Continuing A Legacy Mr. Chevrolet’s Race-car-hauling truck Story and photos by John Gunnell
M
r. Chevrolet’s real name was Van Heck and he lived in the southwestern corner of Illinois. His gig was drag racing and he drove a ’55 Chevy gasser. He hauled it around on the back of a colour-matched Chevrolet 4400 1-1/2 ton ramp truck that was as nicely decked out and trimmed as the jacked-up Bel Air two-door hardtop that it carried around.
vinyl colours. It had a matching two-tone dashboard and a white steering mast and wheel. One fateful day in 1976, Heck broke one of the car’s universal joints while racing at the track. It actually flew off with great force and went right through the car’s rocker panel. Heck loaded the ’55 Chevy onto the truck and headed home. During that trip, the drag car hauling truck was hit by a drunk driver’s car and pretty severely damaged.
In contrast to many drag racers who used cheap, lightweight 210 coupes as a basis for racing cars, Heck went with a Bel Luckily, the ’55 Chevy Bel Air was not damaged by the accident. Air hardtop with a white insert on its rear fender molding. His If you look it over very carefully today, you can see signs of the car was also built better than many dragsters and featured chrome-plated chassis parts. Heck was a showman as well as a racer. This was reflected in the incredible detailing that he carried out on both the car and the truck that hauled it. The car was built into a racing car in 1968. Heck campaigned it at drag strips until 1976. He was a well-known and popular Midwestern driver and the ’55 Chevy could do the quarter mile in the low-10 seconds bracket. It raced for nearly nine years with “Mr. Chevy” lettered on its flanks. The same name also appeared on the ’55 truck’s doors. Both vehicles were painted in a shiny, metallic gold colour and the car carried stickers from a lot of racing equipment manufacturers such as Isky Cams, Hooker Headers, Moon Equipment, Stewart-Warner, Hurst Shifters and Firestone Tires. The truck’s cab interior was done in diamond tuft upholstery in off white and gold 36 MUSCLE CAR PLUS MAGAZINE JUNE/JULY 2020
Chevy 4400 1-1/2-ton truck was damaged in the ’76 crash and had to be restored.
