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The 1963 Impala SS looks like a full-size cruiser and, ordered correctly, was one of the fastest cars Chevrolet sold that year. The car in this Gateway Classic Cars gallery carries the rare factory dash-mounted tachometer, an option most buyers skipped and the one that tells you what the original owner intended. Read on for the engine that a pop song made famous and the aluminum trim that defines the model year.
This 1965 Chevy Nova SS wears a body Chevrolet never paired with a 406 cubic-inch V8, a Ford 9-inch rear end, or rack-and-pinion steering — all changes bolted on by a builder chasing quarter-mile performance over factory correctness. Sub-frame connectors, a trunk-mounted battery, and Mickey Thompson drag radials all point toward a car built to launch hard, not just look sharp at a cruise-in. RamblinAround walked through the full build with photos and receipts in hand at Fast Lane Classic Cars. Watch to see how far off the factory blueprint a serious Nova build can go.
1964 handed the humble Chevy II its first-ever V8 option, a 283 cubic inch small-block available in 195 or 220 horsepower tune, right as the brand-new Chevelle arrived to steal its thunder in the same showroom. Over 25,000 buyers chose the small-block Chevy II anyway, proving this overshadowed compact had more going for it than anyone chasing the flashier new mid-size ever gave it credit for.
Chevrolet built the 1957 Bel Air Sport Coupe hardtop for exactly one model year, and more than 166,000 buyers took one home. The car that launched an entire nostalgia industry hid a genuinely reworked platform under the chrome, plus an engine option almost nobody on the showroom floor knew to ask for. Read on to find out what separates the ordinary 1957 Bel Air from the one collectors chase today.
Pontiac sold a full-size performance coupe in 1967 that most American enthusiasts have never laid eyes on, and the biggest engine you could order in it did not come from Pontiac at all. The Parisienne Sport Coupe wore Pontiac sheet metal over Chevrolet mechanicals, a compromise born from Canadian trade economics that accidentally created one of the best-value big-block cruisers of the decade. Read on to find out what made it different, and why it still hides in plain sight.