Upside-Down Camaro: Retired Cop's Junkyard Engineering Goes Viral
To All The Cars I've Loved Before: Classic Car Restoration, JDM, and Automotive History
To All The Cars I've Loved Before: Classic Car Restoration, JDM, and Automotive History
May 20, 2025
Upside-Down Camaro: Retired Cop's Junkyard Engineering Goes Viral
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Car
Chevrolet Camaro
The Chevrolet Camaro is a sporty car that many people love for its speed and cool design. It's been around for a long time and is often compared to other fast cars like the Ford Mustang.
Car
Chevrolet Chevelle
The Chevrolet Chevelle is a classic car that was made by Chevrolet a long time ago, from 1964 to 1977. The 1967 version, especially the wagon type, is very rare and special, making it highly sought after by collectors.
Term
manual transmission
This is a type of car transmission where you have to change gears yourself using a stick and a pedal. It gives you more control over how the car drives.
Term
straight six
This refers to an engine type that has six cylinders lined up in a row. It's known for being smooth and powerful, often found in older cars.
Car
Ford Mustang
The Ford Mustang is a well-known sports car that many people love for its speed and design. The Coupe version has two doors and is often seen as a classic car.
Concept
classic car
A classic car is an old car that many people find valuable because of its history and design. Collectors usually want these cars to be just like they were when they were first made, without any changes.
Car
Ford Model A Rumble Seat Roadster
The Ford Model A is a classic car that was made a long time ago. The Rumble Seat is a special seat in the back where passengers can sit outside the car, which was a fun feature back then.
Term
Rumble Seat
A rumble seat is a special seat that is located in the back of some old cars. It opens from the trunk and lets people sit outside the main part of the car, making it a fun way to ride.
Car
Mercedes 200 D
The Mercedes 200 D is a type of car made by Mercedes-Benz that runs on diesel fuel. It's known for being very reliable and is often appreciated by people who love classic cars.
Concept
restoring
Restoring a car means fixing it up to look and work like it did when it was new. This can include painting, repairing parts, and making sure everything runs well again.
Concept
NASCAR
NASCAR is a type of car racing that happens mostly on oval tracks. It's famous in America, and the cars that race are specially built for speed and safety.
Concept
24 Hours of Lemons
The 24 Hours of Lemons is a race where people use cheap cars to compete for 24 hours. It's all about having fun and being creative with what you drive, rather than just speed.
Car
Suzuki X90
The Suzuki X-90 is a small SUV made in the mid-90s that looks a bit different from most cars. It has a two-door design and is known for being light and easy to handle, but not many people know about it because it's quite unusual.
Term
RPMs
RPMs tell you how fast the engine is spinning. If the engine spins too fast, it can cause problems, like damaging parts.
Term
head gasket
The head gasket keeps everything in the engine sealed tight. If it breaks, it can cause big problems, like leaks and overheating.
Car
Mazda Miata
The Mazda Miata is a small sports car that's loved for being fun to drive and easy to handle. Many people modify it to make it faster or more powerful, like putting in a different engine.
Concept
re-bodied
Re-bodying means changing the outer part of a car, like its shape or style, usually to make it look different or better.
Car
BMW E36S
Car
Porsche 944S
The Porsche 944 is a sporty car made by Porsche, known for being fun to drive and having a good balance. It was made in the 1980s and early 1990s.
Car
Volkswagen Bus
The Volkswagen Bus is a famous van that many people love for its retro style. It's often used for camping and traveling, and it's a symbol of freedom and adventure from the 1960s.
Car
Volkswagen camper
The Volkswagen camper is a type of van made by Volkswagen that is known for its roomy interior. It's popular for camping and road trips and has a classic status among fans.
Car
Volkswagen Rabbit
The Volkswagen Rabbit is a small car that was made by Volkswagen. It was known for being affordable and fun to drive, especially popular in the late 70s and 80s.
Concept
burnout competition
In a burnout competition, drivers try to make their car's tires spin quickly while staying in one place. This creates a lot of smoke and noise, and it's a way to show off how powerful the car is.
Term
mid-engine rear drive layout
A mid-engine rear drive layout means the engine is located in the middle of the vehicle, which helps with balance and handling. This setup is common in sports cars and some vans, making them more fun to drive.
Car
Toyota 80S Toyota
The Toyota Supra is a fast sports car that has been around since the late 1970s. It's famous for being powerful and fun to modify, which makes it popular among people who love racing and car culture.
Term
quarter mile
The quarter mile is a common distance used in car racing to see how fast a car can go from a standstill to the finish line.
Term
EcoBoost
EcoBoost is a type of engine from Ford that uses a turbocharger to help the car go faster while using less fuel.
Term
horsepower
Horsepower is a way to measure how powerful an engine is. More horsepower usually means a car can go faster.
Car
Toyota Van
The Toyota Van is a type of minivan made by Toyota. It's known for being roomy and good for families, making it a practical choice for everyday use.
Concept
Tail of the Dragon
The Tail of the Dragon is a well-known road in Tennessee that has many sharp turns and curves. It's a favorite spot for motorcycle riders and car drivers who enjoy a thrilling ride.
Car
Ford Explorer
The Ford Explorer is a type of SUV, which is a larger vehicle that can carry more people and is good for driving on different types of roads. The 'Jurassic Park Explorer' is a special version from a famous movie.
Concept
Gone in 60 Seconds
'Gone in 60 Seconds' is a movie about stealing cars, and it features a famous Mustang named Eleanor. This movie has made many people want to own that specific car.
LIVE
ListenerLand, you have found the best car podcast you've never heard about.
But you know what?
I think we have to change that partner because I checked the stats.
Yes, they have stats for this sort of thing in the modern world.
We live in Stockholm, Sweden, India, Germany.
This is just within the past week or two, Iceland, Canada, around the world.
This is to all the cars I've loved before, carslove.com.
Check out the link tree, L-I-N-K-T-R, L-I-N-K-T-R.E-E slash carslove.
I think I got it.
Is that right?
You got it right.
This is the first time for everything.
You have found podcasts where every car tells a story, every machine has a soul.
Every car has a culture.
I'm Christian at carslove.com.
My real name.
No first, no last.
I feel like Cher, who's out with a new book.
He's Doug at carslove.com.
Reach out to us, especially if you're an international listener.
We love to hear from our folks internationally.
That's one part of the show that we want to continue to explore as we reach out to
different people via different vectors.
We are on Spotify, Apple Podcasts.
Where else partner?
Where else are we?
Get us from the website.
Castro, Buzzsprout, Amazon Music, YouTube Music, YouTube Podcasts.
Unbelievable.
How do you get us?
You name it.
We're on it.
How do you get us in all these?
Do you just kind of slide them a little bit coins, raise the poems?
How do we do that?
How do we get things?
I can't reveal.
Can't reveal.
Sorry.
You might take my job if I tell you.
No chance.
No chance.
You might cut my salary.
Let me say it.
We are so...
Well...
We have a fantastic guest today.
Can't wait to introduce him.
And we're going to revisit the theme for today.
The theme for today is where do ideas come from?
Because today's guest is a bit of an engineer, artist, performance artist.
He's a mash-up of all these disciplines.
Really fun guy to talk to.
A true polymath, if there ever was one.
But let's see, a little bit more housekeeping before we cue him in.
Do we want to talk about being ranked on that feed spot article?
Yeah.
Absolutely.
Anything more out of that?
I know we sort of teased that at some point.
But getting a little traction, getting a little notice.
Yep.
Yep.
Number 37 out of 90 out of 70.
Yeah.
Even better.
37 out of 70.
Right.
Automotive podcast.
So thank you, FeedSpot.
Yeah.
And thanks to the people who are writing reviews for the podcast too.
That helps us out a lot.
Helps spread the word.
And what else?
We talked about the link tree.
Again, the YouTube is being stood up.
Doug is throwing snippets out there.
He's really got it to kind of a succinct fine art of teasing out the fun part in
the podcast.
It's great the way the audio goes and you see the words beneath and it's a little less
than a minute clip.
And we're putting that on all of our social presences that you see us on Facebook.
Where else?
Instagram, definitely on YouTube, et cetera, et cetera.
Yep.
You name it.
Yep.
We're doing our whole digital transformation, although we started digital.
So it's pretty easy.
Yeah.
Well, as long as I don't turn into something analog, we should be okay here.
I am standing up a newsletter.
I wrote it and got it to Doug, and it's sitting on the editor's desk.
Please don't yank out the red pencil.
But look for that in the coming weeks.
Can't wait.
That's about all I got.
You have anything else in the way of housekeeping partner?
Can we can can we dig in and.
Yeah, no, I would just say so for the newsletter, we we need emails.
That's the plan to distribute it.
You have several different ways.
You can send us an email, send it to Christian or myself at love.com or on our link tree.
There's actually a subscribe button for email on the upper right.
So if you just want to subscribe to the list directly, go that way.
Really looking forward to this.
I'm glad Christians jump it on this, taking the ball and love your feedback.
Yeah.
And if you really don't want to get it by email,
call me up.
I will print out the email, fold it up, put it in an envelope and mail it to you.
We can also use carrier pigeons if that's a little easier for you.
But on to today's guest on to today's guest.
Doug, you want to talk a little bit about how how how he came into our orbit
or how he fell, unfortunately, into our orbit?
Sure. Oh, it's not unfortunate for us.
Indeed, maybe for him.
So we have Jeff Block, better known Internet sensation, YouTube, TikTok,
you name it, as speedy cop.
And we found out about Jeff.
I'd seen some of his videos, especially the upside down Camaro
that's been floating around for a while.
He goes back farther than that.
But we found out about Jeff and got connected with him
through another good friend of the show, Andrew Blackwood,
who he himself, I think, could probably take up some room
in Jeff's garage and probably do some welding for him and whatnot.
He's he's on the creative side as well.
There is.
Well, introduce him for Jeff and drum roll, Jeff Block, a speedy cop.
There he is. How are you today?
Good. How are you? Excellent.
So happy that you're here.
So happy that you're here.
So the weather is a little bomb, a little bombier than where Doug is,
which is much cooler than where I am.
But thank you for being in a safe place.
And he's got his posse of canines there with him.
He's got a great shirt that says, I pulled me over,
which made me laugh out loud in real life, which I love.
So, yeah, today's theme, Jeff, what do you think?
Where do ideas come from?
How did they strike you?
When did they first tickle your fancy?
How did it all start for you? Can we ask?
So that's one of the questions I get asked the most.
Like, I have all these unusual vehicles that I drive all over the country
and people always like, what are you on?
How can I get some of it?
You know, I mean, I've never done drugs in my entire life.
People say, oh, yeah, right, you did this that in high school.
Never in my life.
Always been kind of straight laced that way as, you know,
a Christian and I just have never done drugs.
So I have all this creativity.
I don't know where it comes from. It's just God given.
But I have this really overactive imagination.
So I can't look at things without seeing how I could alter them
and make them more unique and personalize them
and make them more fun or what I think is fun.
And I can see mundane objects and figure out ways
to turn them into something creative and fun and cool.
And what I really like to do is take stuff
that people are casting off that's being scrapped and discarded
and turning it into something that like drops jaws
and melts faces and like, you know,
gets seen around the world.
So I take it as a challenge.
Yeah. And that's really interesting.
Like my kids and I passed a junkyard
and I tried to, been a while since I've been in one.
And I tried to explain to my kids,
well, yeah, this is where old cars go and they sit there.
And then you can kind of mine for pieces.
They looked at me like I was, had, you know,
six heads sitting on my shoulder.
It makes no sense.
We're in such a throwaway society.
We don't fix anything anymore.
You know, a lot of times it's cost prohibitive to do so.
So I think it's, I don't know.
I feel like it's this sort of throwback to the past
to be able to find something new and something old.
Right. I always say we purpose, recycle and reuse.
We just take, cast all things and make them fun.
And, you know, most people wouldn't take it,
discarded Vietnam attack helicopter.
There wasn't just different parts actually washed away
in a flood and make a race car out of it.
That was also amphibious and street legal.
But that's the kind of thing we do.
So it takes a certain mind for that and determination.
And before Doug gets going here,
you gotta be a little wacko, I guess.
Well, yeah. I mean, and it's here.
You put it out there, Jeff,
for the whole world to see speedy cop.com.
You really want to read some interesting stuff.
Go to speedy cop.com.
Yes, there's Instagram, YouTube and all this good stuff,
but kind of, kind of go back to the source here.
And if you go to the homepage here
at the end of the second paragraph at the top of the page,
it says a new speedy cop era has begun.
Last sentence of the second paragraph says,
my overactive imagination has no shortage of bad ideas.
And many new projects are already in the works.
And I love that because the creative mind really never stops.
It just kind of keeps going and going
and success breeds success.
So I applaud you for seeing the creative in the everyday
and having art match machinery.
I think it's beautiful.
I'm sure my unmedicated and extreme case of ADHD
has nothing to do with this whatsoever, right?
Well, but you do finish projects.
So that's a good thing.
Now that's what makes it different from so many people.
Including myself.
Yeah, Doug, that's such a good point.
So Jeff, was there, has there anything you've left behind?
Is there anything you've got a third of the way
or half the way through and either you or your team
kind of said, I don't know about this time.
I don't know.
There are a lot of them.
I'll get cars, I have an idea in mind for them.
I want to build something with them.
And then my plans change, budget doesn't allow it
or whatever, and I'll get rid of them
whatever actually having built it.
And I'm seeing videos the last few weeks
of upside-down motorcycle,
which I had planned out 11 years ago and didn't do it.
And now all my counterparts,
Carmageddon out in Italy, I think did one
and it's going stupid viral and all that.
Like, I should have done it.
Next time.
You'll get it next time.
There's no shortage of bad ideas.
It's just time and money.
And now that I'm retired, I have more time.
Still finding the money's been a challenge,
but as I try to grow my brand and stuff like that,
hopefully it will start trickling and I can do more.
I've got several lifetimes worth of projects here.
You guys ever come visit me in Tennessee?
I'm right by the tail of the Dragon in Marival, Tennessee.
And I've got 20 acre mountain tops.
Absolutely beautiful as private.
I've got a whole bunch of project cars and trucks here.
Like I said, lifetimes worth of projects.
I may have to fin the herd or bring in some help, but...
Oh, I hear that.
Each and every one.
So do you know what Cadillac Ranch is in Amarillo
where all the Cadillacs are stuck in the ground?
I just think that's like driving, exactly, even better.
So like driving up to your house,
it would just be like driving up to Cadillac Ranch.
So how does that work?
Is there a barn or a hangar over here
where everything is, is there just like,
everything is in states of artistic work or...?
So I've got what I call the field of dreams.
We just recently had our driveway paved
and it's so steep up our mountain
that not everybody could make it up.
And when I would have to travel with cars on it,
I couldn't always make it.
I'd have to get a neighbor and a tractor and stuff
and pull it up.
So we bit the bullet and sunk our lifesavings in an asphalt.
So now we've got to pave driveway into lifesavings,
but that only provides...
We have a big, beautiful shop
and it's absolutely a dream garage.
Don't get me wrong.
We have a large mortgage to go with it,
but it's 60 by 100 steel building,
like a 21 foot pit in the center.
So I have lots of...
Two post lifts and a four post lift there.
And of course the four post lift is an oversized one
because the weird stuff that that build requires that.
So it's extra long, extra wide,
kind of 14,000 pound four post lift,
which is perfect to have been packed.
It's really nice.
Then I've got, I call it the field of dreams
because right now it's literally just a field
that I cover with plastic
because we had to get all the cars
off the gravel areas that we're gonna get paid.
So right now they're still sitting on this plastic
in this field and it's raining right now.
So I can't pull them back off it just yet,
but there are two airplane fuselages for future builds.
One's gonna be a limousine.
One's gonna be basically a drag and drive car.
It's another 310 like the Cessna I drive now,
except it's gonna be a lot faster.
And the one I drive now is no joke,
but this is gonna be like a single digit
drag and drive street car.
So...
Where do you get the airplane fusel?
Where do the airplane holes come from?
Facebook marketplace.
They pop up periodically and you have to go and get them.
One of them was in Ohio
and I think one was in Kentucky,
but both of them were a good drive away.
And I just met a guy a couple of days ago
on a brand new Ferrari at the tail of the dragon
that said, I used to own an Atlanta air salvage or whatever.
And he's got this huge fleet of like lyrgents and stuff.
I'm like, dude, I'm gonna upgrade.
I'm not gonna use my paper Navajo
if he's got a lyrgant, you know what I mean?
So I've been got kind of like limousine
to use as the chassis for that limo project
because I want it to be a licensed limousine.
You know, I wanna actually make it a commercial limousine.
So, and that's been done before,
but I wanna do it my way, you know what I mean?
I love it.
Well, Doug, I'm speechless.
You're gonna have to take over for a little while.
My mind just banned.
Yeah, no, I did it, I'm loving the garage, the shop.
Yeah, so if we go back just a little bit, Jeff,
well way back, you were telling us in the pre-show
about your first car and what we didn't talk about
and maybe I'll let you talk about your first car
and then I'll get into the, if you modified that
or where the modifications start on what car.
But tell us about your first car, how you got it,
what you remember about it.
I think it was really a family heirloom, so to speak.
Heirloom was a strong word for the shape that car.
So I mean, I got it, it was a 1967 Chevelle station wagon.
I had no idea in high school in the late 80s, early 90s
that I had a unicorn
because a Chevelle wagon from 67 is truly a unicorn.
You just don't see them anywhere.
And my grandmother bought it brand new
on the showroom floor in 1967.
Three on the tree, manual transmission,
straight six, I think it was a 230 straight six.
And she drove it off that showroom floor.
My mom learned to drive on it.
My older sister learned to drive on it.
And then I was the second oldest of the nine kids
that my parents had and I learned to drive on it.
By the time I got this car, we were in upstate New York,
road salt had done a job on it.
My dad didn't really wash cars.
So road salt would eat them up and he'd get another one.
This being an heirloom, still running and driving
and had holes so large you could literally reach
inside the vehicle from outside
and wave your hand around because it was just gone.
So he said, you can have this car.
It's still running and driving.
It just looks terrible.
So I put it in the barn for four months.
This is my first automotive project.
I took Bondo and chicken wire and did what I had to do
and covered up those big holes.
Sprattle, candy, you know,
and it looked much better than it had before.
But it turns out, you know, at that time,
wagons being very uncooled,
women didn't want to ride nothing.
Girls in school thought it was just awful.
They had no desire to go on a date in that car.
I wish I still had that car.
You know how it is with your first car
and you get rid of it and you wish you kept it
and some smart people will keep their first car.
But I'm not that person, apparently.
When I sold it, the engine had just died
and it was high mileage and rotten and in rough shape.
And I think it got scrapped.
I don't really recall
because that was a long, long time ago.
But that was a fun car.
I had painted it at first blue
and then red with black stripes, like racing stripes.
And it was a turn, you know,
any car you could spin the tires
out of the hoods parking lot with was all right.
So round it up enough and drop the clutch.
It would spin.
And it was certainly not a ball of fire,
certainly not a race car,
but it was adequate for, you know, at the time.
Yeah.
Good memories and so that had to be
like late 80s when you got it.
So it would have been late 80s, right?
And I spent, like I said, a good four months
just filling the holes and stuff in that barn
and just trying to remodel the interior
a little bit and things like that.
And so that means, oh, I'm sorry.
I was just gonna say that.
That means that for a couple of decades,
this thing was on the road and drivable.
And that's pretty neat.
That's pretty neat.
It was probably 91 when it finally died completely.
So, and then my grandmother helped me buy
a four cylinder Mustang Coupe.
And I loved that car.
That got me a good bit of the way into college.
I would say through college,
but I changed cars like I changed clothes.
So.
Yeah.
Good deal.
Yeah.
No.
And go and maybe step in a little farther back.
Growing up, were you always building things
whether wood and metal?
I absolutely did.
I always had that creative bent and that desire
to kind of engineer.
Now, my grandfathers were both brilliant engineers,
one chemical and one electrical.
In fact, my mother's dad, my grandfather on that side
was an electrical engineer.
He retired from RCA televisions,
but he worked for, no, sorry.
My other grandfather worked for Mobile Oil.
He actually worked on the Minuteman Space Missiles.
So he was in the Navy World War II and all.
And he worked on the Minuteman Space Missile program,
which is really cool.
And they were both brilliant.
And I don't know what happened to me,
but I still have that.
You're telling me you're descended from rocket scientists.
Okay.
Fantastic.
We're seeing a little where it all comes from,
but please continue.
This is fantastic.
Yeah.
So when I was little, and I wanna say I was only like five.
My uncle was a classic car collector.
And he was of the mindset that it had to be
a hundred percent original.
That's the only way he would accept a classic car.
Any kind of alteration was just wrong.
You had to keep it as perfectly original as possible.
Of course.
Yeah.
And he never understood the things that I do
with the cars because it's so different,
but I just like to, you know, personalize them as
to the absolute max.
At any rate, he took me for a ride
in his Model A Rumble Seat Roadster
when I was like five years old,
and I was hooked on cars at that moment.
Now, my dad wasn't a gearhead of any kind.
He didn't really change his own oil.
So as long as I grew up around it,
that I would visit my uncle from time to time,
and we would do parades and things,
and he had all these cool antique cars that I just loved.
So this Model A Rumble Seat,
that's the car where the trunk opens up backwards,
and it's a seat.
A Rumble Seat.
I've never seen a Rumble Seat.
They call it the mother-in-law seat back then
because she'd put her back there outside the car,
you know?
So that car got me hooked on cars,
and he had a really cool collection.
I actually have a few of his cars now
that my aunt Graciously gave to me after we passed.
And amongst them, I've got my post-zombie-apocalypse car.
It's a diesel Mercedes 200 D.
It's completely gutless, zero to 60 in like two weeks,
but it'll run on vegetable oil or waste more oil
after an EMP or anything else.
So that's my, you know, you can't kill a kind of car.
And then I've got a few of his other ones,
including a 36 Packard,
which is an absolutely gorgeous whole car.
It needs to be restored,
but it's an original survivor.
And I would never dream of altering his cars.
He would never want that.
He was very clear about it.
It's going to be pristine, you know,
once we've finished restoring it,
we've just started on it,
but beautiful old car with dual side mounts
where you have to spare tires on both fenders.
Oh, looks like a Bonnie and Clyde like.
Yeah, that's what I was picturing.
Yeah, Bonnie and Clyde.
That's not out in the field, is it?
Is that in your car?
No, no, that's in doors.
No, I wouldn't dare.
That's it.
So it's a true survivor too,
especially coming out of New Jersey
where he lived in South Jersey.
Excellent.
No, those are great stories
going all the way back to age five.
So you ended up scrapping,
I think you told us,
and there's some irony there, right?
You scrapped your grandmother's car
and now you buy scrapped cars.
I buy other scrapped vehicles.
Right.
Sometimes we'll buy actually from the junkyard
and sometimes I'll buy from people
who are selling them for scrap,
just as project cars or as,
I can kind of look at anything
and see the potential in it
for something weird and different
because that's what I like.
I was at the junkyard one day
and somebody had dumped a pop-up camper
out in front of it.
That was in horrible shape
but they had, they just abandoned it there
in front of the place
and I said to the guys,
what do you want for the pop-up camper?
He said, well, you know, it's junk
but we take, knock the body off of it
and we sell the frames to utility trailers.
We get like 150 bucks for the frames.
I said, well, what I have in mind,
I don't need the frame.
What if I just give you the frame back?
He said, take it,
bring the frame back when you're done.
Okay.
We made that a race car
and we raced it on the NASCAR track in New Hampshire
and you have never seen faces melt
like those NASCAR flaggers.
They had no idea.
There's 50 campers in the paddock.
It's a race weekend for 24 hours of lemons.
And Saturday morning,
there's a hundred cars come on the track
start circulating, waiting for the green to drop.
So you have a full course caution,
a hundred cars circulating
and all of a sudden the green drops
and everybody just goes
and I pull on track in this pop-up camper.
It looks like a pop-up camper
and you only sell the two side wheels
that I had put on, you know,
just like a regular camper with a,
I had made a breakaway hitch
out of like flimsy aluminum.
You could have broken it off by hand
because I don't want to spear somebody's gas tank
with the, you know,
stuck tongue of a trailer,
but it looked the part it really did
and their faces melted,
their jaws dropped,
their eyes popped,
the flags fell down
and the next lap around
everyone had their phones out
like waving and thumbs up and all that.
It was just,
I love seeing a good face melt reaction like that.
We strive for that with each of our builds
and that was one of the better ones, you know,
just a free camper in the junkyard
to melt some faces.
Yeah. Yeah.
No, I mean, you don't see that every day
or, or ever.
Right. No, that's funny.
Like creative.
You've got a farm truck in Asian,
Asian's a friend of mine,
the guys from Street Outlaws
and they did a camper car a couple of years ago
and people tagging me in it saying,
you should do that.
I did that in 2011 or 2012.
He blazed the trail down the road
following my friend's truck.
And then he went straight
and I turned right in the camper
and we just were being selling with it,
but we had some fun.
Yeah. What was the camper mounted to?
What was the frame chassis?
So it was on a Suzuki X90
and we had a guest driver for that race
who was he was arriving drive.
So they help us pay the bills,
they pay a fee and race the car with us
and helps us cover our costs.
But he was trying to win the race
in this pop up camper.
And we were out there just to do
kind of like exhibition race
where you're not wanting it to 7,000 RPMs
and floating the valves.
And so it burned a hole in the head itself
and popped the head gasket.
And we spent the night fixing it,
cobbling it back to get enough
to get back out there the next day.
And it died.
I think we had to get pushed across the finish line.
The whole place was cheering.
Yeah, I bet.
It was kind of the crowd favorite for the weekend.
But the little Suzuki X90, they were pretty gutless.
And we took that car and later raced it.
We put a Miata engine in it, like a 180.
And we raced it with numerous themes
including we did a Titanic and Iceberg theme
where the iceberg and a BMW was a Titanic.
And we had the four big stacks
on the BMW for the spoke stacks.
We had to even put a little deck railing on the hood.
We had a little like string
and we drilled into the hood and we went all out with it.
And then the Iceberg chased the Titanic
around the track that race weekend.
We had fun with it.
So that thing wound up getting re-bodied
as a hot dog stand.
And we raced it to raise money for a dog rescue
right in New Jersey
and raised a bunch of money for dog rescue
by giving away hot dogs all weekend, taking donations.
But that freaking hot dog stand
beat two thirds of the cars in the race
because it rained so hard
we got traction when they didn't.
So it finished like top third
but it never should have happened.
A little gutless X-90 carrying a building around
was beating all the 944s and E36s.
Yeah, all that extra weight.
That's funny.
So you actually answered one of my questions
which was, is a car ever done, right?
When do you take that car and say, this is perfect?
And maybe it's the Camaro
because I don't think the Camaro has changed too much
but it could be wrong.
The Camaro was built over three weeks in 2013
that summer in my driveway and I sprayed it in my yard.
I'm still driving it 11 years later
which is absolutely insane.
Never dreamed it would last much more
than the race weekend if we were lucky.
And here it is.
I mean, it's a world famous car.
Jay Leno drove me around in it for his show
in San Francisco.
It's been all over the place.
I actually drove it cross country.
I took it to SEMA a year ago
and then from like the San Fran area
and then drove it back to Tennessee and had a blast.
It was a cold ride, no roof, but I had a great time.
It's just a fantastic experience.
And you were talking about Cadillac Ranch there in Amarillo.
I pulled up in the upside down Camaro
and there was an employee there.
Of course they have the gates closed and locked
and everything because you park out on the street
and then you walk in.
And I said, any chance we can put this car in there
by those Cadillacs and take pictures?
And the employee said, absolutely unlock the gate,
open it and I drove all the way
and parked next to the Cadillacs
and of course all the other visitors freaked out
and there were people climbing inside the Camaro
and stuff and taking photos.
It was a good time.
Beautiful, beautiful.
But yeah, to your point,
the cars were never actually done
and that poor Camaro being sprayed
in the yard 11 years ago, it looks rough.
I mean, it needs to go to the paint stuff.
So I actually bought the paint, I haven't painted it yet
but I only see the flaws when I look at my cars.
Other people just see the overall
usually and just say, okay, that's pretty cool.
I see what I haven't done yet that I intend to do
and that's part of the AEG I guess, you know.
Oh, he's an artist.
I can't afford to be done.
Yeah, so I still want to correct a lot of things
on that car and on every other car that I've built
and you know, it's kind of a shame
because that's what I see when I look at them.
I see the flaws, the things I haven't corrected yet
and other people were like, oh my gosh,
that's the coolest car I've ever seen, you know.
So it's all in the eye of the beholder, I guess.
But yeah, they're never really done.
Gotcha, gotcha and I know we were talking
about a lot of plans that you have
but the Volkswagen bus and camper, right?
And maybe that'll beg the next question.
I'm always jumping ahead is,
what do you think your most popular build has been?
I would guess it's the Trippy Hippy Camper, but we're boss.
The Hippy Hippy van is a sideways 76 Volkswagen camper
mounted on an 88 rabbit, both of them low bucked.
The camper shell was $600 sitting in the field
and the rabbit underneath was a $500 car
that was already a caged race car,
it was just really ragged though.
That one's been stupid viral.
One of the videos I put up on Facebook with that
got like 156 million views.
Wow, just organically, which is insane, right?
That's been really popular a lot.
I think the most iconic one,
it's gotta be my airplane car, the Spirit of Lemons.
I've been driving it since early 2013.
It's street legal, I've driven it all over the U.S.
It's been in countless magazines and TV shows
and things like that.
It's kind of one of those builds that, I don't know,
just to get to keep on giving, I drive it everywhere.
To this day, I just had it in Florida a couple of weeks ago
doing a burnout competition at the Freedom Factory
in Bradenton and it was melting faces
like it's done for almost 12 years.
Like that's kind of, you know,
it's sitting on an 87 Toyota van chassis
and people say why I say because race car
and they're like, wait, what?
Since the Toyota van had a mid-engine rear drive layout,
it had torsion bars in the front,
status truck towers,
because they would be too wide for that narrow fuselage.
It had a narrow track and short base
so it checked every one of my boxes.
So I went looking for an 80s Toyota van
to use as a basis for this race car
with a plane that I wanted to build.
I knew in my head before I found the fuselage
what I wanted to build.
I looked all over the country
and I always wanted to go from Maryland
where I lived at the time to Nevada,
to a Boneyard if I had to, to get a nice fuselage.
I couldn't find anything affordable.
A single-engine wrecked Cessna missing the front cowling
and I was bringing 10 grand
and I mean, I don't have deep pockets.
I use whatever scrap I can find to make stuff cool
because we do whatever it's limited means.
So I went to a local airfield just to ask.
And the guy said, I've got two old planes out back
behind the hangar.
You want to see them?
I said, sure.
And the first one was the same story.
It was no front engine, no cowling,
anything that wouldn't work.
And the second one was a 56 Cessna 310
missing the engines, missing the fuel tanks
and the tail and everything.
And it was in rough shape.
It had been abandoned for 40 years
but it was perfect, sleek streamlined fuselage
exactly what I was looking for.
So that's the one I bought.
And it was two grand, which for me was a lot
but it came with the instruments
which are really worth more than the two grand
I played for the whole thing.
So and it had the weights still on it.
They just weren't in great shape.
So I have basically 16 inch winglets on it now
that act as front fenders.
And they also act as a step to get inside.
That thing, it runs a 12 second quarter mile.
I've got a Mustang EcoBoost and now a four cylinder
2.3 liter EcoBoost, making about 330 horsepower.
It weighs just under 2,700 pounds.
All the weights on the front wheels,
I'm going to try to redesign some things
because I want to move weight rearward
because I have to baby it off the line
on the quarter mile.
But to run a high 12 second quarter mile
on street tires in an airplane
sitting on a Toyota Vans chassis.
It's not too shabby and it's a really fun street car.
It's an accomplishment.
I take it down the tail of the dragon here in Tennessee
and people have trouble keeping up with it.
And I'm never anywhere near the limit.
It's just always like, well in control
and you'll see motorcycle guys griping online.
I don't want a damn airplane in my way
when it come to the dragon on my crotch rocket.
They have trouble keeping up.
Well, I used to pull off
and I'll pull off to let them go by me.
Every single time they pull off with me,
they get out, they walk up
and they want to take pictures
and talk about it and stuff like that.
So kind of pointless.
They'll use the pull-offs when they all pull off with you
but that thing, it really is the gift it gives on giving.
It's just been so much fun.
It's a parade on wheels everywhere I go.
You get like, you know, I love your spaceship
and things like that when you drive around in it.
And it actually gets really good fuel economy
like 25 or 30 on trips.
So not too shabby for an old sesame that was getting
scrapped.
Yeah. Well, it's very streamlined.
It is. Very aerodynamic.
Very aerodynamic, extremely.
Do you keep everything that you've done,
do you, everything that you've ever done,
is it sitting in your, is it sitting in your garage?
I so wish it was.
There's a bunch of them I've got rid of over the years.
I've lost a few on the racetrack
because that's part of the risk
when you're racing cars.
Yep. Yep.
I was thinking that.
Some of them I used to for a while there
I would sell one to pay for the next one.
And I've actually made it to get,
I've got the Jurassic Park Explorer back
and I bought the Camaro back.
I sold the Upset on Camaro to my friend
that owns the Lemon series, Jay Lam.
And he, he had kind of loaned it out to everybody
and their mother that wanted to use it in the West Coast.
And it went to different shows
and things in different hands,
but he was still the owner.
And we had made a deal when I sold it to him
that I'd have the first rider refused to buy it back.
So I hounded it for years
and he finally sold it back to me.
So it's back in my stable.
And that's one of those cars
that I had regretted really badly selling
after I sold it.
I still want to get my Wagon Queen family truck
from vacation back.
That was a really fun race car.
We cut the cage out, sold to a fellow in New York City
and hopefully he'll work me up the deal
and let me get it back in my fleet here
because there's a couple of the iconic cars
that I really missed, you know?
You remember the vacation,
the green ugly station wagon.
Yeah, thank you.
The family truck story.
Yeah.
So we had the vintage luggage on eBay back in 2014
was like 10 bucks, five bucks a piece.
Nobody once finished Samsonite.
So we had everything on the roof,
looked just like the movie car.
We had the, I had them,
I remember she dies and they tie her on the roof
in the movie, on the roof.
So we go to South Carolina,
Carolina Horse Horse Park
and we raced it for 16 hours all weekend from Maryland
to South Carolina,
raced all weekend back to Maryland, nothing moved.
You know, she was up there the whole time.
It was a really fun car, just hideous,
but so ugly it's cool, you know?
Just brilliant, just like everybody knows that car.
Even the young kids
because the remake had that car in it, so.
Yep, that's right.
That's right, it did.
They kept making those movies every few years
and now they just play them in sequence
and they're in syndication.
Especially around there.
Oh, and they're still funny.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Yeah, so in speaking of movies,
sorry to interrupt you, Christian.
I did want to hit Jeff's dream car,
which he has already.
It's in the works, right?
It's partially there.
Tell us about Elinor.
So Elinor is a 67 Mustang fastback
with the movie gone at 60 seconds.
Now this is not an actual movie car
because I could never afford that,
but this car has one of the 500 kits
that Cinema Vehicle Services
who made the movie cars actually produce.
So the movie came out,
the cars were hugely popular.
All of us said, oh, I want that car so bad.
And Cinema Vehicle Services said,
okay, we'll make body kits and we'll sell them.
So they made 500 body kits, each one serialized.
So if you got all that to see and stuff came with it.
So I have one of those 500 kits on this car.
So it's closer to an Elinor than most, right?
And it's a true fastback Mustang.
I got it at Rochester, New York back in, wow, 2004.
So I've owned that car for 20 years.
Now that's the longest I've owned any car.
Like I said, I changed cars, like I changed clothes.
But I was smart enough to hang on to that one.
I'd need to finish it.
It's the body kits on and the car is painted.
There's a few flaws we'll have to fix, but it's painted.
I need to do the interior,
but I really want to do like a rest-o-mod.
I want to do a Cody drivetrain,
maybe with a blower turbo or something like that on it
and make it a really fun street car
that I can take on road trips.
And also I want to put AC in it and everything.
And I want to be able to set the cruise at 75
and drive to Florida if I feel like it, you know what I mean?
So money's not there to finish it.
The car just sits and waits.
It's indoors, it's insured.
It's killing my friends
because they know I have a dream car just sitting there,
but it's not going anywhere.
We're willing it.
So on the list, all right, so as we wind down here
and guide the podcast gently to the off ramp here, Jeff,
just I have a couple of last questions for you.
The speedy cop name, can you chat about that for a minute?
Sure.
So I spent 27 years for the cop.
I just retired a year ago.
I talk really fast, obviously.
I used to run really fast.
I can't say I do anymore.
I've got metal in both legs,
but I used to be able to catch suspects
that were known for always getting away
because they were very fast on their feet.
I even ran down a track star one time
in a neighborhood in Hammond, Louisiana, where I worked.
And I had never had this happen before,
but as I brought them back in handcuffs,
I ran them down and tackled them.
And the people were on their porches
and they were just ragging on this poor young man.
I'm like, you're supposed to be a track star.
You let that white boy catch you.
What's wrong with you, man?
What's wrong with you?
They were actually clapping and stuff like that,
which was pretty funny.
Well, yeah, talk, run and drive fast.
I've held my own with some of the best.
I've actually beaten a few really notables
on the racetrack itself.
And I've got a few overall wins in different series,
both 20 bars of lemons and Lucky Dog
and a couple of national championships.
But bear in mind, those are more volume
than they are driver skills.
So you enter enough cars, enough races,
you can win those national championships and lemons.
But I like to have fun behind the wheel
and like I said, talk, run and drive fast.
That's where Speedcop comes from.
I dig it.
Thank you for that last question.
Retirement, you mentioned,
so are we gonna see the shop pop these things out faster?
You're gonna take a break.
What's in the future for you?
What did these take a break words you're using?
I never heard them before.
There's your answer.
Eight days a week.
Yeah.
I have a lot of vehicles in the works here.
Time and money has always been the constraint.
So now I have more time being retired.
The monies, we're still working on that.
It's difficult to do things on a meager budget,
but we're making it happen.
As my stuff, as my brand and stuff grows,
hopefully I'll have more income and more ability to do more
and get more help here to crank more out.
I have multiple lifetimes worth of projects
just sitting and waiting.
So one of them is the EM50 from Stripes.
I've got that same model.
Oh.
The full armored Stripes version with
and then I wanna make a miniature of it
to actually race in like lemons.
So we're gonna do it like a Russian nesting doll.
It'll carry it as our internal ramp truck
and then you back it out.
You have the little one, race the little one.
I think it'd be really cool.
I've got an airstream motor home I wanna restore.
I've got two more fused lodges.
One will be a limousine and one will be a drag car.
I just have a lot of big dreams, a lot of big plans.
I'm gonna keep working till it happens.
Well, we are so happy for you and yeah.
Doug wanted me to mention to everybody out there,
the next time you see a plane on the road,
it is probably speedy cop.
So check him out on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram.
He's everywhere.
Facebook.
Yeah.
speedy cop.com.
That's my favorite speedy cop.com.
Check him out.
Well, Jeff, it has been a tremendous pleasure meeting you.
It was a blast.
Thank you for making time.
It's an honor, Jeff.
I really appreciate your time.
Yeah.
Thank you again.
Thank you, Jeff.
Yep.
We'll be looking for you on the road.
Sounds good.
I won't be hard to miss.
Yep.
And if you're ever either Pensacola, where Christian is,
or Maryland, Annapolis area.
If you had not let us know.
We gotta go see this guy.
There's no way.
We've got to go to Tennessee.
Oh yeah, I realize.
I've also got 800 foot zip line because I'm a big kid.
So.
I saw that.
I saw that.
It's legit.
It's fast.
It's fun.
It's not for everyone.
It's definitely scary.
But yeah, it's why not?
We've got the road trip.
We're road trippin' in Jeff's place, book it.
But until then, you had just heard the high-reving,
low-mileage, late-model, heard around the world,
authoritative podcast on automotive nostalgia.
He is Doug at CarsLove.com.
I am Christian at CarsLove.com.
And he was speedy cop.
Check him out.
Please follow, tell a friend.
And let us know what you think.
Reach out, review, review, and help us spread the word.
Our link tree is this switchboard
where you can start L-I-N-K-T-R-DOT-E-E slash CarsLove.
It's a bit like the old yellow pages.
I refer to it as our switchboard.
So I'm sure we'll see you at the next local car show.
Thank you for listening.
People on the side down.
And we will see you next week.
About this episode
A retired cop turned automotive artist, Jeff Block, also known as Speedy Cop, shares his unique journey of transforming discarded vehicles into viral sensations. From an upside-down Camaro to a pop-up camper race car, Jeff discusses his creative process, the challenges of budget and time, and the joy of melting faces with his unconventional builds. The episode dives into his inspirations, the stories behind his projects, and his dream of completing a restomod Mustang. Listeners will enjoy Jeff's infectious enthusiasm and imaginative approach to automotive engineering.
Original notes
Click here to share your favorite car, car story or any automotive trivia!
in this auto-adventure-packed episode of To All The Cars I've Loved Before, hosts Christian and Doug welcome SpeedyCop (Jeff Bloch)—YouTube/TikTok sensation, retired cop, and master of turning junkyard cast-offs into rolling masterpieces. From police fleet automotive experience to viral automotive content creation, Jeff's journey reveals how law enforcement knowledge transforms into YouTube success.
Discover the intersection of police automotive experience, budget-friendly car building, and social media automotive content creation. Jeff's SpeedyCop channel demonstrates how practical automotive skills, creative problem-solving, and entertaining storytelling create viral automotive content that educates and entertains millions of car enthusiasts worldwide.
Jeff's favorite episode is "V12 Visions – Tom Yang’s Life Restoring Ferraris and Chasing Vintage Dreams" - https://pod.link/1733902541/episode/fe508d92b0cc8ff001a8da00cba9286b
Essential for DIY automotive enthusiasts, YouTube content creators, budget car builders, and anyone interested in creative automotive solutions. Whether you love junkyard finds, police car culture, or automotive content creation, this episode showcases turning automotive knowledge into digital media success and social media influence.
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