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With the success my Nova had brought my speed shop in the early eighties, I decided to build another Pro-Street car. First, I looked at the areas that defined a Pro-Streeter – areas like the engine, the transmission, the huge rear tires and the narrowed rear axles, the stance, the interior and the paint. Next, I determined that I would take all of these areas to an extreme. Finally, I decided to stuff all this technology into the smallest narrowest car I could find to get the greatest effect. I narrowed the field of cars down to five: An Opel GT (too foreign); a Chevette (no comment); a Thames (again, too foreign); a Cavalier (too common); or a Pontiac Sunbird or J-2000 (rather rare, small, sleek and narrow.) The J-2000 took three years to build and is still the only car to win all four of the major magazine sponsored events in a single year. The Hot Rod Supernationals, The Popular Hot Rodding Super Street Meet, The Car Craft Street Machine Nationals and The Hot Rod Super Cruise. It then went on to become Hot Rod Magazine’s very first Hot Rod of the Year in 1986 and soon after, a very successful Revell 1/25 scale model. The J-2000 was constructed over a three-year period, from July 1983 until May 1986, logging in over 4000 man-hours. Some of the J-2000’s unique features include:
In 1986, the J-2000 was the first car in history to receive the prestigious "Hot Rod of the Year" award from Hot Rod Magazine. In 1986, the J-2000 became the first car in history to win all four major magazine-sponsored car shows:
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