Street Machine Nationals draws thousands to Du Quoin Fairgrounds
DU QUOIN - One of the more talked about cars on display at the Street Machine Nationals Saturday was The Sorceress, a flex-fuel muscle car. The street-ready vehicle is capable of exceeding 300 mph and will be clocked at a competition later this year in Kansas.
Michael Heeren, who serves as marketing director for the Xcelerod company in Dubuque, Iowa, explained that the vehicle was originally a 1984 Hurst/Oldsmobile and that the owner - Rod Tschiggfrie - drove it back and forth to college. The body was later cut into pieces, parts were massaged and re-purposed for a new design to reach speeds upward of 300 mph - all while using everyday street fuel. Heeren said it is the first flex-fuel vehicle of its kind.
The car is covered in a carbon-fiber shell, is a V-8 configuration with twin turbo engine, has an all-chrome chassis and a 640-cubic-inch boat motor and exceeds 4,000 horsepower on methanol.