Topless Chevy Blazer Tears Up the Dragstrip

It may not be jumping any sand dunes, but this Chevy Blazer still spends a lot of time with its front wheels in the air.

When you think of classic convertible Blazers in competition, the first place your brain is likely to go is rock crawling competitions in Moab, Utah or off-road racing like the Baja 1000. A dragstrip is probably the last place you’d expect to find one.

We’re with you one hundred percent. We were shocked to find this footage of a classic convertible Blazer on YouTube, tearing up the quarter mile like it was made for it. That’s because it was.

Starting more or less from scratch, this fast truck was built from the frame up to be the lightest, fastest possible straight-line rocket ship. With no rear windows or roof sheetmetal, that’s a pretty easy task. Besides, you’ll need a rollcage at those speeds anyway. With a unibody car, cutting off the roof dramatically reduces the structural integrity of the platform, which is why you don’t see many convertible drag cars. There’s ways around that with a body on frame truck, though.

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Aerodynamics are also a concern, but that’s another lesson for another day. Clearly the Blazer doesn’t care about aerodynamics, because even with an engine running on just seven out of eight cylinders, it’s running deep into the nine second range.

YouTuber BigKleib34 had a chance to interview the driver just after showing that 7-cylinder, 9.6 second pass. During that interview, we can see just how minimalist the interior is. Surprisingly, this truck uses hand controls! Imagine pulling off a wheelstand one-handed. The driver of this beast sure doesn’t have to.

According to the video, this Blazer is running an LS-based small block with a Dart block, forged internals, a Whipple supercharger making 17 pounds of boost, and a “classified” quantity of nitrous oxide. That’s backed up with a built Turbo 400 transmission. With all eight cylinders firing, it can consistently dip into the 8s.

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Cam Vanderhorst

Cam VanDerHorst has been a contributor to Internet Brands' Auto Group sites for over three years, with his byline appearing on Ford Truck Enthusiasts, Corvette Forum, JK Forum, and Harley-Davidson Forums, among others. In that time, he's also contributed to Autoweek, The Drive, and Scale Auto Magazine.
He bought his first car at age 14 -- a 1978 Ford Mustang II -- and since then he’s amassed an impressive and diverse collection of cars, trucks, and motorcycles, including a 1996 Ford Mustang SVT Mystic Cobra (#683) and a classic air-cooled Porsche 911.
In addition to writing about cars and wrenching on them in his spare time, he enjoys playing music (drums and ukulele), building model cars, and tending to his chickens.
You can follow Cam, his cars, his bikes, and his chickens at @camvanderhorst on Instagram.

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