At age 67, the professional drag Racing and Street Rod Legend John Buttera passed away this morning.He built some of the most influential cars of the Late 70's and 1980's within the Southern California Street Rod and Custom car scene. He was a favorite of Gray Baskerville and Hot Rod magazine- he was featured often within it's pages.
John Buttera made a name for himself in the 60/70s building funny cars and dragsters for an elite group of customers. After tiring of this, he decided to build himself a low and fenderless hot rod coupe and almost overnight started the billet craze. He used Deuce Factory rails topped by a steel Coupe body chopped 51/2 inches. He fabricated his own independent front suspension using tubular A-arms and coil over shocks and added a Halibrand quickchange centre section matched to Jaguar driveshafts, then added Koni coil overs in a custom-built cradle, his own uprights and bearing carriers. Power came from a 340 cu. in. Plymouth topped with rare Weslake heads, Weber carbs and Billet valve covers. He later added his own design of billet machined wheel centres and started a revolution for such products.
December '79 HotRod Cover shows Buttera with his "High Tech" '32
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