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Go ahead,” urged Steve Sbelgio. “Lean back, get comfortable.” We were waiting for the light to change to make a left onto the boulevard. “I always drive like a hunchback,” I said. “I don’t feel right unless I’m hovering over the steering wheel, ya know.”
But in Sbelgio’s rod it’s so easy to relax. The machine seems to drive itself, like it’s being hauled along on some statically charged mother vine, infinite in its power and in its reserve. That’s the thing that sticks: Sbelgio’s ’34 coupe is full-on modern in every persuasion. It drives modern, feels modern, smells modern, squeezes a computer-controlled automatic transmission clinging to an all-aluminum engine, and has amassed electronic cues and micro-processed LED fireflies up the ying-yang. Electronics are Steve’s thing. His enterprise, Eclipse Engineering, is an automotive electronics outfit that specializes in programming engine-management systems. Steve, by the way, is also very fond of both northern and southern Italian cuisine. It is the essence that he craves.
His Minotti-bodied three-window wouldn’t move a fly speck millimeter were it not for Sbelgio’s careful calculations. The LS1 crate engine would normally be hooked to a 4L60E transmission, and the existing wiring harness provides a faultless coupling. Certain that he could integrate the beefier 4L80 automatic with the LS1 harness, Sbelgio conspired, hired, and wired the whole thing like it came from the factory. It was a car he’d envisioned for years, a current rendition of Pete Chapouris’ California Kid, circa 2002, aka “the Millennium Kid,” although severely underwritten by electronic idiosyncrasies. But this machine is really a cohesive, pragmatic, bulletproof street car that renews his faith daily. He says he doesn’t drive anything else.
Build Quality
As a relative newcomer to the intricacies of street rod construction, let’s just say that Sbelgio’s coupe must represent a sort of milestone. Though some might argue that his fascination with electronics has become a fetish and that his meticulous ways are the root of life, all of Steve’s work is beautiful, seamless, and piloted by an uncompromising attitude that cements the entire project. Sbelgio’s commitment to detail is evident in the polished stainless steel plumbing and the anodized fittings color-coded to the fluids they carry, doors and a trunk lid that open automatically, the transmission shift sequence and directional signals visible on the rearview mirror, a totally tuned stereo system powerful enough to make the fiberglass wiggle—stuff like that. Confirming the detail job, the frame, tranny, and rear axle are powdercoated, and the exhaust system has a ceramic coating.
A slow walk-around of Sbelgio’s full-fender wonder reveals a perfect if not radical stance. The stark vintage wheels are of optimum offset, tires possess the correct girth and circumference, Steve Sanford flames licking fast and long but not crossing over, masterful Geoff Mitford-Taylor tinwork on and under the hood, body as flat and reflective as a lake at sunset, all panel gaps, reveals, and seams sharp and equidistant. And the interior is just as buttoned up. Easy to read gauges, electric door locks, suicide door deadbolts activated á là factory GM, air conditioning, and infinitely adjustable power seats and steering column turn a street rod into a mid-luxury coupe. Other than the noise of operation, the coupe runs dead quiet. The only time the cowl wiggled at all was over a nasty section of railroad tracks I took too fast. Sbelgio gigged me for that one.
Ride & Handling
First off, this car sports a 50/50 front-rear weight distribution, an enviable boon to handling, braking, and just plain driving. The coupe rides so professionally smooth that it’s difficult to believe there’s a four-link suspension underneath soaking up all the crap the road can throw at it. Sbelgio’s done a fine job of refining the way it works and has dialed most of the harshness out. Over a relatively smooth surface, the car feels tight and glued down, like any solid-rear-axle car, but when the road lumps up, the suspension absorbs the inconsistencies and the Kid stays stable and maintains a surprisingly fluid ride. Though the damping rates are tight, Sbelgio has managed to find the optimum frequency for the best ride and the best handling characteristics. The steering is somewhat of an anomaly. Despite all the electronic servants he has installed, there is no power assist, but the steering ratio makes up for the effort otherwise applied. Unless you’re putting it at full lock, it feels like a strong power system with minimal assist.
“The car is light enough to not need it,” defends Sbelgio. He’s right. It adds a special and unexpected dimension to the synchronization he has instilled. Again, Sbelgio has married two unlikely partners; the steering has a wonderful heft to it that would be difficult to replicate with hydraulic power. And with those comfortable, adjustable seats, steering column, and electric window lifts, what’s not to like? The only drawback is its Frankenstein-monster turning radius. Out on the big road, the car rides sticky. It doesn’t porpoise over undulating sections of freeway, nor do its tires tram according to an uneven road surface. It feels like a modern car, and it certainly brings a lot of attention. Even in car-jaded SoCal, people goggled and gaped like they were watchin’ Ma Barker and Pretty Boy Floyd cruising old 66 in broad daylight.
Ergonomics
Often, cars like Steve’s sacrifice ergonomic soundness for poetic device. All the gauges look cool scrunched into a tiny oval, and the dashboards look strangely abstract when they’re absolutely and mindlessly clean, but most of us dirty guys have to touch and press and pull on knobs and levers. All that stuff is in Sbelgio’s coupe. Granted, it would take me months to figure out the remote handsets that commune with the Millennium Kid’s various audio temples. Other than that, everything’s in reach and logically placed. Despite its slammed roof, the view from inside the ’34 is more than adequate and at no time did I feel blind, especially when exiting a stall in a busy parking lot. Sbelgio has to worry about things like that.
Drivetrain
As the ’34 comports with relative little curb weight (3,200 pounds), the 320hp and 340-lb-ft LS1 engine provides plenty of grunt and more than enough thrills when the wind begins to howl. Sbelgio mated it to the killer 4L80E and put an 11-inch lockup converter with a 2,300-rpm stall behind it. With its stout ring-and-pinion, the car would certainly vacate the line like a rocket would there be traction. As it is, if you leave on the converter or slap it off the line, the tires disappear into white and when the transmission changes up, they keep right on churning. Even if you drive off the mark before flat-pedaling it, the tires still sing when the tranny shifts into Second and whacks the ass end sideways. Big bulges in the tire tracks proved it. This, in a word, was heaven. Sbelgio had given his blessing. “You are the only other person to drive this car beside me and [wife] Colette. It was a thrill to stand here and watch you in it. I’m diggin’ it, so don’t be afraid to beat the s@#t out of it!”
While taping a segment for HOT ROD TV, I had to do my scene then get in the coupe a little bit perturbed and flat-foot it away like I meant it. We did six takes, and every time I’d leave hard, the car fishtailed dangerously close to cameraman Marc Cowen. He never flinched. But on every 6,000-rpm upshift in Second, the car seriously yawed left (requiring a gentle tug on the steering wheel to correct), and I was solidly in the groove at Pomona Raceway. Ah, the excess of excess.
In the real world, the Sbelgio-controlled tranny shifted smoothly, firmly, and without a trace of the race-hump we’d felt at the track. As we approached a continuously ascending grade, Sbelgio asked me to stake the throttle at a steady 2,200. As the car made its mild take uphill, the transmission firmly and regularly selected the range of gears without the slightest increase in throttle angle. I looked over at Sbelgio. He was beaming. Then I looked at the water temp gauge. It was trying hard to scrape 180. “That’s the warmest I’ve ever seen it,” clucked Steve.
By my rearend meter, the Coupe is a solid 12-second performer. Drag test data was recorded at Salt Lake City (during the Rod & Custom Ego-Rama last summer), corrected altitude nearly 8,000 feet, where the coupe ran a 14.07 quarter-mile. Pomona’s tarmac is about 900 feet above sea level, but no timing clocks were available. Consider the wheelspin factor (at either venue), and you’ve got rock-solid, 12-second host at sea level that doesn’t require anything more than an oil change for 100,000 miles. At this point in his life, aura is more important to Steve than speed. Hell, he’s been a Super Comp racer for about a skillion years.
Brakes
Steve built his car with a front-to-rear weight distribution that is nearly equal. The all-aluminum Chevy engine helped offset the whale weight of the overkill automatic, and the powertrain was moved aft in the process. A modest curb weight, chubby 15- and 16-inch rubber, and 11.5-inch disc brakes at each wheel provide a firm pedal feel, good modulation, and an enviable stopping distance from 60 mph without lockup or fade.
What It Is
Sbelgio’s finely crafted daily driver is probably too nice to be driven in the insane milieu of LA traffic. But his weapon (or his shield) is a compelling piece, equally capable of active avoidance as it is of necessary aggression. Driving it is pure matter-of-fact; though intimidated by monolithic speed bumps and hinky railroad tracks, the car is as easy to operate as any production vehicle.
As a rendition of the California Kid, this Kid exceeds the mark, right down to its uncannily seductive flame job. Sbelgio’s millennium mook thrusts lower to the ground, maintains movie star proportions, and exudes understated elegance. Could I live in it for a week? I could do a year in this thing standin’ on my head.