LS2-Swapped ’56 Chevy Rescued From Hole and Given a Second Chance: Track Time Tuesday
This 1956 Chevy was found sitting in a literal hole in the ground and rescued with modern power.
Few things in life are more satisfying than rescuing a vehicle from storage and giving it new life, saving it from extinction in the process. That’s precisely the case with this ratty looking 1956 Chevy as well, which its owner – Adrian Diaz – rescued from its presumed final resting spot, a literal hole in the ground. The partially-buried 1956 Chevy hadn’t seen the pavement in decades before he managed to bring it home and get it running again, and now, it has received some well-deserved time in the spotlight at LS Fest.
Diaz begged the owner of this vintage Bow Tie to sell it to him for a whopping five years, and all the while, the nice old gentleman declined that offer. He wanted to give the car to his son, but unfortunately, his son became ill and that possibility was quickly ruled out. Diaz assured him that he would treat the car well and make its owner proud, which eventually caused him to cave and sell the old Chevy to Diaz. Needless to say, he lived up to that promise in a big way.
It took Diaz roughly two months to get the ’56 roadworthy again, replacing the original 283 and three-speed manual with a 6.2-liter LS2 V8 and a TH400 automatic transmission, as well as a Ford 9-inch rear end. The modern powerplant has been treated to a Holley Terminator setup and a custom tune, and the job proved to be so easy that Diaz’s tuner was simply amazed at how smoothly the whole project went. Needless to say, that sort of thing is a bit of a unicorn in the auto repair business, as most of us know.
While he wanted to make this old Chevy reliable and give it a nice infusion of power, Diaz also didn’t want to mess with its original patina. Thus, he left the crusty exterior pretty much as is, simply swapping out the wheels and tires for track duty. The interior is much of the same, with a blanket covering the ratty seat, a modern steering wheel, and little else. But to us, given this particular car’s cool history, we would have done precisely the same thing with it.
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