Doesn’t everybody have an IndyCar or two in their garage, parked alongside a pink Pro Street Thunderbird? Welcome to Matt and Debbie Hay’s garage. If you are a card-carrying, veteran Car Craft reader and are well versed in Pro Street history, you know Matt and Debbie built the ’Bird at the height of Pro Street’s ascendency. It debuted at the 1988 Street Machine Nationals and, later, the pair sold the car and it traveled into obscurity. In 2013, Family Events brought the Street Machine Nationals back to the fairgrounds in Du Quoin, Illinois, and that reunion motivated Matt and Debbie to reacquire the T-bird. They returned with the resurrected ’Bird in 2014 to a great reception.
Matt has been running a thriving nostalgia motorsports business for nearly 20 years and includes IndyCars as one of his many passions. He buys either cars or bare tubs, refurbishes them, and finds buyers looking for something different. Matt’s business includes all kinds of motorsports nostalgia, which brings him in contact with many notable racers and enthusiasts. Our favorite Matt Hay story revolves around his purchase and cosmetic restoration (without the engine, unfortunately) of one of the two Carroll Shelby turbine cars that attempted to qualify at Indianapolis in 1968. That was the year after Andy Granatelli’s STP turbine car nearly won The Greatest Spectacle in Racing.
Hidden in the garage is Matt’s slingshot 1960s vintage dragster with its early Chrysler hemi block and heads and vintage blower. By the looks of things, its clear Matt and Debbie are still very much involved.
This Aussie Vineyards–sponsored Team Australia car was originally driven by now-Penske driver Will Power. The car is a 2006 Lola that was then powered by a Cosworth XFE 2.65L DOHC V8. These were 12,000-rpm, 700hp engines that are a challenge to drive. Matt worked with an Indianapolis-based team that installed a 1.2L Honda V4 motorcycle engine making around 170 hp at 10,000 rpm. The power is fed through a standard Lola six-speed sequential gearbox. This was a project Matt began to introduce potential owners to the sensation of driving an IndyCar. The intention is to offer a cost-effective way for someone to get into one of these cars and potentially add a better engine later. Matt made several laps at Phoenix International Raceway in it and said that, even down on power, it was mucho fun.The Budweiser car is a 1998 Swift chassis originally powered by a 2.65L Cosworth XD DOHC V8 making 800 hp at 13,000 rpm. That year, it was driven by Richie Hearn in the CART series for the Della Penna Motorsports team. Hearn’s best finish was fifth at Michigan that season. Matt purchased it without an engine and has since sold it.The green Geico-sponsored car is a 2011 Dallara–chassis, Honda-powered car driven by Tony Kannan that year. Kannan finished in Fourth Place at Indy that year. Like the Bud car, it was a roller and has since found a new home.Matt and Debbie originally built the T-Bird in 1988 and won the coveted Pro Street award that year. Perhaps its most distinctive feature is its front-mounted supercharger and DFI electronic fuel control, which was state-of-the-art in the late 1980s. The crank-centerline blower gave the car an extremely low-profile appearance that made it atypical when sitting next to the traditional tall-blower cars of the day.
