Street machiners don’t come more hardcore or old school than Sydney bricklayer Peter Lovering. His passion for racing ‘shoebox’ Chevys, particularly white-over-blue ’55s, spans 30-plus years, starting with a blown and injected, big block-powered pro streeter, and eventually snowballing into his current sled, one of Australia’s toughest Top Doorslammers, which he races under his Shoebox Motorsport banner.

First published in the August 2026 issue of Street Machine

Subsidised by 30 years of laying bricks, Peter’s racing life has been a true battle of resilience to keep the car swinging for the fences, first in big-tyre racing, then Wild Bunch, and now Top Doorslammer. For most of it, there were no handouts or fancy sponsor deals, just sheer determination, a bunch of good mates and plenty of perseverance. Now, it’s finally all coming together for Peter, with the car turning out some incredible numbers, including a 5.73 at the recent Winternationals – a new world record for a ’55 Chev!

“I bought the old, full-steel ’55 back in 1989 when I was on my P-plates,” Peter recalls. “I was just 17 years old, and it didn’t take long before it had a carby big-block in it, and then a back-half chassis we built in a mate’s garage in Huskisson [on the NSW south coast]. We had a lot of fun in the car, but it was destined for something better so we could ultimately step it up and run Wild Bunch.

“We built ourselves a 518-cube, tall-deck big-block Chevy that started out with an 8/71 blower, but later switched to a high-helix, retro 14/71. That thing made pretty good power – just over 1500hp, from memory – and even in a 4200lb car, we went 5.01 over the eighth-mile.”

Unfortunately, Sydney drag racing went through a tough period in the mid-to-late 90s, and for a while it was difficult for Peter to race the car close to home due to the lack of competitive racing at Eastern Creek Raceway. “There was no track, so we would go to Canberra or Mildura – anywhere we could run,” he says. “Eventually that all went pear-shaped when we tossed the rods out at a street meet.”

As luck would have it, the bare chassis for the original Superformance ’55 Chevy came up for sale, so Pete snapped it up and sent it off to Sydney fabricator Peter Cleary, owner of Pro Racing. A trip to the USA in 2002 secured all the parts Pete needed to get the car rolling, including a new Harwood body, while a phone call to racer and engine guy Brett Gillespie secured a new Oldsmobile-based Keith Black big-block Chev, which was then fitted with a new 16/71 high-helix supercharger and a three-speed clutched Lenco.

“The car ran good, dipping into the 6.30s at 225mph, but eventually we ran out of motor and began looking for something better,” Peter says.

Some internet shopping produced a new Hemi combination with a Whipple supercharger from the USA, and Queensland racer Gary Phillips designed a fuel system to get them rolling. Thus equipped, the car went straight into the 6.20s at 230mph!

Unfortunately, divorce put the brakes on Peter’s racing for a few years, so it was back into dirt bikes and cheaper thrills with the kids until the dust settled.

“Around 2008, I bought a PSI D-rotor for the car, and Gary helped us out again with a basic tune,” Peter says. “We didn’t know what we were doing and stayed with a basic fuel system and didn’t bother with timers or many of the refinements available to us. When I was 16 years old, my old friend Russell Mills showed me how to build engines, and I’ve been doing it with my team ever since.”

The car responded well to the new motor combination, and over several years, the boys honed the times down to a 6.01.

The big step forward for the team came in 2020, when Peter’s childhood mate, Stuart Johnson, who had been instrumental in tuning the car, teamed up with him financially. This allowed an injection of new equipment and a serious upgrade for the ’55, finally converting it from the old swing-arm rear end to a Peter Cleary-built four-link. 

The most important improvement was a new engine in the form of a billet Chevy from Miner Bros Racing. It uses the big-block Chev bore-spacing of 4.84in and a factory BBC crank and cam spacing, but is built to run Hemi-style cylinder heads. This thing was going to get the car where Peter needed to be – deep into the fives!

The car went through a bunch of testing and multiple upgrades, including a new carbon body that weighed 250lb less than the old bodyshell. The three-speed Lenco got swapped out for a Liberty five-speed trans and the latest billet Quick Drive converter. These improvements yielded immediate results, with a new PB of 5.73 and top speed of 249mph, making it the quickest and fastest ’55 Doorslammer in the world. 

But Pete’s not done yet. “We want to get the car into the 5.60s,” he says. “We have gone quick enough to half-track to achieve that, and we have the 60-foot times in the .960s; we just need to work on the back-half. If we can run a 5.60 at 2780lb in a 30-year-old car, that would be amazing. This car top-qualified at the Winternats with a 6.60 30 years ago!”

No doubt about it – compared to the newer cars today, Pete and the boys are punching out some serious numbers with their older doorslammer set-up. “Modern cars are lower to the ground, more slippery, and are only seven-eighths of the old-size cars,” he says. “We work with what we have. It’s a lot of fun with the team, but these cars eat up parts and are expensive to run. We are lucky we have some good parts in the car now, with the Newby diff, Neal Chance converter, nice motor and blower, good data acquisition, and the billet Quick Drive – nice stuff.”

The improved performance of the ’55 and the good vibe that always surrounds it has brought the team some solid financial support. It doesn’t pay all the bills, but it definitely helps, so Peter would like to give a big shout-out to his sponsors: Attcall Group; GRS Towing; DS Reo; Vitale Concrete Pumping; E1 Pool Certifier; Bisley Workwear; Capital Cut & Core; Southern Blinds & Awnings; Visual Apparel; Al’s Race Glides; All About Meat Butcher Shop; Online Motorsports; and Jim Denaro for endless fabrication work on the car.

Peter would also like to thank his partner Roslyn Smith; Stuart Johnson; Jason Wynes; Rodger Adelerhof; Damien Greentree; Cain Good; Cruz and Jed Lovering; and Mick Bennett. Special thanks to Gary, Debbie and Cheyne Phillips; Brett Gillespie; and Russell Mills for years of support.