also had a chance to race. I also smiled as Cobra owner after Cobra owner hung around the booth marveling at the endless detail built into GMP’s new 1:12 289 Cobra. And I coveted immensely GMP’s new 1:12 GT40 MkIII street car and GT40 Mk I Gulf LeMans car. Usually, I’m a person who loves Ferraris and Porsches and cars with documentable racing lineage. Just about the only cars in my collection without numbers on the side are models of cars I’ve owned. But along comes this beautiful little flamed, fenderless, black ’34 Ford coupe and I’m head-over-heels! What’s up???

In the developing saga of Pork Chop from Pine Sap, Georgia, Tom Long and the car-loving guys at GMP have created a line of mythical cars and the connective legend that ties them together. Originally this car was built by Pork Chop’s daddy to haul ‘shine and has been in the family since before he left to fight Commies with the Marines in Korea (and apparently never returned).

This is a hot rod in the purest sense! A radically chopped top with a mile-deep black lacquer paint job with some of the best flames I’ve seen in a long time and an original restored ’34 grille! The 392” Chrysler Hemi with a GMC 6-71 blower, Hilborn injection, custom flamed scoop and a Schiefer mag was the natural choice for this no-holds-barred coupe. Although Pork Chop’s son “Buddy” is credited with building this “700 hp motor”, I’ve got it from a reliable source that this is really a Keith Black-built dragster motor that puts out closer to 1100 hp on a 60% load of nitro and a lot more when they really “tip the can”! Not a car to race for pinks unless you’re packin’ real heat or like losing. Buddy also made a number of calls to Halibrand and the coupe has one of their iconic quickchange rear-ends and their magnesium wheels front and back mounting massive slicks and tiny little front drag tires.

The car features a full-length belly pan and all the driveline is there, right next to the driver. This was obviously built before they mandated scattershields and contained driveshafts. A Hurst shifter gets the gear changing job done. The dropped I-beam front axle has been drilled-out to take weight off the front end and massive finned Buick drum brakes get the stopping done up-front (or are they really discs covered by bogus Buick drums for the retro look?). But the straight-out exhaust headers and lack of a radiator make me doubt I’ll ever see this car down at the Pine Sap Sonic Drive-In on cruise night. GMP even included the small touches like the spring-loaded door handles that really latch the doors, real door hinges, sheet aluminum door panels, an opening cowl ventilator door, a beautifully hinged trunk lid and a photo-etched Bell steering wheel that’s really sweet!

All-in-all, this is really a neat little car that would be a blast to drive if it was 1:1. In typical GMP fashion, they’ve really nailed all the details and made something we can look at and enjoy. Something that a hot rodder would look at and go: “That’s Really Bitchin’!” No matter what your persuasion, even if your collection has only enough room for just one hot rod, I think this is one car you’ll smile at every time you see it…… it’s that neat!

-Bill Bennett