What do a 1957 Chevrolet pickup truck and a jet fighter plane have in common? Well, usually, almost nothing. Unless they’re this Chevy pickup, in which case they share a set of massive jet engines. Courtesy of the YouTube channel Ridiculous Rides, we get an up-close and personal look at the 350-mile-per-hour monster.
The truck was built in the early 90s by Les Shockley, a rocket man who was famous for his wild creations. Shockley was no stranger to jet-powered race cars, with the first one featuring a massive single-engine and dubbed the “Shock Wave”.
The current owner of the truck is Hayden Proffitt II, whose grandfather purchased the Shock Wave from Les and renamed it “Hot Streak”. When the dual engine truck came up for sale, Hayden bought it and named it Hot Streak II to fit with the theme.
Proffitt was an F-15 and B2 bomber mechanic in the military, so he is the perfect custodian of the unique race car.
The engines themselves are Westinghouse J34 units sourced from a Navy T-2 Buckeye trainer that was in service in the late 1940s but fitted with afterburners for extra thrust. Together, the engines make about 25,000 horsepower.
The body is fiberglass construction instead of a real steel vintage piece and features Lexan windows, front and rear spoilers, and dual parachute canisters.
By race car standards, a 4,300-lb curb weight isn’t a featherweight, but it doesn’t really matter when you have more than double the horsepower of a top fuel dragster at your disposal. As a result, the truck can hit a top speed of 350 miles per hour, although Hayden has only personally taken it to 340.
Sitting inside the machine looks and feels like you’re in an actual jet fighter, with airplane-style gauges and switches providing the information that the driver needs to hold it together at speed. Once that speed needs to come back down to zero, the chutes are pulled, which can generate up to 10 Gs of deceleration.
