Chevrolet Impala | Muscle Car Fan

Classic white vintage car with its hood open at a car show.

Chevrolet Impala 1961 “Double Bubble”

The 1961 Chevrolet Impala’s razor-thin C-pillar and vast curved rear glass made it the purest version of GM’s bubbletop roofline, built for a single, unrepeated model year before Chevrolet redesigned the car for 1962. It also happened to be the first year for both the Impala Super Sport package and the legendary 409 cubic inch big block, a combination that makes a documented SS 409 bubbletop one of the most sought-after Impalas of the entire era. Read on to find out what made 1961 the only year Chevrolet built it quite like this.

Chevrolet Impala 1962 Street Machine SEMA 2015

by Kiril

This 1962 Impala came to Jason Hill’s Lubbock, Texas shop already carrying a stalled build, a 502 big block from an owner who ran out of money before he ran out of ambition. Hill pulled the big-inch engine entirely and went a smarter direction, and the result earned a spot at SEMA 2015 after twelve straight years of builds from his shop. Read on to find out why less displacement turned out to be the right call.

A classic muscle car drifts on a racetrack at the Barn Find event.

Old Muscle Car Left for Dead – Wait Until You See What He Did to Bring it to Life!!

by Wes

This 1965 Chevrolet Impala had been sitting in a field, quietly rusting, before BigKleib34 stepped in to bring it back. What came out the other side wasn’t a numbers-matching restoration — it was a heavy, weathered full-size Chevy that one commenter clocked at an estimated 9.2-second quarter mile despite weighing over 4,100 pounds. See what it takes to turn a car left for dead into something that can still put a smile on your face.

A classic black vintage car with whitewall tires in a showroom.

Chevrolet Impala 1960 images

by Ross Mills

In 1960, half a million Americans bought a Chevrolet Impala, making it the best-selling car in the country that year. Most drove home with a modest six-cylinder or small V-8 — but buried in the order form sat a genuine big-block option most showroom shoppers never noticed. Five versions of the 348 cubic-inch engine, topped by a 335-horsepower tri-power variant, turned an ordinary family car into a legitimate sleeper. Read on to see why collectors hunt for that combination specifically.

Classic white Chevrolet Impala with black convertible top in a showroom.

Chevrolet Impala 1965 images

by Ross Mills

More than a million buyers drove home in a Chevrolet Impala during 1965 alone – a single-model-year record that’s never been broken. Behind that number sat an engine lineup ranging from a thrifty six-cylinder all the way up to a 425-horsepower 396 Turbo-Jet V8. The photos above, courtesy of Gateway Classic Cars, capture why this generation still turns heads at cruise nights today. Sales records aside, this was a genuinely well-designed car.

Classic red 1960s Buick car parked outdoors.

Chevrolet Impala 1968 SS 396

by Kiril

This numbers-matching 1968 Chevrolet Impala SS 396 runs the streets of Dallas with air conditioning, power steering, a 12-bolt rear end, bucket seats and an AM eight-track. Full-size performance was never as popular as the Chevelle or Camaro, which is exactly why a genuine SS 396 Impala with its original drivetrain has become so much harder to find. Read on for what the Super Sport package actually bought and how many were really built.

Chevrolet Impala 1967 images

by Ross Mills

The 1967 Chevrolet Impala SS pictured here now runs a 350-cubic-inch V8 and two-speed Powerglide automatic — a later swap, since Chevy didn’t offer the 350 in a full-size car until 1969 — wrapped in Chevy’s freshly redesigned Coke-bottle bodywork. It also carries newly mandated safety features like an energy-absorbing steering column and front shoulder straps, arriving the same year Detroit was forced to start engineering for survival, not just speed. Here’s what made this particular model year such a turning point for the Impala nameplate.

A shiny red classic car with chrome details displayed indoors.

Chevrolet Impala 1967

by Kiril

The fastback roofline on this 1967 Chevrolet Impala did not appear out of nowhere. Chevrolet borrowed the idea from a rival GM division’s flagship coupe, and the result reshaped the full-size Impala for the rest of the decade. Underneath that shape sat one of the widest engine ranges Chevrolet ever offered on a single body, running from a mild inline-six all the way to a 385-horsepower 427. Read on to find out just how far apart the mildest and wildest versions of the same car really were.

Chevrolet Impala 1958 Generations

by Ross Mills

The Chevrolet Impala carries a name borrowed from an African antelope and a backstory that started as a Corvette-inspired concept car nobody expected to reach production. From a 1956 Motorama prototype to becoming America’s best-selling car by 1965, the Impala’s rise wasn’t guaranteed at any step along the way. Read on to see how a styling sketch turned into one of the longest-running nameplates in Chevrolet history.

Classic red vintage car displayed indoors.

Chevrolet Impala 1964 – 427 roller 550HP 4-Speed Convertible

by Kiril

The badge on this convertible says 1964, but nothing under the hood corresponds to anything Chevrolet actually sold that year. A factory Impala buyer could climb as high as a 409, and that was considered serious. This car runs a built 427 on a full roller camshaft making a claimed 550 horsepower, backed by a four-speed that never appeared on any order sheet in this combination. Here is why that particular engine choice is a deliberate historical joke.

Classic cream-colored vintage car in a showroom.

Chevrolet Impala 1966 images

by Ross Mills

This gallery’s 327-cubic-inch Turbo-Fire V8 and Powerglide combination sits at the reliable middle of Chevrolet’s mid-1960s full-size lineup. But the real story is what happened to Impala sales the year this car was built, once Chevrolet spun its top trim off into a brand-new standalone model that stole the spotlight almost overnight.

Classic black muscle car parked on a rural road with hills.

Chevrolet Impala that defines “Muscle car”

by Kiril

Chevrolet built roughly 491,000 Impalas in 1961. Only 453 wore the new Super Sport badge, and just 142 of those got the 409. That combination — a full-size family sedan hiding an engine built for the drag strip — is why some historians point to this car, not a mid-size intermediate, as Detroit’s first real muscle car. Here is what the SS package included and how the 409 earned its reputation.

Chevrolet Impala 1965 – Amazing Customized Badass

by Kiril

A 1965 Impala never needed a stripe package to get attention — the pillarless hardtop roofline handled that on its own. But partway through the model year Chevrolet quietly replaced one of its most famous engines with something entirely new, and the switch reshaped the car’s character and its collector value. This customized example adds modern wheels and upgrades no factory buyer could option. Read on for what changed under the hood and how to spot an early ’65 from a late one.

Classic red 1962 Ford Galaxie in pristine condition.

Chevrolet Impala 1962 images

by Ross Mills

The 1962 Chevrolet Impala introduced the 409-cubic-inch V8 that inspired the Beach Boys’ hit song of the same name, sold in six different body styles that pushed total Impala production past 700,000 units, and paired its biggest engines exclusively with manual transmissions. Read on to find out why a silver convertible from that year stands out from its half-million siblings.

Chevrolet Impala 1966 Super Sport-the L72 engine option-427 with a 4-Speed

by Ross Mills

Chevrolet built about 120,000 Impala Super Sports for 1966, but only a sliver of those left the factory pairing the 425-horsepower L72 427 big block with a four-speed manual instead of the far more common automatic. It is a combination so rare that even dedicated Bow Tie historians cannot agree on an exact production count, hidden inside a car that looked like nothing more than a comfortable family cruiser. Read on to find out what made this pairing so scarce, and why so few original buyers dared to check that box.

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