![]() Originally intended to be a daily-driven work-commute vehicle, it navigated the usual path from humble to hardcore, going through a handful of transformations. ![]() So this time around, everything is first-class so there are no weak links. I’m not a big budget guy, and I’ve always had to compromise with what I was doing and use used parts, so there was always a weak link. So the kid that owned it sold the engine and transmission out of it so his brother couldn’t take it over, and I later ended up buying it from the high school kid,” Kolby explains. A high school kid owned it, had lost his license, and it was sitting for a while, and then one of his brothers convinced the dad that it shouldn’t sit there and the brother should be driving it. He actually found the car for me - I was looking for a Chevy II. I kept in touch with him, and through my work, I ended up getting a job up that way. “I had a buddy that moved to California - Northern California - at the same time I did, and started a body shop. It was then in 1990 that he acquired the Chevy II. Among his rides was a ‘40 Willys that he says, “did nothing but wheelstands for a year.” He moved to California in 1969 and with a partner, put together a C/Modified Production car. He ran B and C/Gas for a number of years, switching back and forth between the two. “It wasn’t very fast,” he says, “but you learn…you’re always learning.” Kolby has been racing on and off ever since, occasionally dabbling in other arenas of the car hobby, but always returning to the sport of drag racing. Admitting he was a bit naive, he stuck a junk-yard 401 cubic-inch Buick engine in a ’51 Chevy and went racing. He was so impressed by it all that he decided he was going to race himself. Originally from Wisconsin, Kolby attended drag races at Union Grove and witnessed some of the early gassers and their high-RPM engines. I’ve been on and off drag racing, I’ve tried street-rodding, I just enjoy cars,” Kolby says. “I’ve been interested in cars since I was 13, 14…I think I got my first car when I was 15 and I’ve had a lot of cars ever since. Never did he intend nor think it would become the track-warrior that it is today - or that he could even afford to have such a car - but his unparalleled passion for the sport made it a reality. At 82 years young, California Jerry Kolby is having the time of his life campaigning a no-expense-spared 1966 Chevy II, which is the end product of a life spent tinkering with cars…and particularly this one, which he’s held onto through thick and thin for the last 31 years.
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