Check Out Bryan Bartlow’s Turbocharged 1969 Chevelle

The Rolling Stones once said “you can’t always get what you want,” but Bryan Bartlow disagrees. Bryan wanted a car that could be driven on the street without any issues, and still make some solid rips at the track. Well, Bryan’s 1969 Chevelle can do that, plus it also happens to check the show car box and has the trophies to prove it.

When Bryan was in high school, he ran around with a pack of guys who were always working on their cars. They built cars that could be driven on the street and make passes at the track. This group of friends also did their fair share of street racing back in the day as well.

“Being around those guys is what really got me interested in cars. My dad and uncle also worked on cars, so it was just something I spent time around. Now, I never had anything fast to go street racing with the guys, but I still hung out with them and had a great time,” Bryan says.

During the summer between his junior and senior year of high school, Bryan found this Chevelle while surfing the classified ads in his local newspaper. The Chevelle became Bryan’s daily driver while he attended school. When Bryan went off to Rankin Technical College to earn an HVAC degree, the Chevelle was parked so he could start really working on it.

“When I graduated from college, I started a frame-off restoration of the car. I was living at home still, so I was able to really put a lot of effort into the build. The goal was always to build something that I could drive on the street and take to the track. I never intended on the car to turn out as nice as it did, but that happens when you start investing a lot of time into a build,” Bryan explains.

Bryan and his uncle did all of the bodywork on the car. It was a learning experience for Bryan, and it turned out much better than he expected. The car was finished in 1993 when Bryan painted it and it was time to get it on the road. The first engine Bryan stuffed into the Chevelle was a rowdy 406 cubic-inch small-block Chevy. On pump gas, the Chevelle ran 11.60s with Bryan driving it to the track and back home. At the time, that was an impressive feat for a pump-gas small-block combo.

While the 406 small-block was pretty stout when it was built, the engine couldn’t hold a candle to what modern LS-based engines are capable of in street cars. Bryan was paying attention to what these new engines were doing and decided it was time for a change. He wanted to build a combo that would be a beast at the track,…