I wanted to share this link because I was surprised at what Tom Pike does to some of the cars he modifies. We are talking 6-8 inches to a Challenger!!!!
– they re-attach the factory fuel door and add a longer filler neck
– for this particular car they shaved the door handles and blacked out the turn signals and side markers
To this car they added 10 1/2″ wide tires in the front and 13″ wide tires in the rear!! They also lowered the car with Hotchkis suspension with coilover shocks.
It’s beautiful:
Tommy Pike’s Customs
WOW!!!
Oh… and the wheel are custom-made by MHT Luxury Alloys. The wheels are 3 piece and took 3 months to create.
Another classic spotted in my local supermarket (does anyone actually use the word ‘supermarket” any more?).
This 1957 Chevy has all the chrome you might want. It appears to have fairly new paint. I love the wrap around windows and the exhaust exiting the rear bumper. (If I could figure out how to make that happen with my Mustang I would!!)
Of course I couldn’t hang around in the parking lot waiting for the owner, but would have loved to see the engine compartment.
You can tell the ’57’s a mile away.
Love bumper chrome and the wrap around windshield. Oh…that’s my grocery cart in the background.
Paint looked flawless on this car. Not labeled as a Bel Air or Impala and clearly not a ‘plan jane’ One Fifty.
Love the exhaust exit location on these cars!!
Chevy‘s standard engine for these cars was the 6 cylinder. The V8’s were considered a separate series and not an option. Chevy produced over 1.5 million cars in 1957, second only to Ford.
Have a really cool parking lot find? Drop me a note and we get it posted up.
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!
Have you even given this a thought? Nope, not me either.
But here’s why you should and why you shouldn’t go cheap.
Engine bearings have the dual function of reducing friction between a rotating part of the engine (the crankshaft) and the stationary part (the main caps and engine block) and supporting the crank.
Because of the stresses caused by the explosions inside the internal combustion engine, the bearing material must be extremely strong, so a durable metal is required.
Engine bearings are small and relatively inexpensive components of internal combustion engines however failure of an engine bearing commonly leads to serious reconditioning works of the engine including its disassembling, regrinding the crankshaft and replacing the bearings. Sound like fun? No. And we all know that it’s not cheap to rebuild, so let’s do it right and not cut corners in this area.
So what should you get? Well considering that there are all kind of ways to destroy your bearing, like dry starting (no oil coating) some of the following:
Yes it’s true bearing take a beating. Here if you go cheap, especially if you are racing, you go home.
So double up on the cash because quality bearings like Michigan 77 or Federal Mogul competition will cost you twice as much. Pay now or rebuild sooner.
It’s not that often that I get out to a car swap meet. Here in Arizona you are in for a hot time…tempature-wise, do to the lack of shade. Car parts so hot you’ve got to have oven mitts to handle ’em. But the are still fun.
Down the street at the local drag strip they had one this weekend and I thought I’d pass on a few of the gems they had for sale. There was a bit of a car show there as well.
You could pick-up some ‘Field Fresh’ projects like this coupe:
“Trailer Not Include”read the sign
Love the rear window
The floors are solid.
$3500 and the cob web are no extra charge.
Or this Pick-Up:
You could also find some project that the owner just couldn’t finish…some with some very extensive ‘restoration damage’ like tons of bondo holding the fender together.
This Chevy wasn’t the worst, but it had a lot of bondo.
This Dodge pickup wasn’t horrible. It would make a nice starter project.
This Plymouth Barracuda was pretty stripped down.
I actually think the owner had a lot of the parts laying on the ground for sale separately.
This ’65 Chevy is has been lowered and that’s about all.
Lot work left on this project.
Some cars did find new homes:
This Dodge found a new home.
This Imperial looks like it’s going to its new garage under its own power.
I love this car!!!!
Going to need some interior work. This one sported the push button shifting.
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