Over its fifty years of service, General Motors has a long and storied history of success with the small block Chevy V8 engine. To celebrate the Small Block V8’s 50th anniversary while honoring that legacy, the GM Performance Division has built a replica of the first stock car powered by a small block V8 to win in the top ranks of NASCAR.

The year was 1955 and a Smokey Yunick-tuned, Herb Thomas-driven ’55 Chevy had just won at the storied Darlington Raceway against many fast, well-funded teams. This amazing win was just the first in literally thousands of wins in stock car racecars powered this incredible V8 engine.

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The first step of this project was to locate a clean ’55 to use as the basis for the project. In short order, a semi-restored ’55 Chevy Business Coupe was located in Wisconsin and brought back to GM’s Technical Center in Warren, Michigan to be turned into a repli-racer ’55. The Business Coupes were popular among the racers because they were devoid of many components from the factory—like backseats, body trim and other weight-increasing components.

GM Performance Division Project Manager Ray Wojdacki, head technician Mark Taylor and a host of other ‘helpers’ pushed hard to ‘race-store’ this ’55 back to the standards of that era, while adding a few modern safety and performance amenities.

These improvements were required as this car was built to drive—and hard! Since being completed, it has smoked its tires on the HOT ROD PowerTour, at multiple media events, at the Goodwood Festival of Speed (in England), and will be seen on the streets at this year’s Woodward Dream Cruise in Detroit.

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The car looks and drives great and everyone involved has had a great time building and driving it. Hopefully, you have or will get a chance to see it in action—racing great Junior Johnson says it really sounds and looks like it just pulled off the track at Darlington back in ’55!

This ’55 Chevy Business Coupe’ represents the first small block-powered stock car to win a race in NASCAR’s elite division back in 1955. Built by the GM Performance Division to honor the legacy of the small block V8 engine, this vehicle was recently driven at the Goodwood Festival by GM Performance Division Executive Director, Mark Reuss and multi-championship winning stock car driver and owner, Junior Johnson.

The stock cars of those days were definitely bare bones ‘stock’. Most racers chose the ‘Business Coupe’ because it did not have a back seat and usually was a stripped down vehicle. That was perfect for the racers as they took everything off they could to reduce vehicle weight. A four-point rollbar and five point harnesses were added to this ride for safety measures, otherwise it’s just like Smokey and Herb built it 50 some years ago.

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