Mr. Chevrolet

Continuing A Legacy

Mr. Chevrolet’s Race-car-hauling truck

Story and photos by John Gunnell

Mr. 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.

In contrast to many drag racers who used cheap, lightweight 210 coupes as a basis for racing cars, Heck went with a Bel Air hardtop with a white insert on its rear fender molding. His 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 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.

Luckily, the ’55 Chevy Bel Air was not damaged by the accident. If you look it over very carefully today, you can see signs of the

Chevy 4400 1-1/2-ton truck was damaged in the ’76 crash and had to be restored.

hole that was opened in the rocker panel when the U-joint flew through the sheet metal. Other than that, the car looks just like it did in its racing days. The truck, however, was heavily damaged in the crash, which took the wind out of Heck’s sail. After the accident, he parked his rig and never drove it again. When Heck passed away in 2006, a man named Larry Frees became the new owner of both the car and the still-damaged truck. . . as well as the “Mr. Chevy” moniker. Frees cleaned up the car and returned it to the condition it was in the last day that it was raced. All of the parts on the Chevy, including the Hilborn injected 327-cid V8, the straight-axle front suspension, a wild upholstery treatment, the exterior paint and the stickers are just as they looked in 1976. Even the 38-year-old Firestone tires that were on the car when the racing stopped remained exactly where they were. As far as the Chevy 4400 series truck went, Larry Frees fixed the accident damage and did a cosmetic restoration. He perThe truck has the original 235-cid in-line six under its hood, but a few speed shop parts have been added to give it better

The interior of the truck was stitched up by the same man who did it in the ‘60s.

performance. Russ Schliecher, who had stitched up the diamond Storyboards are used to reveal the truck’s racing legacy to show goers.

pattern upholstery in 1968, redid the seat. In the same fashion, Jack Irwin redid the lettering on the car that he had done in 1968. Other people helped. Then, in June of 2014, Mr. Chevy was loaded on the back of the truck for the first time in 38 years.

When he saw the matching car and truck, Bob Ashton—the manager of the Muscle Car and Corvette Nationals (www. mcacn.com)—knew that he had to have them at his 2015 show, That’s where Frees—who’s becoming known as Mr. Chevy himself—picked up a nice award for his efforts to preserve these pieces of Chevy racing history.

Larry Frees now owns the car, the truck and the “Mr Chevy” nickname.