Goodguys and GAP Racing Collaborate on a Red-Hot ’66 Chevelle for the 2026/2027 Grand Prize Giveaway
Doctors frequently talk about the importance of building muscle to maintain good health, especially as we get older. Hot rodders have heeded that advice for decades and Goodguys is doing its part to flex some muscle with the Grand Prize Giveaway car for 2027 – a lean, mean 1966 Chevelle muscle machine built by the muscle car masters at GAP Industries. This vintage Chevelle is being crafted to deliver serious street performance, highway comfort, and clean, classic style that will help it stand out in a sea of modern pro touring machines.
It’s high time for Goodguys to get back to a build from the classic muscle car era for its Grand Prize Giveaway program. Over the past several years, we’ve given away a pair of custom pickups, two early hot rods, and even an ’80s muscle machine. All of those have been incredible, worthy rides, but we know that ’60s-era cars connect with a large percentage of our participant base. A ’66 Chevelle – one of Chevrolet’s most popular and prolific models from that decade – is practically a no-brainer.
Through conversations over the past couple seasons, Tim Palazzolo at GAP Industries had expressed interest in having his shop build a Goodguys giveaway car. This Chevelle was right up his alley. GAP’s specialty is modernized, performance-proven street machines, which is evident in the two Griot’s Garage Muscle Machine of the Year awards the shop’s builds have won. Now that GAP is settled into a new, larger facility outside Houston in Hockley, Texas, it seemed like the perfect time to take on a build like this.
It’s good we had an experienced shop like GAP lined up for this build, because the starting point was a bit rough, and that’s putting things mildly. Purchased from an enthusiast in Texas, the project car already had one quarter panel cut off and the trunk floor cut out in preparation for replacement, plus signs that additional rust repair would be necessary. On the plus side, it was pretty complete, priced right, had a clean title, and came with a stack of reproduction sheet metal from Auto Metal Direct.
Not surprisingly, the teardown and media blasting process that ensued at GAP revealed more rust than was initially apparent, ensuring that there will be plenty of sheet metal surgery for us to document during the build-up on this Chevelle. There will be a lot of other cool things to show you, as well, with a laundry list of top-quality parts committed from some prominent names in the hot rod aftermarket.
The Chevelle will be reborn starting with an Extreme IRS chassis from Speedtech Performance. Built for no-compromise handling, the chassis features an all-new frame, performance-bred independent front suspension with coilover shocks and forged aluminum spindles, dual power rack-and-pinion steering, plus a trick independent rear suspension with a 9-inch center section, forged aluminum spindles, and cantilever coil-over shocks. The chassis will be outfitted with Wilwood disc brakes and Forgeline wheels and will support a port-injected 427c.i. LT engine built by Texas-based Late Model Engines (LME). It will be assembled and outfitted with a lot of trick performance pieces coming from Summit Racing and will be backed by a Tremec T56 six-speed transmission.
The rest of the build will not only showcase great aftermarket parts, but also the precision details and subtle one-off mods we’ve come to expect from the team at GAP Industries. As you can tell from the Cars by Kris rendering, the end goal is an aggressive-looking machine that retains the classic styling loved by generations of muscle car fans, with just the right amount of visual refinement to bring it into the modern era.
So, sit down, strap in, and get ready for a heavy dose of modernized muscle! This Chevelle is sure to be another top-notch machine to emerge from the Goodguys giveaway stable. The in-progress car already had a big bare metal debut at the 2025 SEMA Show, and we can’t wait to show you build updates in the coming months as the team at GAP does its thing. One thing’s for sure – there’s going to be some ground-shaking excitement when this thing fires up at the Summit Racing Nationals in Columbus this summer! Stay tuned!
