But the cool thing is, they let me keep it for a year and take it to LS Fest and have
all the fun!
Hey, I'm Jeff Allen and I'm here at Holley's LS Fest right here in Las Vegas, Nevada, it's
LS Fest West to be exact.
I'm smiling from ear to ear as you can tell because it's just all the adrenaline of anything
car enthusiast wrapped around the LS motor, it's all happening right here.
Well you know years ago people kept telling me that I should do an LS swapped car and
I came up with this crazy idea that I wanted to do it to a 63' Amazon 122 S that I actually
had in my collection.
It had 85 whopping horsepower, massive four cylinders about this big with dual carbs,
and I thought, how cool would it be to take a car with this much styling and kind of that
classic look and that vintage look and just make it something morphed into a monster,
so that's how it all started, it all started on a bar napkin and I started looking at wheelbases
and at first I was going to use a C5 because a C5 and actually the Amazon, they're only
about an inch and a half off on wheelbase, belive it or not.
But I was like, Nah, C5 is a little old technology, so I went out and I sourced a 2013 Grand Sport
Corvette, 8,000 miles on it, got hit in the eight pillar and it became an insurance settlement
because the guy was a huge collector and he didn't want to fix the car after it was done,
that was all the damage.
I actually drove it back from the auction, the frame was straight, all the suspension
was great, and I said, let's start the process.
So we ripped off all the body panels and we had a ball driving this, what I call the Corvette
go-kart around.
Nobody with this LS3 in it, it was just a ball, and then I started talking to my friend
Ken and I said we've got to do something better than this right?
Let's build a car for SEMA, let's do something crazy, let's morph the Amazon body on this
2013 Grand Sport chassis, so then the project began and that's kind of what it was, it was
full to boogie, we built this car in 90 days leading up to SEMA and a lot of great companies
jumped on board to make it happen and then at the end of it we decided to donate it to
SEMA and they are going to auction it off at Barrett Jackson in 2020 at Scottsdale all
for the SEMA scholarship fund.
You know, I think Chip worded it the best, he said the biggest problem in the world today
is that kids don't want to build something, they want to buy it, and I want to turn that
around too and be the spokesperson for that so if this car goes to charity to help kids
get into that profession, then by all means that's where it needs to go.
But the cool thing is that they let me keep it for a year and take it to LS Fest and have
all the fun!
So we wanted to come out and prove that the car wasn't just some morphed mutant weird
looking car, but it actually performs.
So LS Fest is the greatest place to do that because you can autocross, you can road race,
you can do the 3S challenge, we did a poker run yesterday, and we drag raced, how could
I forget that?
So you are just putting the car through its paces, and we actually did the show and shine
today, a little backward, probably should have done that first day, it was a lot cleaner
then, but you know, your adrenaline kicks in and your guy thing goes, huh, show and
shine?
No we are going to go autocross first and then after three hours this morning you think
that your wife was pretty smart, maybe we should have done the show and shine first.
You know what was a weird thing, I went online and for all you guys listening to this, if
you're interested in doing LS Fest West, you need to go in and book your stuff early, I
didn't and I wasn't able to go into the Grand Championship, which includes everything, you
know I'm an all-inclusive kind of guy, you go on a cruise ship you want it all right?
Alcohol, all the buffets, everything right?
So even though I knew that there was going to be some phenomenal drivers out here from
like Danny Pop and Robby is here, but where else do you have a chance to run against these
guys?
So I knew we probably weren't going to go for a championship but we were going to go
out and have fun so luckily for me, I got on the waiting list early and they called
me back and they said, hey man we've got a spot open for you last minute, do you want
it?
And I said I sure do.
So I jumped into it with both feet and I can't tell you, I haven't been more excited, I think
this is the most fun that I've had with my clothes on in a long time.