Tony Angelo Will Debut ‘Street Freak’ ‘74 Firebird Build at Sick Week
If you’re familiar with the Roadkill and Hot Rod Garage shows on MotorTrend, you’ll no doubt recognize the name Tony Angelo. A pro drift racer that was first introduced to Roadkill fans on episode 38, Tony was brought in to show Mike Finnegan, David Freiburger and Carlos Lago how to properly drift a Challenger Hellcat, Charger Hellcat and a Viper.
Tony then became a host on the Hot Rod Garage show for several years, helping build and tweak a multitude of cars and trucks.
He even made several guest appearances on Roadkill, including co-piloting Mike’s ’55 Chevrolet Gasser ‘Blasphemi’ to a Hot Rod Drag Week class win in 2019.
During his time on Hot Rod Garage, Tony would commute from the East coast to California to do Hot Rod Garage shows. Eventually, he wanted to start sharing some of the rides he had in his home garage, as well as detail future builds.
So Tony started his own YouTube channel, Stay Tuned, which is available on the Hagerty YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@Hagerty.
One of his latest projects, a 1974 Pontiac Firebird Tony calls the ‘Street Freak’, was acquired off Facebook marketplace in 2019 as a roller for the tidy sum of one thousand dollars.
Still wearing the custom paint job done in 1983 by one of the previous owners, the Firebird had sat for nearly 20 years. Early in 2022, Tony decided to get the project rolling once again and breathe new life into the Pontiac.
Sick Week 2023 Presented by Gear Vendors Overdrive will feature hundreds of America’s fastest street cars, racing and cruising through Florida and southern Georgia.
Sick Ward tickets / Individual day spectator tickets are available here.
The custom paint job was polished and worked back to a shiny new life, and Tony got busy on replacing the missing driveline.
A Butler Performance 462 cubic inch Pontiac engine would take its place between the frame rails, and Tony will bang the stick lever of a 4-speed manual transmission to transfer the power to a 9-inch rear end.
But with the car formerly having a blown Pontiac engine, it seemed something was missing from the build. So Tony added a Speedmaster 6-71 blower to the mix, along with a pair of Holley 750 cfm carburetors and a polished scoop to complete the look.
Tony plans to enter the Stick Shift class at the 2023 Sick Week Presented by Gear Vendors Overdrive. “I think with 570 rear-wheel-horsepower, and full weight plus a bunch of 8-tracks and speakers, we shouldn’t be a threat to win the class,” joked Tony.
After riding with Mike Finnegan on two previous Hot Rod Drag Week events, Sick Week will mark Tony’s first time behind the wheel as the racer instead of the co-pilot. “I actually don’t have a ton of drag racing experience, and very little with a stick car,” said Tony. “So it’s a little daunting, but I’m really excited.”
Tony’s latest video on the Firebird build is below:
- Written by Derek Putnam. Photos courtesy of Tony Angelo.