This project was conceived in a familiar place to most of us, under familiar circumstances. On a bet, bench racing in the garage over a few beverages with a friend. “Projects like this one become a reality when you have too many spare parts and too much alcohol in the garage at the same time, at least that’s what I tell everyone,” says the owner Bill Nelson.

Nelson’s Rat Rod, a ’35 Chevy Sedan was actually already a built, running, and driving car with a small-block Chevy powering it. Rick, a friend of Nelson’s, had nearly ten years ago attempted to build a double blown ’34 Ford pickup, but abandoned that project. Rick had gone as far as having a custom plate built to allow two blowers to be bolted together. Nelson had since that time made the move to Cape Coral, Florida but three years ago managed to convince his friend Rick to do the same. So he and Rick were together again bench racing, cruising, and wrenching on their project cars together.

Then it happened, one day Nelson decided it was time to build the monster. Sitting on the shelf in his garage was a brand new aluminum headed Dart, Merlin III 540 big block Chevy engine. Also on the shelf were two blowers, a Mooneyham 6-71 and a Weiand 8-71. As Nelson tells us it only took a phone call to get things going from there, “I called Rick and said – Rick, do you still have the double blower plate?” He said “I sure do, it’s sitting right here in my garage.” Nelson then said “Do you want to part with it?” Rick said yeah for what? So Nelson immediately hopped in his ’35 Rat, and drove to Rick’s house to pick up the needed part.

By the end of that fateful day Nelson had successfully bolted together both blowers and attached them to the big-block engine. He did have to overcome one issue with the belt length, it would seem that no one built an eight millimeter seventy-four inch belt. So doing a little math and test fitting, he found that with the proper idler, blower and crank pulley combinations he could use a seventy-eight inch belt that was available.

While waiting for the belt to arrive, Nelson pulled out the small-block, ordered the proper radiator for the much more radical combination, as well as a set of lakes style headers. From start to finish, including waiting on the new parts to arrive it took about a week to complete the swap. We’ve included a video here of Nelson firing up the car and riding around his neighborhood. 

The roof of the car was also something recently constructed by Nelson, and follows the rat rod mantra well. Wanting to fill the hole to keep out the hot Florida sun, he hit the local hardware store for a solution. That solution came in the form of pine picket fence boards, purchased for one dollar each, it took a total of ten. Nelson also found a surf board to complete the look for another fifty bucks. Deciding to add a little flare he also sets up “Bones” the skeleton at local shows, lending to the extreme and almost death trap look of the rat with big-block and double blowers.

These days the car is driven regularly, just for a cruise or to local shows. Nelson says, “Building and showing this car has been a very high point in my life. I don’t think I will ever have this much fun again.” We would have to agree, this looks like a lot of fun to us, what do you think, would you slap two blowers on a Rat Rod and have the guts to drive it?