We’re no strangers to the Motown Missile name that adorned some of the fastest and most innovative Pro Stock Mopars back in the early 70’s, but much like many other 70’s Pro Stock names, they’ve slipped away into the history books, forgotten by many. When Mike Wagner picked up his new Drag Pak Challenger to be built for some Super Stock class racing, bringing back the Motown Missile name seemed like an obvious choice to him, and here we are today, getting our first glimpses of Wagner’s rendition of the newest “Motown Missile.”
Checkout Wagner’s build thread with rolling updates constantly coming in
Moparts.
Photos Courtesy Of: Mike Wagner
So far the plans are to run this Challenger in the SS/IA ranks with the modern 5.7L HEMI and a
ProTrans built Torqueflite transmission. Finally, we get to see what a monster meat 14×32-inch tire stuffed under the rear of these cars looks like. Being the first 5.7L HEMI being prepped to run in Super Stock, the engine program is taking quite a bit more work than the more seasoned, commonly used stuff, but it’s progressing fairly well, and Wagner is hoping to have it all wrapped up and ready to go by the U.S. Nationals September 1-6th.
Once the extensive head work is done and Wagner gets the cylinder heads back in his hands, some high-tech Jesel rockers will be bolted down to handle the radical camshaft profiles they’re implementing.
Strange Engineering is also a key factor in this build as Wagner is utilizing their Aluminum center section in the rear-end and their disc brakes on all 4 corners. Whether Wagner makes the build deadline or not, it’ll be sweet to see this classic Mopar name brought back to life in NHRA Super Stock. Will an untested by anyone combination be able to make it in such tight competition? It’s hard to say now, but someone has to try everything first, after all.
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