The co-owner of Murray Brothers’ Garage, Andrew Murray has built a fascinating vehicle, combination of antique mechanical system and modern electronics with some very unique features. He has broken traditional molds with the ability to match current fuel-injection technology with a 50-year-old Potvin blower setup, utilizing a DIY mentality that gave him the freedom to explore whatever options he could imagine.
This custom coupe is definitely unlike anything you have seen before. This one pretty much defies any form of categorization or description except for the simple name he gave it: “the coupe.” Sure, that makes sense. And while the coupe clearly takes its various points of inspiration from all over the automotive map, we feel fairly secure in calling it a hot rod.
Andrew says the coupe was entirely conceived, designed, and constructed around its GMC 6-71 blower attached directly to the front of the small-block Chevy V8. He located a $200 blower on eBay, “fresh off a dead earthmover,” as he puts it. He complicates the matter by adding fuel injection to an ancient technology. “The supercharger and the fuel injection required so much scratch work, building time, engineering and wiring that everything was just three times as complicated,” Andrew admits.
Then he reclearanced it, retimed it, and reversed its impeller rotation to accommodate direct (crankshaft) drive. Then he threw it on the floor of his shop and built the rest of the coupe around it, listening to the voices that only people like Andrew can hear. Andrew says there was only one other fixed design consideration: Making the car fully compliant with SCTA safety regs, because he knew he’d be taking it to Bonneville.
The cockpit is a mix of vintage goodies, smart thinking and pure enthusiasm. A simple – though surprisingly, not as sphincter shattering as you’d think – set of aluminum Kirkey Vintage bucket seats holds you in via Impact Race Product belts and half an inch of foam. What’s extremely appealing is the lack of buttons, dials, knobs, lights, bells and whistles. Just a few custom-made switches for the ignition sequence. The only digital indicators, an anomaly of sorts in this rather archaic cabin, is the Tel Tec II racing tachometer and the Daytona Sensors WEGO IV air-to-fuel ratio display.
These aren’t some show-and-no-go beauties. These things are
made to be driven. Hard. Thousands of street runs, hill climbs, oval tracks, road racing, Bonneville and miles later, the proof of the Coupe’s daily durability cannot be ignored.
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