April 2020 • By Tony Thacker
Photos courtesy Matt Woods Photography

Evil, wicked, mean and nasty are four words that barely describe Andy and Debra Bond’s ‘Ugly Sister’ and by that we mean their wild ’56 Chevy—one of the fastest Street Eliminator cars in the world.

By Street Eliminator (SE) we mean a road legal race car on treaded street tires that is driven on a 26-mile drive that includes a gas stop where the cars must be filled with readily available pump gas. The cars are then driven to a parking lot where drivers have to turn the engine off and wait 15 minutes for heat soak then perform a hot start within two minutes before completing the drive back to the track to race. It’s intense and way harder that just going’ racin’, just ask Andy.

Andy got his start in the late-90’s crewing on the Olds Cutlass Pro Mod of Nick Davies and Rob Loaring. “That experience taught me a lot.” Said Andy. “Over the next decade I went through a succession of race cars increasing my knowledge and skill while lowering my times. Then, in 2015, I heard that Colin Lazenby was selling his tired ’56 Chevy 210 and I immediately had a clear vision for a 10-year program to get into the 6s.” The car was a rolling basket case, little more than a steel shell really and over the next two years Martin ‘Brain’ Kerr, who Andy happens to think is one of the best crew chief’s out there, rebuilt it with a new Chromoly chassis at Tubeworks Custom Fabrication, Gloucester, England. “There’s a forty-page chassis and roll cage rule book,” commented Martin. “The turbos and charge cooler added a lot of weight so I engineered a legal chassis suitable for a 3,600-lb car running 6.50-seconds rather than 2,800-lb car. Weight was the enemy of the build and at every stage we tried to reduce weight while imparting strength.” “That even extended to the trim and grille,” said Andy. “Martin made a grille that looks stock but is about 70-percent lighter.”

The chassis is obviously set up for racing but it always has to double as a street car. “I was amazed how comfortable it is driven on the road,” said Martin. “I was in the passenger seat on the cruise with Andy and if I’d had ear plugs I could have gone to sleep.”

For power, Andy turned to his old friends Nick and Rob of ICEAutomotive.co.uk saying, “The car had previously run a big-block Chevy with nitrous but we all agreed on twin turbos, nitrous is great but the SE class was moving forward and nitrous was no longer as competitive. I gave them a free reign in the engine and trans dept.”

“We chose a 650 ci big block with 5-inch bore centers,” said Nick. “It’s more robust and allows us to use thicker sleeves. Basically, we spec’d out the engine from Andy’s requirements. Experience has taught us the hard work is done at the spec stage and building the engine is then straightforward.” Behind the engine is a TurboGlide race box; “essentially it’s a sealed aluminum TH400 case with two-speed automatic internals and a torque converter that is shifted manually.” Said Andy.

Once all of the engineering work was sort of behind them Andy shipped the car to Nic Williams at OCSPaint.com (URL of Racing in USA Story) where the car was stripped bare before Nic applied the Diamond white and Daytona Yellow knowing full well that it was just going to go rusty. The freshly painted car then went to Neil and Jake Melliard for the rust treatment (@the_striper on Instagram). “I told Neil I wanted it to look like it had sat in a field for 40 years. It came out exactly how I imagined it.” Said Andy.

“Ugly Sister debuted at Santa Pod’s Main Event in 2017 and instantly caused a sensation,” said Andy, “we knew we had something special.” Unfortunately, later that year Andy transferred some paint to the wall delaying their plans. Nevertheless, his first real pass had been 168 mph/8.1 sec, but the next was an encouraging 173/7.9.

Since those early days, Ugly Sister has gone 212.92 mph/6.90 seconds—the fastest daily driver anywhere in Europe on street tires and E85 pump gas with working wipers and 8-track stereo. But Andy is only half way through his 10-year plan. It will be interesting to see what he does once racing resumes.

Owner: Andy and Debra Bond, Swindon, UK
Vehicle: 1956 Chevrolet 210 sedan
Engine: Big-block Chevrolet

• Builder: ICE Automotive.co.uk

• Displacement: 650ci

• Bore center: 5.00 inches

• Bore: 4.68 inches

• Stroke: 4.675 inches

• Cylinder Heads: Brodix

• Rotating Assembly: Bryant crankshaft, Oliver connecting rods

• Valvetrain: ICE billet-roller camshaft and Jesel rockers

• Induction: Precision Turbo 88mm turbochargers, MoTeC M1 ECU, and Hogan’s Racing manifold modified by ICE Automotive. Air-water intercooler

• Exhaust: Tubeworks 304-series stainless headers with Burns merged collectors and 5-inch exhaust with Borla mufflers Drivetrain

• Transmission: Rossler Turbo-Glide

• Rear Axle: Mark Williams modular axle with Strange aluminum 9" case, 3:1 gear ratio, Strange spool, and 35-spline Strange axles

Chassis

• Front Suspension: CA Chassisworks VariStruts MacPherson strut

• Steering: Strange Engineering rack-and-pinion

• Rear Suspension: Bolt-on four-link, anti-roll bar, and a sliding-wishbone track locator

• Brakes: Strange Engineering rotors and four-piston calipers

• Wheels: Weld 4x15 and 12x15 double-beadlock wheels

• Tires: Mickey Thompson ET Street Radial, 25x4.5R15 and 315/60R15

Interior

• Seats: Modified JAZ Products aluminum with SFI45.1 molded seat

• Gauges: MoTeC C127 Data logging display

• Steering Wheel: MOMO

• Steering Column: Tubeworks with Strange Engineering quick-release hub

• Shifter: Hurst Quarter Stick

• Stereo: 8-track

Exterior

• Body: Chevrolet roof, quarters, and bulkhead; DRE Racecar Composites nose, doors, and two-piece trunk.

• Body Prep and Paint: Nick Williams, OCSPaint.co.uk

• Color: Diamond white and Daytona Yellow

• Graphics: Neil and Jacob Melliard @the_striper

If you want to see the engine build, in tech section, go here.