or years, actually decades, we’ve been seeing automotive-related magazine covers promoting Pro Street cars with blurbs like “Pro Street Lives” and “Pro Street’s Not Dead.” Well, if they keep trying to convince us with those types of sayings to “promote” Pro Street, doesn’t that send a message that Pro Street is, in fact, on its death bed?

So, to counter those cover blurbs, I propose we stop trying to tell everyone the status of Pro Street and just let it carry on the way it has for the past 45 or so years: existing without a real threat of ever going away. Of all the muscle car build styles, Pro Street always appears to be on the “endangered species list,” while in reality, Pro Street builds, like Gassers, are a unique build style with a look all their own and driving characteristics that can be described as challenging, and considered completely opposite of, let’s say, a Pro Touring car. But the owners of Pro Street cars are incredibly passionate about their favorite build style and are more than willing to give up fashionable driving parameters in favor of building a car with an extreme personality.

There’s no doubt that most muscle car owners choose not to compromise comfort and basic street driveability in today’s muscle car world, in part, due to the availability of aftermarket components designed to improve the ride quality of vintage cars in just about every aspect. But good luck trying to convince any hard-core Pro Street enthusiasts to give up their car’s nasty attitude for driveability. It just ain’t gonna happen.

This was apparent at the 26th Goodguys Nationals in Columbus where approximately 60 Pro Street cars were gathered all weekend long in their own exclusive parking area. They also participated in a twice-daily Pro Street parade lap that wound around and through the Columbus Expo Center car show area led by the crew at Lokar Performance Products. It was a cool experience to hear and see the long line of so many Pro Street cars cruising at a speed typically considered unfriendly for these air-hungry hot rods. Most did so with uncorked headers, making their presence known with the sound of horsepower echoing throughout the show grounds. It was a fantastic display of the wild side of the muscle car hobby.

If we were to use the most recent Goodguys Nationals as a gauge to measure the popularity of these extreme muscle machines then we’d have to say that “Pro Street lives,” and is in fact “not dead!”

You in?