Fast-forward to 2015 and the Gibbs’ rejuvenated 409 was still sitting in its cradle in a corner of Dave’s shop wrapped in cellophane waiting for just the right opportunity. “One day my phone rings and it’s my friend Gil Muro from Hot Rod Ranch in Lompoc informing me of a car I may be interested in,” Dave says. “As I pull into Muro’s shop I see a ’61 Bel Air hardtop. It’s got ghost flames on the hood and front fenders. It sat close to the ground sporting alloy Halibrands wrapped in fat BFGoodrich Radial T/As. I peered through the window and noticed a stock-appearing turquoise interior. Underhood it had a big-block Chevy with a maze of tube headers spouting from the cylinder heads then poking through large holes in the inner fenders. The car was an original six-cylinder automatic car with 45,000 miles. It struck me as a late-’80s mild Pro Street car. It was interesting, but I told Muro ‘thanks, but it’s not for me.’”

Suddenly images of Don Nicholson’s white ’61 bubbletop jumped off the pages of early Hot Rod magazines and flashed through Dave’s mind. That vision inspired a change in plans influencing Dave to buy the car. With no space at Dave’s shop, Muro agreed to store it for a while. “A month later during a phone conversation with Bob Brown, my hometown car connection, I told him about my recent purchase, and he said, ‘Bring the 409 and car back here and I’ll put them together,’” Dave reveals.

In the fall of 2015 Dave trailered the ’61 and all its glory to Bob’s shop in Topeka. Bob’s years of working at dealerships and then his own AC Delco Service Center was a highly experienced, longtime drag racer who specialized not only in engines but also chassis tuning for the ’strip.

Dave admits the most challenging decision for the ’61 was figuring out what they wanted the car to represent. Bob went back to the strong demand and limited supply of early ’62 409s and how dealerships had their mechanics yank out lower performance engines from unsold cars and replace them with factory 409 crate engines. It was decided that Dave’s ’61 would represent such a conversion from that time period.

“The inspiration for the car we were building would have raced in the short-lived NHRA class: Optional Super Stock, a class that allowed racers to use ’62 model year performance parts being released early by factories so they could be employed on ’61 models,” Dave says. “For that we decided to pull the Bel Air trim and dress our ’61 hardtop as a plain-Jayne Biscayne.

Bob moved forward by removing the exterior Bel Air chrome and added Biscayne script to the quarter-panels. The ghost flames disappeared when Paul Langley repainted the car in factory Ermine White. They added a ’61 Kansas dealer tag to emphasize dealership involvement. The car was also left unlettered to reflect the period when white shoe polish was used for class specifications.

In 2023 Bob called Dave and said, “It’s finished, come drive it!” Those words were pure magic to Dave. That summer, Dave took the car to Gainesville for initial testing where the first pass netted a 12.92 e.t. at 106 mph. On the second pass the car improved to 12.85 at 107 mph. Soon after it was decided to swap the converter and on the next trip to Gainesville Dave mashed the pedal to the lowest e.t. thus far of 12.66.

“It’s been a long, enjoyable road with the ’61 as it was built as most cars I have been involved with—by friends helping friends. That method takes time, but the results reflect the expertise and enthusiasm of individuals who love cars from similar eras. As my friend Ed Wittwer is fond of saying, ‘It’s not the cars that make what we do so interesting and enjoyable, it’s the people.’”

Well said, Dave, and we just can’t shake that Beach Boys song while admiring this immaculate ’61 Chevy. And that’s not a bad thing.