We racked up a pile of miles...
We racked up a pile of miles in the Dreamer during our visit. The blower puts out 9 pounds of boost and plenty of power for this lightweight car, which handles and brakes well, rides smooth as cream cheese, and plants you in the seat as soon as the brain tells the foot to get on it. The Magnaflow exhaust tone, the blower, and the hum of the straight-toothed pulley provides some mellow ear candy.
The House of Kolor Oriential...
The House of Kolor Oriential Blue candy was sprayed by Paul Quinn at Design Brilliance, who also shot the Milky Way graphics.
Front 26x8.50x15 Mickey Thompson...
Front 26x8.50x15 Mickey Thompson Sportsman tires are mounted on 15x8-inch Type 50/51 polished rims from Ultra Custom Wheels, with rear 29x12.50x15 MTs rolling on 15x10-inch rims. Custom Wilwood front and rear discs are operated by a TCI brake assembly. Renchs Hot Rod Stuff provided the polished custom grille.
Jeff Kimel at Carolina Auto...
Jeff Kimel at Carolina Auto Interiors upholstered the cockpit in Pearl White Naugahyde. The contrasting deep blue highlights the Lexus buckets, Wabbits custom dash, the carpet, and the Colorado Custom wheel on an ididit tilt column. The instruments are Auto Meter. The custom center console houses controls for the ignition and power accessories.
A switch in the center console...
A switch in the center console operates the hood, mounted on Tri-C Engineering hinges. Check out the induction set-up: dual Holley 750s, B&M huffer, and Holley intake feeding an 8.0:1 Chevy 383 built by Ron Sporl Performance. Down below Sanderson headers pipe exhaust to a Magnaflow performance exhaust system. The World Products Sportsman II heads were ported, polished, and blueprinted, with all the work personally done by Joe Mondello.
The TPI-built 700-R4 has a...
The TPI-built 700-R4 has a 2,500-stall converter. A Ford 9-inch rearend runs 3.89:1 gears with a Detroit Locker.
Every hot rod has a distinct identity. Gaither Jenkins thinks that every hot rod should have a name as wellsomething to convey that identity. Like the Jade Idol. Or the California Kid. Or Cadzilla. Which is why he makes a point of sticking a catchy moniker on all of his rides, the most recent example being this 32 roadster, aka Dreamer.
He has a point about cars needing names, but he mightve missed the boat on the one he chose for his topless ride. After all, his purported purpose in building the car was to get more people into street rodding by showing them that building a pretty wild car without draining your bank account doesnt have to be just a dream.
Gaither, a former drag boat racer and the president of Pro-Blend Motorsports, has a taste for high performance and top-end toys, but managed to rein things in enough to keep Dreamer a relatively realistic project for the average rodder. The choices he made with the roadster618-hp blower motor, trick interior, fancy paintare options that bumped up the bottom line but could be modified for leaner budgets.
Its been about three years since we first got word of Gaithers plans to build Dreamer. An artists rendering of the roadster ran in the Americruise News section of the June 99 Rod & Custom. We finally got a look at the completed car on display in the Pro-Blend booth at Americruise 2000 in Lincoln, Nebraska. The project, coordinated by Johnny James, was completed in a dedicated shop at Pro-Blend Motorsports in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. But Lincoln is the cars true birthplace, since it is created from a Speedy Bills 32 LoBoy kit from Speedway Motors.
We figured it was about time to make good on our promise to get this roadster into the magazine, plus we wanted some seat time in the car, so we headed to North Carolina and spent a weekend cruising around in Dreamer to get a real idea of what this hard-driven Deuce is all about.