As lawn ornaments go, it’s hard to beat a sharply dressed, nearly all-original big block Chevelle. By 1968, America’s classic muscle car phenomenon reached a rolling boil, and Chevy’s hot Chevelle SS represents one of the best and most popular examples of that craze. This 1968 Chevrolet Chevelle SS 396 in Hopewell Junction, New York needs little more than a new owner and a new lawn to decorate. After serving car show and weekend duty for five years, the claimed 72,000 mile sport coupe heads to auction. The listing here on eBay describes a mostly original SS with a never-removed drivetrain and a still-glossy 1988 respray in dashing Sequoia Green. Bidding on the “great” running hardtop has topped $28,000 without hitting the seller’s Reserve.
The phase “big block” gets loosely (and some say wrongly) applied to large displacement motors even when their lower cube siblings utilize the same engine block. Not so at Chevrolet! Pop the hood and Chevy fans will immediately register a pulse increase upon spying the rain gutter-sized valve covers of the Mark IV Big Block. While the 396 cubic inch (6.5L) mill powered dump trucks and school buses in its day, this potent specimen is one of two tire-shredding performance versions installed in the SS 396. Reading the brochures at ChevelleStuff, this car’s automatic transmission only came with the stronger 350 HP version.
There’s no missing the prominent “SS” script interrupting the full-width trim out back. This car’s “138…” VIN pins it as an SS according to the decoder at ChevelleStuff, and an early unit at that, the 2515th Chevelle assembled in Framingham, Massachusetts.
Only the dollar store steering wheel wrap and fuzzy dice obviously deviate from stock, and neither is likely to draw complaints, except in localities where the dice are considered an illegal vision obstruction. The sweet stirrup shifter brings space craft styling to every gear selection. Would you change anything on this mostly-original SS?
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