Last year I found footage of what I believe to be this very car running…and the noise alone it makes is worth it. Could it be a cop car? Who knows. For all anyone knows, there was just a hot shoe that knew how to work the order sheet and somehow this car got pressed into service. Or maybe it’s an elegant fake of a patrol car. Frankly, who cares? It’s a finned Chevy with a W-motor that makes an absolutely eargasmic rumpity-rump noise wherever it goes. If you can’t get behind that, then we wish you well as you go check out whatever is running on Jalopnik.

The claim is that this Biscayne is a former patrol car, one of forty that were set up as such, and a quick visual once-over agrees with that plan: stripper post-body shell, damn near nothing in the way of options, basic poverty caps on blackwalls, and minimal brightwork. Another claim is that Zora Arkus-Duntov himself worked the engines over, taking the standard 348ci mill and thumping up the compression while adding in his own camshaft into the mix for good measure. Whether it’s a real cop unit or someone’s excellent attempt at recreating one can be left up to speculation, but there is one thing that needs to be addressed…how close this car comes to the theory behind Motion’s “Street Racer Special” Biscaynes of the 1960s. A Street Racer Special was a Biscayne with only the hot performance items added on. No gingerbread, no nada…it was 427 cubes in a light fullsize car that got down. In 1959 performance cars were kept quiet due to the fallout from the 1955 LeMans disaster, but somehow they were slipping out of the back doors. Imagine more Biscaynes like this one just somehow “appearing” on dealership lots for someone’s dad to drive when it came time to trade in the old jalopy…bet it’d give him a hell of a start!

This was “demure” for 1959…bat wing fins and all. For that reason alone, it’s worth the cost.

Mecum Auctions Harrisburg 2018: Lot S54.1 – 1959 Chevrolet Biscayne