The gem sports a high-winding 301 cubic-inch small-block Chevrolet for powerGray later did some dirt track racing and even owned a dirt oval in Tennessee for a time before returning to drag racing in 1995 behind the wheel of a more modern Super Gas tri-five. Two years prior, he had successfully tracked the ’55 down and purchased it back, spending the next 25 years bringing it back to life.“I sold it and I regretted it all that time,” Gray says. “When I found it, the boy that owned it knew I wanted it — he took two old cars I had and $1,000, but it didn’t matter because I was gonna’ get it one way or another.” “Everything you see here is pretty much how it was when I built it, but the engine is not original, nor are the seats. But it does have an original 10,000 rpm tachometer in it, and the 6:17 gear is original, as well. It also American magnesium wheels on it, but I couldn’t get those back so I had to get some American aluminum, but it’s pretty close to how it was at the time. It had pretty well the best of everything you could get at that time.”Gray says the first paint job he applied in 1965 cost him a whopping $100 and the Sherwin-Williams paint was $10 — this paint job was $6,800. The little 301 was a screamer in its day — Gray would launch at nine-grand, shift it at ten, and would zing it through the traps at 9,200 — “it screamed…it made a tremendous sound.”Gray travels to every Southeast Gassers event and shows his beautiful pride and joy, noting he fired it up a couple of months ago but has no intent of doing so again — he says ultimately he’d like to find a museum for it to display its heritage as one of the finest examples of the Gasser era.