If your least favorite part of a car project is the tear-down, this might be the right project for you! As you can see, this 1960 Chevrolet Impala Convertible has been completely disassembled, bead blasted and primed. It was supposedly a Texas car that was in a private collection for the past 20 years. It can be found for sale here on eBay with a current bid of over $12,000. Now located in Dade City, Florida, the car is ready for a dedicated new owner to put it back together. The listing has nearly 200 good quality photos, so you can get a great look at the project. If you want some inspiration on what this car could look like, check out this mild restoration from Barrett-Jackson or this wild resto-mod from Mecum. Now that you see the potential of this car, let’s check out some more details below.
Here you can see the interior bracing that was done. This is very important when putting a convertible on a rotisserie or chopping the top on a vehicle and this one looks like it was done pretty well. If it was mine, I’d probably add some more braces before cutting more of the floor for rust repair. You don’t want the body flexing once you start welding in patch panels. Speaking of rust repair, you can see quite a few pinholes and other areas that need to be addressed with fresh sheet metal.
The V8 engine looks pretty stock and the seller doesn’t provide any specifics as to the size or condition. Small block Chevy engines are a very reliable platform and are fairly inexpensive to re-build compared to some others. If this was my car, I’d probably opt for a crate engine instead of messing with the stock engine. Unless this is some sort of rare-optioned, matching-numbers car, a new crate engine would be awesome.
This car brings up an interesting question. Would you rather tear-down a car yourself so you can organize the parts the way you want or buy a car like this one that you can jump right into? Let us know your thoughts on completing someone else’s project.
Yeah, they come apart so easy, huh? Looks like someone is already underwater, and not even half done and they can’t finish their dream. Just another casualty of our bloated classic car market. Maybe it’s just the nature of a site like this, but am I the only one that sees a trend here? People bailing out of the old car hobby. I think people, EVERYDAY people, are realizing, there’s better places to spend $50g’s.
I’m afraid your right Howard, if your not a mechanic then you Don’t always know what your getting into. It a big commitment to restore a car I’ve working on mine as time will allow for 10 years. And when your getting close there are a hundred little details that eat up tons of time. It’s not always wise to completely disassemble a car it can be done in sections so your not overwhelmed by the size of the parts pile. I would not want to take this on sorting through someone else’s mess is not my idea of fun and he’s got way more of this car apart than needs to be. Believe it or not the tear down is the easy part, the repair and reassemble is the hard part. Good luck to the new owner of this fine jigsaw puzzle.
Sold for $15,000
Hope for the new owner’s sake that not too many parts have gone missing.
Reminds me of those AMT kits, I made dozens of them.
Anyone see the battery? Batteries not included?
Hmm looks like a basket case of missing parts.
List for ten grand and take your losses now..
I once bought a 66 thunderbird in pieces for 1/10th of the price and spent weekends putting a puzzle with missing pieces together.. A total pain in the bum…
But i got it back with patience…and researching what the heck is that thingamajig that looks odd 👀🤔
Reminds me of an Aero Smith song ..
“Over my head, over my head, over my head
Over my head, over my head, over my head
Is it too late, too far gone to fix this
Over my head, over my head, over my head
Over my head
Over my head
You take the simplest thing and always complicate it”
I did too Ikey, so what you have here is the
life size version. Can you imagine the size
of the box it came in? All kidding aside, if this car were mine, I’d build it to match the
one that my favorite uncle owned in the mid ’60s. His was Torch Red with a White
top and Red and Black interior. It ran a 283 V-8 backed by a Powerglide tranny.
He traded it in on a spankin’ new ’66
Chrysler Newport 2 door hardtop with a
440 (?) V-8 and Torqueflite auto tranny.
It’s been over 50 years now and I can still
recall to this day how both cars looked
when he owned them. The Newport was
classy, but the ragtop won hands down.
Just think of the young ladies I’d meet
with a car like this once it was finished!
I’ll never find out though, too much work
now, and nowhere to store it. Happy
Thanksgiving everyone!
Surprised this went so fast.
Guess seller was motivated and wife was withholding stuff 😁😂🤣
A lot harder to reassemble if you weren’t in on the disassemble in my experience
Why do a rotisserie on the body and put the stock motor (not rebuilt) back in!! Well it sold cheap enough that someone might get it back together!! Good luck!! You’ll need it!!!
Wonder how long it took him to set up for that photo, then put everything back. Must have took all day.
Thank you, it took me all day to unpack and lay everything out and another whole day just repacking and putting everything back into the car.
Car was relisted due to the highest bidder never contacting. Here is the new auction link,
https://www.ebay.com/itm/264554570415
My 2nd favorite year Impala, right behind a 65. When I was a kid, my grandmother had a 60 convertible, white with a black top & red interior. It was a 283-3 speed car. In 1970, my dad convinced her that she needed a new one since hers was now 10 years old, even though it had less than 50k miles on it. So she traded for a green on green 70 hardtop Impala. But she always missed that 60 model.
I would love to have this car. Finish is just like the one my grandmother had. A LS3 crate motor & Vintage Air would make it the perfect weekend cruiser or vacation car. But I have more projects now than I will probably ever finish. So adding another is out of the question.
great looking cars , i had 3 , 60 impala convertibles.
i still have the ruffest one of the 3 after 20 years . im building it right now , no resto queen just a cool ass beater satin black red tuck n roll interior 350 engine and th 350 trans .8″ and 10 inch corvette rally wheels . lowered a little with cut springs , no air ride ! i am doing everything my self even sewing the interior. it runs drives and stops for the first time in over 20 years.