King Rat: The Story Behind this 1955 Gasser

Here is my friend Marks unique 1955 Chevy Gasser called King Rat. This car has a Big Block Chevy engine, tunnel ram intake with twin 950 Holly Carbs, a GForce 101A 4 speed transmission with a Ram Clutch, 9 inch Ford rear end with 4.30 gear ratio. And his fastest pass at the 1/4 mile drag strip is a 9.49 seconds at 140 mph. Mark has owned this car for the last 10 years but what really makes this car unique and period correct is that it has actually been a race car since the 1960's out in Redding California under the name of King Rat.
The 55 Chevy was retired from racing in the 1990's out in California and the story of how my friend purchased it goes like this. Mark lives in the Midwest and a friend of his went out to California for a seminar to attend. After the seminar was over just for fun he went hunting for one of those pristine California vintage cars you always hear about. He ended up finding this 1955 Chevy and thought it was unique so he purchased it. When he brought it home he painted it flat black and still put the King Rat logo on the side of the car, and decided he wanted to use it as a driver kind of car. But truthfully he was not really a fan of the Gasser Style car and ended up storing the car. My friend Mark found out about the car and convinced him to sell the car to him instead seeing how he was into the Gasser style cars but did not have one. When Mark first got the car he lightly sanded off the flat black paint job to see what color green was originally underneath that paint. And ended up getting the car repainted and new badging put on it. He said it came with a 427 Big Block engine and a Munci 4 speed transmission and with that combination it would safely run an 11.7 seconds in the quarter mile without hurting the Munci transmission. And obviously after awhile he upgraded the engine transmission and rear end to handle power it makes now to be in the 9 second range. And if you want to see this car and many more like it in action this Summer he will be racing it the Out-A-Sight Vintage Drag Racing event held at Great Lakes Dragaway in Union Grove Wisconsin on June 28th and 29th 2024.