I love this Impala and I don’t care that it has 4 ways to get in!!!!!!
By Angelo Van Bogart
Chevrolet built 497,048 four-door sedans in 1960. No one knows how many of those sedans were Impalas, Bel Airs or Biscaynes, but you can bet the farm that many went to rural America.
Determining how many 1960 Chevy sedans went to farmers is likewise impossible, but John Broucker isn’t concerned about that figure. What he’d really like to know is how many of those 1960 Impala sedans were equipped with a 348-cid V-8 and a four-speed manual transmission like his central Ohio sleeper ordered new by a farmer?
“I called General Motors and all they could tell me was how many were four-door sedans,” he said.
Chevrolet was not particular about the details of its production in this era, but Broucker’s car is certainly rare. Maybe even as rare as hen’s teeth. Broucker himself had a hard time believing the car’s combination when he first heard about the four-speed Impala sedan in 1980.
“The farmer that bought it new, I worked with his sister’s son, his nephew, and he said, ‘My uncle has a 348 four-speed,’ and when I [saw it], I said, ‘That’s a four-door.’ My buddy said it can’t be, it just can’t be, so I called the guy and I bought it.”
Even after buying the car from the original owner, and running into a mechanic who watched the car get unloaded at Progressive Chevrolet in 1960, Broucker sometimes has to defend what some people assume is a clone.
“Honestly, if I was going to clone a car, I wouldn’t clone a four-door ’60 Chevy,” he said.
That still begs the question: Why does a four-door 1960 Chevrolet Impala four-door sedan with a 250-hp Turbo-Thrust 348 and a four-speed with Posi-Traction even exist?
“Back then, if your buddy drove up to you in a four-door four-speed, you’d say, ‘You’re crazy,’” Broucker admits. “But he said he didn’t like the Impala (hardtop), it had the big back window, and he wanted a ‘fooler.’”
For the full fooler (a.k.a. “sleeper”) effect, the original owner even ran little hubcaps and blackwall tires to help the finned Impala fly under the radar. Aside from its performance options, the Impala is otherwise a typical farm sedan and generally lacks creature comforts.
“It doesn’t even have the rear-view mirror on the outside,” Broucker said. “It does have an AM radio, a heater, and the only thing that doesn’t work is the clock in the dash.”
With only 56,000 miles on the odometer, the rest of the Impala works as new, and Broucker said it remains largely original.
“It still has the original clutch,” he said. “I put front brakes and maybe a fan belt on and that’s about it. It has the original paint, original interior and original chrome. Sometimes, people look at the bumpers and say they’re a little wavy, but that’s they way it was. It even has the original generator, and the right rear tailpipe has a couple holes, but it’s the original exhaust.
“Behind all of the six tail lights, they have those little plastic cups on them. These are still on there. Any time anyone changed a light they threw them away.”
The unrestored Impala shows so well, it’s even placed second at the Stan Hywet car show in Akron, Ohio, against restored cars. Broucker believes the car’s excellent level of preservation is partly due to how the original owner stored the car.
“This farmer also worked at the railroad, and [he and his brothers] brought cabooses home and they made garages out of them,” he said. “I bet the thing was 3 feet off the ground and the wood floor helped preserve the car.”
When Broucker first saw the Impala, it was wedged in one of those cabooses.
“It was a real tight fit,” he said. “There was a pot belly stove in the caboose and I don’t know if he used the stove or not. They say the wood doesn’t sweat, it absorbs the moisture.”
The storage served the Impala well through 20 years and 50,000 miles with the original owner. Today, Broucker remains thrilled with the Impala’s condition. However, he hasn’t always found the car thrilling, which is why he’s only added about 6,000 miles to the odometer in his 32 years of ownership.
“Back then, I bought and sold a lot of cars, and for some reason I just held on to this,” he said. “I did think it was neat at first — I just thought it couldn’t be real, but it was. Honestly, I think I kind of lost interest and wondered, ‘Why did I buy a four-door?’ Then I would take it out and drive it and think, ‘This drives pretty nice.’ I was really happy with that.”
Many vehicles have come and gone from Broucker’s collection, but the Impala has been a mainstay. In fact, Broucker has pared his collection down to a 1969 Dodge Dart he races in the 1/8 mile and this oddly optioned Impala. That raises the question, would he ever race his Impala?
“I have [thought about it], but I might be embarrassed by it,” he said. “It has a lot of torque, but the point I am at, I don’t want to tear up the clutch.”
Instead, Broucker is content to blend into the car show landscape, making his Impala blend into the sea of hobby cars. For those collectors who enjoy the unusual, stumbling onto this rarity is like finding treasure. Maybe as exciting as finding that needle in the haystack.
Thought I’d share this. It’s amazing how many and the variety of US cars made in the 50’s and 60’s made it overseas. It’s also very interesting what they do with them. Check out these MOPARs in Sweden. Way Cool!!!
You can always tell a car guy by looking in his garage and seeing what he has in there. If you see a couple of cars, that’s could be your first clue. But when you see muscle cars from the 60’s and 70’s, and engines on pallets, car lifts, stickers from internet performance shops, and various parts on the shelves, then you know that garage isn’t the run-of-the-mill garage.
Looking at Anders Ohlin’s garage in Sweden lets you know that this guy is into cars and performance – particularly Mopar performance. His collection of Mopar muscle cars is enough to make you drool.
Anders collection is interesting, and he says that some of his cars are the only ones that he knows of in Sweden. He considers himself a fanatic, as do many of his friends. Just looking at the pictures in his garage and you can see that he likes to surround himself with performance.
Some of his cars include a 1958 DeSoto Fireflite with a 361 Wedge, a 1965 Dodge Coronet A990 Super Stock Clone with a race HEMI that he imported in 2010, a 1964 Dodge 440 that has a 426 Wedge with dual carbs, a 1962 Chrysler 300 Sport Coupe that appears to have a 413 with dual carbs, and also a 1964 Dodge 330 to round out the cars we know of.
You can check out the YouTube video and see him moving his 1964 Dodge 330 around the garage. It’s a very healthy sounding Mopar, and if the deep rumble of that exhaust doesn’t sound like music to your ears, then you need to turn your speakers up!
You know the feeling. When you JUST have to take ‘her’ out for a spin – no matter the condition.
You can’t see in this pic, but there’s no hood, no t-tops and lots of body work to be done….. but great looking rims and new meat (tires)…it was running a bit rough but still sounded good!!!
Got an unfinished project but still take it for a spin. Post up a note and a pic.
The 1932 Buick had a Ride Regulator. Yup. It was a manually controlled suspension adjustment system was by moving a six position lever on the steering column.
It also featured a button next to the clutch pedal would activate the vacuum-operated Wizard Control for clutch-less shifting.
I ran across on ton http://www.corvettereport.com and thought I pass it along. If only they made some of these!!! You got to check out the 1991 C4 body.
Hot rodder Shinoda teams up with Bill Mitchell and defined the “Corvette look.”
Perhaps it was “in the stars” that Larry Shinoda was in the right place at the right time. If you strictly look at Shinoda’s resume in 1956, you might ask, “How did this guy get in the front door?” As a young man, the only thing Larry ever graduated from was high school, Army boot camp, and the School of Hard Knocks. Twelve-year-old Larry had his life turned inside out when along with thousands of Japanese-Americans, he and his family were sent to interment camps for the duration of WW II. The experience had a profound effect on his personality. A self-professed “malcontent” Shinoda could be a little difficult to work with.
After his Army tour of duty in Korea, Shinoda attended Art Center School of Design in Los Angeles, but truly hated being there. He could see no purpose in taking the classes in design and the various art mediums, such as watercolor painting. He was a car guy/hot rodder and he wanted to draw and design cars! So he left Art Center without graduating and based strictly on his car illustrations, landed a job at Ford, then Studebaker/Packard. Just a year after starting his career, he landed a job as a designer at General Motors.
The rest is the stuff of legend. Street racing and blowing the doors off of Bill Mitchell’s souped up Buick and quickly being taken under Mitchell’s wing. Things like that happens, but rarely. There was obviously some chemistry between the two men, perhaps it was because both men could be brash and had strong opinions.
Shinoda got his first big break when Mitchell tapped the 28-year-old to translate the body design of the ‘57 Q-Corvette on to the mule chassis from Duntov’s aborted Corvette SS project. The finished car became Mitchell’s 1959 Stingray Racer, which formed the styling theme for the ‘63 Corvette. From there, Shinoda got one peach project after another. It’s worth noting that the design of the Stingray Racer is held in such high esteem that current Corvette chief designer, Tom Peters (C6 Corvette and late model Camaro designer) is on record stating that his ‘09 Corvette Stingray Concept (aka Transformers Corvette) was influenced by the ‘59 Stingray.
During his almost 13 years at GM, Larry designed numerous special Corvettes, Corvairs, and several race cars, as well as his usual duties working out the styling details of various production cars. Presented here are Larry Shinoda’s most important Corvette designs. Later this week, we’ll take a look at Larry’s very slick Corvairs, and race cars, including the body design for Pat Flaherty’s 1956 Indy 500-winning Watson-Offenhauser.– Scott
1959 Stingray Racer The 1959 Stingray Racer is still a stunningly beautiful car design. The idea of a “broad, flat top surface” was to create a reverse airfoil that would pull the car down. The problem was that the sharp leading edge was too high and at high speed, more air was knifing under the car rather than going over the car, causing a serious front lift problem. The production Sting Rays and even the Grand Sport Corvettes all had the same trouble. This could have been corrected with a slight forward rake, if the nose had drooped down a n inch or so, and a chin spoiled was added. The Grand Sport replica cars from Duntov Motors use these corrections and front end stays where it belongs at high speed – DOWN.
1963 Sting Ray Concept Art The road to fully worked out new car designs was littered with concept art – most of which was probably thrown away. Here we see a headlight treatment study. Sorting out the production car’s rotating hidden-headlight design was a brilliant but challenging project. Note the absence of hood lines and windshield wipers. It also looks like they were considering scoops on the back edge of the doors.
1961 Mako Shark I Showcar – AKA “The Corvette Shark”
With the basic Sting Ray design approved for production, Bill Mitchell had Shinoda design an exaggerated version for a teaser show car. Known today as the Mako Shark-I, the car’s original name was simply, “Corvette Shark.” 1961 was still the “Jet Age,” so the car was originally shown with a plexi bubble top. It was kind of “Jetsons” neat-looking, but would anyone really want one for their daily driver?
1963 4-Seater Sting Ray Split-Window Coupe
The XP-720 4-Seater Corvette Sting Ray was an exploration into the possibility of the Corvette competing with the much better-selling Ford Thunderbird. Ed Cole, head of the GM car and truck group, thought it was a pretty good idea. After all, GM is in the business of selling cars – LOTS of cars. Since the public bought 73,051 Thunderbirds in 1961, compared to 10, 939 Corvettes, it seemed like a no-brainer. The story goes that a tall executive got stuck in the back seat and needed quite a bit of help getting out. The 4-seater concept was quickly dropped. Good!
1963 Production Corvette Sting Ray Split-Window Coupe
Look at 1963 cars from America and Europe and there’s NOTHING like the Corvete Sting Ray. The split-window was one of Bill Mitchell’s pet design elements and was a one year deal. Although the design concept of a “split rear window” wasn’t new with the Sting Ray (the 1950 VW Beetle had a “split” rear window), the overall presentation of the Split-Window Coupe Sting Ray looked like NOTHING else.
1964 XP-819 Rear-Engine Corvette Engineering Study
The Corvair was the only production car to come out of Ed Cole’s ‘57 Q-Chevrolet initiative and was considered very exotic when it came out in 1960. But trouble quickly set in and it wasn’t just Ralph Nader’s doing. The early Corvairs were not good cars. But the “rear-engine” concept was very alluring to Chevy engineer Frank Winchell. Frank insisted that with the correct size tires the inherent oversteering problem could be corrected. Winchell envisioned a rear-engine Corvette and Zora Duntov said, “No!” To prove his point, Winchell had Shinoda design a pretty body to cover the big V8 engine hanging out behind the trans-axle. Upon seeing Shinoda’s rough full-size drawing, Duntov asked, “Where did you cheat?” Where he cheated was that there were no real rear bumpers or crash zone on the back end. The concept was quickly dropped. it was also discovered that the car did excellent wheelies!
1966 Running Mako Shark-II Showcar
Bill Mitchell verbalized the parameters of the design and Larry Shinoda and a small group of designers and stylists worked out the details. It was as if lightning had struck twice – first with the Sting Ray and a few years later with the Mako Shark-II. The exaggerated fender humps have become THE signature Corvette profile. A non-running full-size version was shown to GM’s management in ‘65 and received unanimous approval as the next Corvette. While the new body and interior designs were being worked out, a second “running” Mako Shark-II was built to keep the Corvette fans stoked. Almost 50 years later, the Mako Shark-II is still a jaw-dropper!
1991 Mears-Shinoda C4 Corvette Body Kit
Larry left GM in 1968, stayed at Ford for one year, then formed his own design studio where he worked on all kinds of automotive and non-automotive design projects. Corvette body kits and add-on parts became very popular though the ‘70s and ‘80s. Three-time Indy 500 winner, Rick Mears teamed up with Shinoda and businessman Jim Williams in 1991 to create and offer the Rick Mears Special Edition Corvette.
Arguably the cleanest full-body-kit ever offered for a C4 Corvete, the coupe version lowered the coefficient of drag on the car from .34 to .30. The complete kit cost approximately $5,200, plus $3,000 for installation, and around $1,000 for a new paint job. With a cost of just over 10 grand on top of a $32,455 new ‘91 Corvette, there weren’t many takers. But, it was a very nice design.
Shinoda C5 Sting Ray Concept
The all-new C5 1997 Corvette was released in the Fall of ‘96 and Larry Shinoda got right on it. Note the date on the rendering, “1-6-97.” Obviously, Larry wanted to see more “Sting Ray” in the new C5. If you’re a mid-year Corvette fan, Shinoda’s concept looks pretty good. Larry died the following November and to the best of my knowing, there was never an effort to make a full-body kit based on what may well have been Larry’s last Corvette design project. Any fiberglass fabricators out there that would like to take a shot at the Shinoda C5 Sting Ray???
Continuing with this series we’ll look at what Pontiac offered up in 1948 as a woody.
In a previous blog entry (Project Pontiac 1949 Silver Streak Delivery Van http://wp.me/pKHNM-Bx) I gave you a look at a Silver Streak owned by a co-worker.
1949 Silver Streak
Well one year earlier Pontiac offered the Silver Streak as a woody.
Side view...love the big fenders.
That is a lot of wood on that woody.
These were low production cars with most being build on the 6 cylinder chassis.
1948 Pontiac 6 cylinder power plant
These were the most commonly used power plants mated with an Automatic Hydra-Matic transmission. It spec’d out as follows:
Cubic Inch Horse power 1bbl carb
239.2
93 (68.45) @ 3400
Carter WA-1 (1)
A very limited were built with 8 cylinders engines. Interesting enough these 8 cylinders were called “Silver Steak”. It boosted the specs:
Cubic Inch Horse power 2 bbl carb
248.9 cu in (4,079 cc)
108.00 (79.5) @ 3700
Carter WCD 630 (2)
Total Pontiac production for that year was only 333,957 cars.
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