When it came to the drivetrain Howard looked to George Asche of Oil City, Pennsylvania, to prepare the block and internals, by bumping the original 217ci base to 230ci. This would allow for the installation of Arias 10:1 slug's along with a '52 Dodge truck crank and rods, which would be complemented by a cam and finned aluminum head from Edgy. Once all of the parts were delivered to Xtreme in Slatersville, Rhode Island, it was time for Richard Desautels to start the assembly of the little powerhouse. For induction and spark, a vintage Edmunds two-pot intake was used with a pair of Carter-Weber carbs from Langdon's Stovebolts, who also provided the unique HEI distributor. Dumping the spent gasses through a Fenton split-header to a custom fabricated 2-inch exhaust with electric cutouts controlled by the original radio's volume control shows just a hint of the trickery the team at Xtreme infused into the car.
Richard then rebuilt a '52 DeSoto three-speed manual transmission with R10 overdrive, which links to a Currie 9-inch Ford rear end via a custom driveshaft with an '89 Toyota slip-joint. With the stout little 300 horsepower jetpack in place, Todd Lewis (owner of Xtreme) and his team got busy to prepare the body of the car for its final trip to the spray booth. Xtreme blended a one-off medium blue pearl hue that master painter Ken LaFlemme laid down, bringing the car to life.
Turning the final corner, the Xtreme team began to design the interior by first breathing life into the stock dash using a burled wood insert combined with gauges from Classic, and just enough Alsa soft-feel paint on the dash and stock steering wheel. More trickery from Xtreme came by way of installing the customized air conditioning system from Hot Rod Air where the stock dash speaker grille would act as the outlet for the icy breeze. To handle the threads for the car, legendary stitcher Fred Carello of Warwick, Rhode Island, worked with the original seats and transformed the business office with a perfect combination of pleats and plush carpet to meld the richness of the exterior to the inside of the car. The finishing touch came from Rudy Desautels who brought the tunes to life with a near-invisible Sony head unit installed in the sun visor while hiding the killer Kicker 400 watt amp and related electronic goodies in the trunk. When it was all wrapped up, Howard took the reigns of the car and lit the fire rekindling the raucous sounds from the exhaust that he remembered as a kid, only this time he did it his way!