My first introduction to what a muscle car was came in 1992. Do you remember the big-ass JCPenny Christmas catalog that had everything from clothes to furniture, board games to appliances in it? Yeah…at that time I was in a foster home and the parents had asked me to go through the book and make a wish list. They were clear that they weren’t buying the exact thing from the catalog (damn!) but that it would give them an idea for when they went shopping. I understood, and went straight to pawing through the book. I quickly zeroed in on the three 1:12 scale model cars: a 1970 LS6 Chevelle SS, a 1969 GTO “The Judge”, and a third car which eludes my memory. I just thought that it’d be cool to have a giant-ass Hot Wheels that looked super-realistic to play with. I was told that they weren’t toys and weren’t meant to be played with roughly, that they would break. I was then told about that magical time period full of wicked Buicks, radical Mopars, thunderous Fords and even about the mental AMC products. And was given a couple issues of a musclecar-oriented magazine to check out, which I wouldn’t let go of.
If there was one truth to what I was told, it was that you can’t play with one of these cars roughly and not expect it to break. Spun bearings, blown-out rear axles, transmissions composed of five neutrals and a reverse that’s barely hanging on, I’ve seen it all. But mechanical carnage can be fixed. For this 1970 Chevelle things went beyond mechanical. This poor beast went for a roll that left no panel straight. It’s not horrible…it looks like it would lot-drive perfectly fine…but the amount of work that this A-body would need to bring it back to any kind of straight borders on the clinical. It’s a Malibu, not a legitimate Super Sport and certainly not the top-tier big-block cars. You’d love to just start pushing out the dents and sourcing new front sheetmetal. But looking at the forward roof, the windshield area…it breaks your heart.
Looks like the “Days of Thunder” #54….” Why don’t you bash in that last panel?” What a mess.
that car is still better than what that Canuck from ViceGripGarage is tying to build…..
Completely agree with you, he is wasting time and money on a POS death trap.
NAW, it’ll buff out
This nothing more then a $300 – 500 parts car
That car will do better than 3k at the sale. Guaranteed.