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Bring An Engine: 1963 Chevrolet Impala

I received a lot of “you gotta be kidding me!” responses to this “only driven to car shows” 1964 Chevrolet Impala. In keeping in a consistent vein, I thought I would offer up this similar 1963 Impala for your review – it’s quite a treat too. This Chevy is located in Morganville, New Jersey and is available, here on eBay for a current bid of $5,100 with fifteen bids tendered as of this writing.

As with 1964, Chevrolet had a bang-up sales year in ’63 too, they must have knocked out about a zillion units. Well, not exactly, the Impala two-door hardtop, like our subject car, accounted for 399K – and that’s not counting an additional 119K SS copies. Finding a ’63 Impala is a cinch – finding a nice example or a coveted high-performance version is more of a challenge. This example, unfortunately, is all too common.

Having owned it for ten years, the seller has decided that too many projects are competing for his time, so his Chevy needs to find a new home. As you have probably noticed, the hood is missing but the seller claims to have it, along with its hinges. The body actually isn’t half bad. It’s straight, with most of its trim still in place, though it does have smatterings of surface rust evident in different places. As to whether any of it is rot-through in nature, it’s hard to say with certainty though the lower portion of the passenger-side quarter appears to be iffy. This looks like an outside car, so the underside i.e. frame, floors, etc. may be suspect too.

The most commonly optioned engine in ’63 was a 195 gross HP, 283 CI V8 and this Impala was no exception. “Was” is an important verb in this case as this Impala “was” powered at one time but the sounds of silence are all that emanates from the engine room these days. Interesting to see are the still attached headers competing with some vinage for under the hood real estate, perhaps this Impala’s estranged engine had seen a little massaging in its past. Originally equipped with a Powerglide automatic transmission, it is supposedly still available and included in the sale.

The interior looks about how one would expect, the bench seat appears to have been recovered in something that has decided to give it up – it’s hard to know for sure thanks to floormats, or whatever, are positioned mostly front and center. The carpet looks shot and/or ground- up but the instrument panel still shows well. The driver’s side door panel has clearly seen better days, don’t know about the passenger side piece.

Now for the elephant in the room, four bidders, have placed fifteen bids, good for $5,100 for this old roller. Oh, and there’s no title available…OK, so this Impala makes no claim of car show carousing but still, $5,100 (it started at $3,500) and likely climbing? Either things have really changed and this is the new normal, or there’s some serious dreaming going on here; which do you think it is?

Comments

  1. Avatar Rich

    Gotta be shill bidders on this. Now way this is 5k…. Just no way.

    Like 15
  2. Avatar Karen Bryan

    I believe this is what’s usually referred to these days as “magical thinking”.

    Like 2
  3. Avatar local_sheriff

    It immediately caught my attention, not because I haven’t seen a ’63 Chev before, but due to its firewall color that got me thinking this could be a Canuck ‘pala. The pic of its cowl tag is too blurr to tell though.

    I always thought for ’63 onwards only Canadian GM cars had firewall in body color while US equivalents wore semi gloss black. Maybe different practice between plants for what I know. The ‘pala in question looks to have a very untouched paintwork so it could be one of those proving an exception to the rule

    Like 1
  4. Avatar George Mattar

    Common car. Thousands left. 283 with a PG will not keep up with today’s idiots driving 95 mph on their way to Dunkin for a lousy cup of mud at $4. Pass. No title on a Jerzee car. Good luck in that Communist run state.

    Like 3
  5. Avatar Paulrmckenna

    For another 50k it will be worth 30k buy one at me sum 35 tops

    Like 1

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