David Ridel Sets Sail With His Twin Turbo 1994 Chevy Caprice

A 1994 Chevrolet Caprice isn’t considered the pinnacle of GM performance in stock form, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be transformed into something cool. David Ridel picked up his 1994 Caprice after a relative passed away and turned it from a sweet old lady’s daily driver, into a boosted battleship that makes over 1,000 horsepower.

David has always been into high-performance cars and did his fair share of street racing when he was growing up. Eventually, he started a family and passed on that need for speed to his sons Matthew and Christopher. The family tradition of participating in motorsports is still strong in the Ridel family to this day.

Matthew tells the story of how the Caprice became a project car.

“My great aunt purchased the car new in 1994. She was your typical sweet old lady with a big car. When she passed away, my dad said he wanted the car so he could use it for a build, and that’s how we ended up with it. The car was in pretty rough shape when we got it, there were a lot of dents and scratches all over it, and even the roof was dented. Dad brought the car home and started building it based on the idea he had to make it into a fun driver.”

The Caprice got a nice trip to the spa where its body was restored, it received some new wheels, and a Ram Jet 350 crate engine was added for some horsepower. Matthew and Christopher started to race, so David put the Caprice project on the back-burner so he could help them out. The Caprice was eventually pulled out of the corner and work began on revamping the B-body.

“Dad decided he wanted to rebuild the car and race it. He wanted a twin-turbo LS combo in the car since that’s what a lot of our friends were doing. We purchased a 2003 GMC truck for the engine and sold the rest of the truck. So, we used the 5.3-liter LS that was in the truck including the stock rods, crank, and pistons. The only thing we added was a simple BTR valvetrain upgrade,” Matthew says.

Well, the plan changed…