Steve Lisk’s Challenger
It’s impossible to identify the exact moment when the Pro Street trend rumbled into existence-that’s an exercise in onion peeling. But there was one trendsetter that, in the late ’70s, helped to illuminate the path that so many others would follow: Steve Lisk’s ’71 Challenger. The Lisk Challenger represents the go side of the trend that would become known as Pro Street. A teenager just out of high school at the time, Steve built his E-Body, originally a 383 slug, into Detroit’s baddest street racer with the help of his employer, Pro Stock builder/driver Mike Fons. The Challenger’s 426 Hemi and chassis setup were based on the Motown Missile’s combination. So naturally, at one point his boss told him that what he really needed to go fast was a Lenco clutchless transmission. “Sure,” he remembers saying. “What’s a Lenco?” Steve sold his motorcycle to gather up the three grand required to buy the used race tranny.
With an additional quart of oil for cooling, Steve really did drive his Challenger on the street with the Lenco-and also with wheelie bars, twin Holley Dominators on a hogged-out and welded Weiand Hi-Ram, and a set of 14×32 No. 9 Firestone drag slicks. In 1976, that was well over the top-the car was essentially a 3,500-pound Pro Stocker. Capable of 9.60s, the Challenger had only one viable opponent in the Motor City’s wicked street racing scene, Joe Ruggirello’s Mustang II (left). (According to Steve, he bested the Mustang three out of four.) Having run out of victims to beat up on, Steve sold the car a few years later. After going through a succession of owners around the country, the Mopar was purchased 18 years ago by Randy Carron of Milford, Michigan-only a few miles from the mean streets it once ruled. The original 426 Hemi with the trick factory pieces is long gone, and the Lenco has been replaced by a 727, but otherwise the Challenger is pretty much as it was back then. -Bill McGuire
http://www.hotrod.com/articles/hrdp-...re-cover-cars/