If there's one thing Chicago seems to love doing, it's producing wicked cars that have a few tricks up their sleeves. iLL Garage has their tricked out 13.5 Silvia, while others drive mashup cars like the LS1 powered S13 owned by Matthew Youkhana. Sounds like a Corvette, looks like a Nissan, what's not to love, right?

Well, not always. There are plenty of people out there who absolutely despise the idea of a foreign car with a domestic engine, or vice versa. Sure, sometimes the swap can be advantageous, but to them it's unnatural. Now, I'm not one of those purists, though I can understand where they're coming from. To them, the challenge is all about how much power they can squeeze out of their stock box, even if that means making it not-so-stock anymore. What I think we can appreciate more, though, is the pursuit of speed, no matter what the costs. Sure, it's not too outrageous to drop an LS1 into any old street rod anymore, but what matters here is trying it for yourself, and being happy with it, which Matthew has accomplished. No purist can ever tell him that he hasn't got his dream car.

At any rate, crossovers have been a pretty hot topic ever since they first started, but at the same time, they still seem fairly rare. I think with the availability of engines and bodies to work with, people are going to start coming up with some pretty creative stuff. (Check out the Super Street forums here for an LS6 powered S15!) To all those owners whose cars are half-and-half, congratulations, and keep up the search for power.