First Impressions - Gary Brown’s Hot Rod Turns Heads at Hot Rod Drag Week 2025!
Few cars at Hot Rod Drag Week 2025 turned as many heads as Gary Brown’s ’33 Ford Tudor. Roof-chopped to within an inch of its life and barking with centrifugally supercharged combustion, this radical machine had us pining for the Bonneville salt flats.
Gary is a street rod builder and restorer by trade at Browns Metal Mods, which made him the perfect man to take a ‘rusted out hulk of a shell’ and turn it into something special.
“I built the car ground-up to do drag and drives three years ago,” he said. “And I finally made an event!”
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The ’33 chassis remains in place, though it has been optimized for speed across the board. Gary used words like ‘hot rod drop axle’ and ‘hairpins’ and ‘transverse spring’ which all sound like they do great things for vintage metal. A Chevy Vega donated its steering box for the front, while Ford’s later innovation in the form of the nine-inch rear end is surrounded with ladder bar suspension. Inside, Gary bent up an 8.50 cage to ensure safety at speeds much higher than the Tudor’s engineers intended.
The engine is a stock LS 6.0 truck block and heads, with Summit Pro LS pistons and rods. The valve train has been updated with stainless valves and springs as well as rocker upgrades. The noise comes from a Vortech S-1 supercharger, pushing through a Holley Hi-Ram intake. The intake charge is tempered by a water-to-air intercooler. Holley EFI supervises the show.
For extra points, Gary is banging gears with a Mopar A833 manual transmission (Rick Johnson from Gear Vendors describes these as one of the best shifting, most durable transmissions ever built).
For a first time contender, Gary was blessed with a smooth week of racing.
“My car didn’t really have any issues, aside from a few loose bolts and a blower belt adjustment. We had a goal to run 10.50s and finish the event, as well as have an amazing adventure.”
Day four of Drag Week proved a highlight as Gary put a 10.535 up in lights at 127.80 mph at Cecil County Dragway.
“We had huge amounts of fun; it was the best automotive event I have ever participated in,” he said. “It’s not a lot of horsepower, but the low weight makes it decently fast.”
Written by Luke Nieuwhof. Photos courtesy of Sick the Magazine and 1320 Video.
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