Featured build: Petty's Garage 1976 Monte Carlo
When General Tire wanted to commission a resto-mod replica of Richard Petty’s 7th championship-winning 1979 Chevrolet Monte Carlo to use as a promotion during the ARCA season they knew exactly who to turn to: the man himself, “King of NASCAR” Richard Petty and his team at Petty’s Garage in Randleman, North Carolina.
Replicating The King’s Chariot
The result of their efforts and expertise is a 1976 Monte Carlo featuring an iconic Petty paintjob with that signature blue hue, while adding enough modernized performance parts and amenities to make for a much more agreeable street machine than its inspiration could have ever been.
Petty’s Garage General Manager, Chris Hussey found the car on eBay and fortunately it was less than a hundred miles away in Roxboro, North Carolina. At the time the vehicle was sporting a standard red color.
Transforming the Chevy to the point where it resembled the racecar required the team to fabricate new fenders and quarter panels by hand, in addition to installing a custom grille and bumpers. The championship stock car-inspired exterior is rounded off with a full set of General Tire racing radials mounted on Chrome Aero 15”x10” NASCAR-style wheels.
Meanwhile, the interior is home to a custom dashboard with Stewart Warner gauges that help this beast look the part both inside and out.
More Than Looking the Part
The performance edge of this boulevardier-turned-racer cuts more than skin deep however, as its winning visage boasts capabilities to match, thanks to an LS3 engine with Holley Sniper Stealth EFI, custom exhaust featuring MagnaFlow Performance Parts, Wilwood brakes, Ridetech suspension with coil overs, custom air cleaner, partial roll cage and an aluminum fuel cell.
Their main goal with the car was to keep it as true to the racecar as possible while still remaining street legal. That said, the vehicle’s future owner will no doubt be grateful that they also had the foresight to install a Vintage Air air-conditioning system to help fend off the worst of sticky Southern summers.
The guys at Petty’s Garage didn’t report hitting many roadblocks over the course of the five months or so it took to finish the build, but the biggest challenge was the tight timeline they set for themselves to get it done in time for the Daytona 500 this past February.
With their mission accomplished, the Monte Carlo has joined General Tire’s promotional team for the duration of the 2022 ARCA season. Once that concludes, Petty and his team already have a buyer lined up.
Want to check out more of the many projects that the guy over at Petty’s Garage are working on? Follow them on Instagram @pettysgarage. Stay tuned to this blog for more featured builds like these and check us out on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Twitter for more awesome aftermarket content from our friends and collaborators.
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