Louis was a car guy from the get-go. Some kids like sports, he liked cars and envisioned building an orange ’55 when he was 16. You could say Louis got a little distracted along the way, however. He traded between muscle cars and 4x4s before discovering the wild world of offshore boating for several years at Lake of the Ozarks in his early thirties. In 2003, Louis settled down and decided to sell his triple-engine, 42-foot boat when this naturally aspirated turquoise and white big-block 502ci Pro Street ’55 Bel Air popped up on a consignment website in Minnesota.

He drove the ’55 as purchased for about a year but found it wasn’t to his liking and decided to gut it down to a bare shell to start over. It took three years to complete the initial build before it went on the World of Wheels indoor car show circuit for a couple of years. If the car looks familiar, you may have seen it in a few magazines or calendars during those early years, however, it’s morphed since then.

Outwardly, the Bel Air hasn’t changed much. Roger Ferris of Show Car Specialist in Greenville, Illinois, bodyworked and painted it to last using Axalta Hot Hues Orange and Gold Pearl. The ghost flames adorning every panel still gleam in the sunlight, as does the chrome trim from Precision Plating in Quincy, Illinois. Custom touches include an aftermarket cowl hood, filled gas tank door and cowl panel, halogen headlights, LED taillights, and the lower fender extensions were welded and smoothed.

The plush-looking interior is just as beautiful as the outside, with Recaro bucket seats, factory bench rear seat, and door panels wrapped in light brown and cream leather by Hytech of Columbia, Illinois. A factory dash sacrificed its gauge hood to become a color-matched, custom-fabricated steel console to house the power window controls, B&M quarter-stick shifter, Holley EFI screen, and rare factory air vents for the Vintage Air system. 

The dash is all orange and chrome, featuring a Hampton Engineering cluster filled with Auto Meter gauges and a Custom Autosound head unit. Driver controls include Lokar pedals, an ididit steering column, and a cut down 15-inch wheel. A color-matched 10-point ’cage and five-point RCI harnesses keep the occupants secure.

Supporting that beautiful Tri-Five body is a custom-made chassis crafted from 4×5-inch square tube up front and 3×5-inch square tube in the rear. A narrowed Ford 9-inch is stuffed with a Detroit Locker, 3.89:1 gear, and 35-spline axles. The suspension setup is ladder bars with Strange double-adjustable coilovers that plant the big bead-locked 31×14 Hoosier slicks on 15-inch Weld Magnum 2.0 wheels.

Meanwhile, the front features a power rack-and-pinion with custom A-arms suspended by Afco double-adjustable coilovers. The front skinnies are 28×6 Mickey Thompson Sportsman SR on 17×4.5 RC Comp Torx wheels. A Hydratech HydraBoost system pushes fluid through the lines to Wilwood Dynalite four-piston calipers on each corner.

Despite the beauty possessed by Louis’ ’55, he’s not your usual sit-in-a-lawn-chair, show car kind of guy (think back to those days on the water). After winning many awards, it was time to drive it—and he’s driven it hard ever since—including some passes down the quarter-mile and a few “trips to Mexico.” This Bel Air is not just a pretty face. Louis likes horsepower, and he’s not afraid to use it—all of it—sometimes to his detriment.

The Bel Air morphed, mainly in the powerplant department, from Louis’ quest for more power over the past 21 years. Initially, the engine was a stock carbureted 502, but then Louis went crazy trying to go faster. He’s now on his second block and fourth supercharger, and his fastest recorded time so far was 9.43 at 147 mph in 2018 at the Tri-Five Nationals (TFN) in Bowling Green, Kentucky.

With a new quest to see an 8-second pass from a nearly 4,000-pound car, he changed the entire setup again. The engine is now a 548ci Dart block machined and assembled by Todd Gilliam at TMS in Bridgeton, Missouri, with an 8.3L Whipple screw supercharger and two 1,000-cfm Holley throttle bodies fed by eight Bosch 210 injectors running E85. The drivetrain consists of a Neil Chance 3,600-stall converter with a reverse valvebody Turbo 400 and trans-brake, set up by Transmissions To Go in Arnold, Missouri.

The latest change has been “a nightmare” for the past three years as Louis hurt the engine multiple times trying to find someone to tune it properly. Thankfully, he found “the guy” in friend and self-taught tuner Kyle McCarthy of McCarthy Motorsports. Once they finally had it tuned perfectly, Louis decided to make a fun-run pass at the 2022 TFN, and demons struck again.

Louis was on that 8-second pass when they had a freak and dramatic-looking intake implosion right after these photos were taken. Surprisingly, the bottom end was OK—or so they thought. In September 2023, he broke the crank. Luckily, the electronics worked to his advantage as the crank trigger moved away from the sensor—there was no damage other than the crank itself and two bearings. Both issues were believed to have been caused by the earlier tuning issues, and the engine should be back together with new bearings and rings by the time this goes to print. Maybe we’ll see it again at TFN!

Louis would like to give a special thanks to his best friends Matt McQuaid and Jeff Buzzetta for helping him through all the trials and tribulations, and Kyle McCarthy for making it a pleasure to race and drive again. We’re sure all three will be called upon again; hopefully, this time, it will only be to take up space in the passenger seat. Louis has made plenty of memories in his ’55 Bel Air, some good and some bad, but he believes the best is yet to come. Some people are always optimistic!