Handsome 1969 Chevrolet Chevy Impala Custom SS in Blue & 427 Engine

A genuine, numbers-matching 1969 Chevrolet Impala Custom SS doesn’t show up often – especially one wrapped in LeMans Blue paint and packing a real 427. Owner Arnold Boris has kept this big-block full-size Chevy since 2007, and Lou Costabile’s Chicago-area feature captures a restoration so clean it looks factory-fresh. Viewers are already debating just how rare cars like this actually were. Find out what sets a real SS 427 apart from the badge-engineered pretenders.

Not every Impala that pulls up to a car show is what it claims to be — SS badges get bolted onto plain-Jane full-size Chevys more often than most buyers realize. So when Lou Costabile parked his camera in front of a LeMans Blue 1969 Chevrolet Impala Custom SS on the streets of Chicago’s Northwest Suburbs, the first question wasn’t how good it looked — it was whether the numbers underneath the sheet metal actually backed up the badge. Owner Arnold Boris has lived with this particular Impala since 2007, long enough to know exactly what he has. What he’s built, or rather preserved, looks like it rolled off the showroom floor yesterday. The real story is under the hood, and it’s rarer than most viewers expect.

A Full-Size Chevy That Refuses to Be Forgotten

Lou Costabile’s My Car Story has built its reputation filming real owners about real cars, and this episode-shot on 6/12/17 in the Northwest Suburbs of Chicago-follows that same formula with a 1969 Chevrolet Impala Custom SS finished in LeMans Blue. Full-size Super Sport Chevys rarely get the spotlight that goes to Camaros and Chevelles, but for a stretch in the late 1960s, Chevrolet let buyers order genuine big-block performance in a car built to haul a family of six. That combination-full-size family-hauler room with drag-strip muscle under the hood-is exactly what makes this Impala worth stopping for. The video walks around the car inch by inch, letting the LeMans Blue paint and factory-correct trim do the talking before the engine even fires. It’s a reminder that muscle car didn’t always mean small and light; sometimes it meant two tons of Bowtie steel with a 427 stuffed between the fenders, built for buyers who wanted both practicality and a stoplight advantage.

⚑ Featured Gear

Start Car Conversations →

← Prev Next →

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Arnold Boris and a Decade With One Blue Impala

Owner Arnold Boris has held onto this Impala since 2007, which by 2017-when Costabile filmed the feature-already made him a long-term steward rather than a flipper chasing a quick sale. That kind of ownership tenure matters in the collector world, because it usually means a car has been sorted, sourced for correct parts, and driven enough to work out the kinks rather than trailered to shows and left alone. Boris clearly knows this Impala’s history cold, and that confidence shows in how the car presents itself: panel gaps, trim, and paint that read as original-spec rather than restored to what looks close enough. A decade-plus of ownership also means Boris has likely chased down the finer details other owners skip-correct date-coded components, factory-style hardware, the small stuff that separates a nice driver from a car judges actually stop to inspect. Viewers watching the walk-around get the benefit of that patience in every frame.

Why Genuine Matters More Than SS

The description is emphatic on one point: this is a real, non-clone SS 427 Impala, not a car that picked up SS badges and a big-block somewhere along the way. That distinction matters enormously in the full-size Chevy world, where the SS package was optional, comparatively low-volume, and easy to fake decades later with reproduction emblems and a period-correct engine swap. A genuine SS 427 carries factory build-sheet documentation, the correct RPO codes, and details that a casual clone builder either can’t replicate or doesn’t bother with. For collectors and appraisers, numbers-matching and documented original aren’t just bragging rights-they’re the difference between a car worth driving for fun and one worth insuring as a genuine piece of Chevrolet performance history. Costabile’s feature leans into that authenticity angle, treating the Impala less like a restomod curiosity and more like a documented survivor of Chevrolet’s brief window of full-size big-block performance.

The 427 Under LeMans Blue Steel

Full-size Chevys with the 427 were never common, and the mid-to-late 1960s window when Chevrolet offered that engine in Impalas and Caprices produced far fewer cars than the equivalent Camaro or Chevelle big-block builds. One longtime enthusiast in the comments recalled that most 427-equipped full-size Chevys from that broader era carried the hydraulic-lifter L36 rated at 390 horsepower, with a smaller share stepping up to the solid-lifter L72 and its 425-though that recollection was offered as personal memory of the era rather than a documented figure specific to this 1969 SS, and Chevrolet’s own books settle the rest: just 2,455 Impala SS 427s were built for 1969, the last model year the Z24 package existed at all. What is clear from the video is the sound: viewers repeatedly single out the exhaust note as one of the highlights of the whole feature, a deep, uneven idle that gives away the big-block underneath before Boris ever pops the hood.

Missing Pieces: Hideaway Headlights and Factory Gauges

Not every comment on the video was pure praise. At least one viewer noted the car doesn’t currently run its hideaway headlight system or the factory gauge cluster, two details that 69 Impala SS purists tend to care about deeply. Hidden headlights were a signature styling touch on GM’s full-size flagship trims for several years running, and losing that functionality-whether from age, a prior repair, or a running change made somewhere in the car’s history-takes a little shine off an otherwise spot-on restoration. Likewise, factory gauges, as opposed to later aftermarket replacements some owners install for reliability, are a detail judges and purists notice immediately. None of this diminishes the car’s authenticity as a genuine SS 427, but it’s a useful reminder that even a stellar restoration is rarely 100 percent factory-original down to every mechanism. For Boris or a future owner, both issues represent a known, bounded project rather than a mystery.

Full-Size Muscle’s Forgotten Rivals

When Chevrolet built the Impala SS 427, it wasn’t operating in a vacuum. Ford answered with big-block Galaxie 500s and XLs, Plymouth countered with the Fury and its 440-cubic-inch options, Pontiac offered the Catalina 2+2 and Bonneville with big-inch power, and Dodge had the Polara and Monaco chasing the same buyer. These full-size performance cars are often overshadowed today by their smaller, lighter mid-size and pony-car siblings, but in period they represented a real segment: buyers who wanted a car that could carry the family to church on Sunday and embarrass a Pontiac GTO off the line on Monday. Survivor examples from this full-size big-block class are considerably rarer today than comparable Chevelles or Mustangs simply because fewer were built and fewer were preserved-most were used up as daily drivers and scrapped long before anyone thought to save them. That scarcity is part of why a documented, non-clone SS 427 like Boris’s draws so much attention now.

What the Comments Section Remembers

The response to Costabile’s feature leaned heavily nostalgic. Multiple commenters shared memories of family-owned big-block full-size Chevys from the 1960s and 70s-Impalas, Caprices, Bel Airs-cars that were often the family workhorse rather than a weekend toy. Several viewers went out of their way to call the 1969 Impala one of the best-looking full-size Chevys of the era, pointing to its clean roofline and restrained trim compared to the more ornate late-60s Caprice. That kind of generational memory is common on My Car Story features, where the comment section often turns into an informal reunion of people who grew up around cars just like the one on screen. It’s a reminder that cars like this Impala weren’t just performance statements when new-they were the family car for a lot of households, which is part of why survivors like Boris’s generate such a personal, emotional response from viewers decades later.

A Restoration Verdict: As-New, Not Over-Restored

Costabile’s own read on the car in the video is that the restoration looks like it just came off the showroom floor-high praise from a host who’s filmed hundreds of owner cars across the Chicago area. For collectors, that showroom-fresh presentation, paired with genuine SS 427 documentation and a stable, long-term owner in Boris, adds up to a car that sits near the top of the full-size Chevy hierarchy. Clean, honest, non-clone big-block Impalas from 1969 rarely trade hands, and when they do, buyers pay a real premium over small-block or six-cylinder Impala SS cars of the same year. Whether Boris ever sells this Impala or keeps it another decade, the video stands as a useful reference point for what a correctly done, well-sorted example should look like-right down to the small, honest gaps like the missing hideaway headlights that even a great restoration can leave on the to-do list.

Catch the full video above. Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Republished by Blog Post Promoter

Related posts:

1970 Plymouth ‘Cuda Convertible in Blue & 440 Engine Dodge Challenger 1970 R/T Convertible 383 4 Speed in Blue The COPO Camaro’s SEMA Legacy: Chevy’s Drag-Strip-Only Secret Weapon American V8 Muscle Cars – Sights and Sounds! Ford Mustang 1968 Ford Mustang 1969 Mach 1 351W Fastback Porsche 550 Spyder – Great Exhaust Sound Chevrolet Impala 1967 SS Chevrolet Camaro 1971 Mercury Cougar 1969 “Black Cat”