The Shop Rag is a 1965 El Camino father and son project that Joe Hamman and his dad Steve worked on during their Monday “Shop Nights” over the course of a few years. I’ve only seen a few El Camino drag cars so this one caught my eye, especially with “The Shop Rag” artistically plastered on the side. The Shop Rag hasn’t been out of the shop in 3 years, and Joe decided it was time for the ol’ rag to make a comeback.
This year, Joe built a 370ci iron block engine for the El Camino, with a custom Cam Motion Cams hydraulic roller cam, Johnson Hot Rod Shop Tiebar SLR lifters, Brian Tooley Racing spring kit, CNC ported heads from an L92 that produced a high compression of 12.5:1. An 850cfm carburetor that Joe built fuels this beast, and an MSD Performance ignition box guarantees complete combustion of the fuel.
Paired to the 370 is a TH400 manual valve body transmission with a custom 8” ProTorque converter.
Under the bed of this truck car amalgamation is a stock 12 bolt rear with 4.33 gears, spool, and Strange C clip eliminator axles. The rear suspension is comprised of Trick Chassis rear control arms and anti roll bar and Moroso Competition Engineering 90/10 and 70/30 shocks.
This steel-bodied American race car weighs roughly 3150lbs and rolls on custom American Racing 15x4 and 15x8 Salt Flat Special wheels with Hoosier tires mounted.
The Shop Rag has been a best of 10.43 seconds at 127mph down the quarter mile, with the timing and launch RPM still conservative. This was all result of rolling right out of the shop onto the trailer to LS Fest with no testing.
