Making Bad Decisions Badder

Bradley Gray's 1970 Nova is a Hybrid! It's a streetable Funny Car.

- STEVE BAUR

What do you do to follow up an award-winning Pro Street 1969 Camaro and 1956 Chevy C10 pickup? Bradley Gray decided that his next move was to build a Funny Car for the street, and his 1970 Chevy Nova Funny Car shows us what lies beyond Pro Street.

Concord, North Carolina, native Bradley Gray grew up in the ’80s Pro Street era and jumped headfirst into the trend with his very first car, a ’70 Chevy Nova that he fitted with a big-block. A local speed shop owner made a deal with him on a used supercharger and cashed Bradley’s weekly paycheck for him, minus his installment for the blower.

“Nobody did blowers around here. When you’re a kid, you make bad decisions. I cut the back out of the car, bought wheel tubs and everything. I couldn’t afford to finish the car and had to sell it,” Bradley says.

Two years later, he purchased a 1969 Camaro that would kick off his Blown Mafia car collection. The small-block-powered Camaro hit the show circuit with a huge 14-71 supercharger fed by a pair of turbochargers.

Several equally wild and wicked projects followed, including a 1965 Chevy C10 pickup that has a centrifugal blower feeding a roots supercharger, and his wife’s 1965 Mustang that is powered by a 427ci LSX engine and boosted by an 8-71 supercharger as well as a pair of 144 blowers.