Big-block “street altered” 1937 Fiat is a Motown mystery machine

I’ve driven my ’55 Bel Air in almost every Woodward Dream Cruise, Metro Detroit’s nostalgic celebration of automotive culture that springs up each August. This year my wife, our adult son, and I decided to just enjoy the show, whereas in past years I’ve frequently spent the day reporting on some assignment. We cruised to the event’s Ferndale starting point in the early morning, then headed north to Hunter House for a breakfast of cheeseburger sliders, with stops at Pasteiner’s AutoZone Hobbies and at a the Cruise’s unofficial epicenter near 13 Mile. There we bumped into our friends Ken and Susan Lybolt, whose Barbie car Austin Healey was recently featured on these pages, but I was soon distracted by a screaming-orange hot rod.

It was a 1937 Fiat Topolino with big gum in back and skinny tires up front, looking for all the world like a fuel altered car from the golden age of drag racing, and parked just across the street from the Lybolt machine. The orange paint appeared to be nearly flawless from a distance, with nicely rendered lettering identifying the car as “Orange Crush.”

I walked over to take a closer look. The car was built on a tube chassis, much like early funny car designs. Nestled between the rails was a carbureted big-block Chevy. “Okay, a drag car,” I thought, but no—it had headlights, taillights, and even a side mirror. “Street altered,” if there is such a thing, would be a more apt descriptor. Little did I know that I was just scratching the surface of this pretty little orange car, which despite looking new and unmolested, was a in fact a mystery machine at least thirty years in the making.

On Dream Cruise day, machines that no one would ever expect to find on a public road motor up and down Woodward. I’ve seen an Isetta with a Chevy V-8 in back, a motorized unicycle, and a rolling outhouse overflowing with clowns. But this was my first Fiat Topolino hot rod coupe.

I called out to a crowd of spectators on the side of the road, inquiring after Orange Crush’s owner. No response, so my family and I left, but later I called Ken and asked if the Fiat owner had returned. “Gone,” he said, “took off down Woodward.”

Later that day, I got a text from Susan that included an image of a business card. “We saw the Fiat Topolino cruising down Woodward and Ken flagged him down,” she wrote. The owner’s name: Jim Hudnut. Naturally, I called and arranged for a time to meet.

Hudnut the car nut

Hudnut is a Motor City old-timer, a friendly wrench who proved even more interesting than his unique automobile. His hands are grease-stained and calloused, as are the paws of any mechanic worth their salt. He grew up in Lathrup Village, a middle-class Metro Detroit neighborhood. He graduated from Southfield High School in 1970, coming of age in the days when you were either a jock, a scholar, or a car guy.

Hudnut has always been a car guy to his core. Right out of high school he picked up a ’57 Chevy, sans motor, for $300 and built a 301-cubic-inch small-block Chevy in the basement of his parents’ house. Those 301s were the hot ticket for low-buck racers back then. All it took was a 283 V-8 bored 0.060-inch over stock. The 283, an engine produced in the millions by GM, could be had for a song in just about any boneyard. Aftermarket pistons, like those in the J.C. Whitney catalog, sold for about $100 a set, and Chevy’s legendary Duntov 30-30 camshaft was available for $50 or so.

In Hudnut’s ’57 shoebox, that 301 small-block was good for low 14-second ETs—fast enough to win stock class at Detroit Dragway or turn away the rich kids’ GTOs and Chevelles on Woodward or Telegraph Road.

“We raced on Telegraph,” Hudnut said. “Woodward was high-dollar stakes, but you could stoplight race on Telegraph for pocket change.”

A couple years of study at Northwood University (Michigan’s training ground for auto industry professionals) got Hudnut started in the service station business. In the early ’80s he signed on as a mechanic at Mel Farr Ford, eventually earning his credentials as a Ford Master Technician. Drag racing and fast cars became distant objects in the rear-view mirror as time passed. Wanting to escape the busy, closed-in suburbs of his youth, he bought a few acres of land wedged between the big state parks near Brighton, Michigan.

Never afraid of hard work, Hudnut singlehandedly built a log cabin on that land in 1990. Not just any old log cabin, either, but a 2400-square-footer made with timbers trucked in from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and joined with 12-inch spikes pounded in with a sledgehammer. When Mel Farr’s 11 Ford dealerships went blooey in 2002, depriving him of steady work, Hudnut opened his own repair business in a pole barn behind the cabin.

Life for Jim and Terrie, his wife of 47 years, was good. The business supported them well, the house was paid for, and the handful of neighbors who lived nearby became friends.

One of those neighbors was an old drag racing buddy from back in the day, who kept telling him how the guys they grew up with were racing again. So, when Hudnut reached retirement age in 2018, he decided to get together with the old gang on the drag strip. Not wanting to spend a fortune building a car from scratch, he bought a cool little Henry J street machine and set about converting it to a drag car. Today, it runs 10.80s in Open Comp at Milan Dragway. With a dose of nitrous it has run 9.80.

A Fiat comes calling

The Henry J was enough for Hudnut … until he spotted the blistering orange Fiat Topolino in a Facebook Marketplace ad. It was a basket case, having been disassembled for reasons unknown and advertised for sale by a guy not far away; Hudnut dropped by to have a look. He apparently liked what he saw, and at $7K, the price was more than reasonable. Beating out a line of would-be buyers, he plunked down the cash and dragged the machine home in boxes.

Hudnut learned very little about the Fiat’s history from the seller, who surmised it had been built about 40 years prior by Dominic Blasco, a well-known Chicago area drag racer who has managed numerous drag strips. The car came with a title, but the Michigan Secretary of State (DMV in most other states) couldn’t provide any information about previous owners.

The car’s origin wasn’t a matter of deep concern for Hudnut, so he got to work. In short order, the Topolino was together, using the parts supplied by the seller. Among them were a tube chassis and a fully assembled big-block Chevy V-8 displacing 413 cu in. Hudnut has dug into the engine and reports it has a hydraulic cam and pistons with a small dome, which means it’s likely a stock 375-horsepower factory engine with a bit of an overbore that should bump output up a bit. Of course, even 375 horsepower is more than enough for a car that weighs about 1600 pounds.

Other equipment includes a Powerglide transmission with a streetable 11-inch torque converter and a ’58 Corvette third member. That rear end gives Hudnut pause, as the axles had apparently been shortened and welded to fit the narrowed case.

Future plans include replacing the Corvette rear with a narrow nine-inch Ford unit. Also due for replacement are the Mickey Thompson rear tires, which are far too old to be driven on with even minor aggression. The engine can be left as is, since it runs well and will probably be very reliable and powerful enough to take the little car to some healthy elapsed times, should Hudnut decide to run the car at the track.

I photographed the Orange Crush Fiat on the expansive lawn behind Hudnut’s oversized log cabin. If I didn’t know better, I would have sworn the car was a recent build, given its condition. Hoping to learn more I called Blasco, who is currently managing the US 41 Dragstrip in Indiana. He barely remembered the car, saying he didn’t build it and had owned it only briefly in the ’80s or ’90s, driving it just a few times before selling it. He thinks the chassis was built by the first owner but couldn’t remember from whom he had purchased it or exactly when that had occurred. (None of this is surprising given that Blasco has owned many drag cars in the years since.)

Thus, Orange Crush’s origin remains a mystery. Perhaps an informed reader will recognize the pretty little faux Fiat and tell us more about it in the comments section below.

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