Except for the earliest examples, the Chevrolet Biscayne functioned as a lower-cost offering for buyers who wanted a full-size car but were on a budget or just didn’t care for all the bells and whistles. Chevy was able to keep the cost down by eliminating some of the interior and exterior trim found in their more expensive models, which also made the vehicle attractive for fleet use. Law enforcement agencies even took note of the Biscayne, including the Federal Bureau Of Investigation, who ordered this 1966 Chevrolet Biscayne with a 396 and a Police Package! If you’ve been looking for a sleeper-type sedan to take on as a project, this one may be for you, and it seems reasonably priced at $3,295. The car is located in Byron, California, about an hour east of Oakland, and can be spotted here on eBay. A big Barn Finds thank you goes out to reader Kevin, who sent in the great tip on this one.
The current owner says that he just acquired the Biscayne last year, and while he had originally thought about restoring it that’s probably not going to happen, so the car is now looking for a new home. The seller is upfront about saying that the Chevy needs a total restoration, and while it does need a lot of work at least it’s mostly complete and seems like some decent bones to start with. It’s believed to have been an Arizona car for most if not all of its life, with the rocker panels, door corners, lower front fenders, and rear window showing no signs of rust. The quarter panels are another story, which the seller thinks deteriorated because of a leaking trunk, but the good news is there’s an extra right quarter that’s included with the sale, so the next owner just needs to locate a left panel.
Toasted is the word that comes to mind when you look inside, as the hot Arizona sun has taken its toll on the interior. Probably just about everything in there is going to need some sort of attention, but one thing that looks salvageable is the police-certified speedometer, which has marks in 2 MPH increments as opposed to the 5 MPH markings found in the civilian cars. The floor pans are believed to be solid, at least from underneath, as the rubber floormat hasn’t been raised because it’s brittle and would crack if lifted.
It’s obviously been quite some time since that engine had any fluids flowing through it, and the seller says it was a previous owner who took the upper side of the motor apart. He has no idea why this was done, nor does he know the condition of the motor, transmission, or rear end. The car does come with a clear Arizona title, dated 1988, and if any of this has piqued your interest there’s also the option to make the seller a lower offer if you’d like to take it home. What are your thoughts on this 1966 Chevrolet Biscayne?
Well it’s going to be a job locating plane jane Biscayne parts. That rubber floor covering comes to mind first. Most likely has a 12 bolt out back, but that big block is a mess. But would be very cool restored. Probably not too many left.
I would like having a car with that kind of history and the price is right to restore or at least make it a nice driver again. Maybe the seller was trying to create a big block using the free valve technology that Koenigsegg uses on the new hypercar?
Cool that it has an FBI connection, but I would guess the restoration cost would most likely exceed the value of this barge.
How’d he get da valves out wid da heads on???
It takes a special tool.
I once removed a piston and rod from a SBC with out tearing the motor down. Of course, the hole in the side of the block made it easy to check the oil level. 🤣
HOUDINI bought it after the FBI was done with it.. That explains the valves…
” The floor pans are believed to be solid, at least from underneath, as the rubber floormat hasn’t been raised because it’s brittle and would crack if lifted.”
Yep, my biggest concern would be cracking the brittle floormat. That could kill the entire project.
Actually, it could. They are made of unobtainium and worth a fortune in good (not brittle) shape…and, no, the vinyl molded flooring you get from ACC is NOT the same. It sucks.
I don’t usually like whitewalls, but this car just looks so right on those 1″ or so white stripes.
I believe the rubber mat could possibly be recreated with a 3-D printer. That’s probably what you would need to do. I cannot see it being easy to find an OE one, new or used.
That would be very cool. There are zero viable replacements available.
Apparently there was a parts car, a 66 Impala 4-dr hardtop with the same color and 396 V-8 that was going to be used for parts if this restoration ever started. I saw the car several years ago and it was a mess, but worth restoring. The restoration never started and several other cars had to be removed from the property including myself. Parts are out there and Chevy has a catalog you can build from.
When we were restoring cars with brittle rubber mats that were complete, we would remove the seats and any surrounding interior trim, and then cover the entire mat with many applications of Armor-All, while covering the entire mat with paper towels, then plastic cover over the towels. This required multiple applications of Armor-All, keeping the mat well covered with liquid. If the mat is very rare and made of unobtanium, you should allow up to a year before the mat is flexible enough to remove. As we removed the mat to it’s temporary home during the car’s restoration, we also sprayed the underside with Armor-All.
We found it was best not to remove the mat from the car until a wooden storage support is fabricated [or an extra floor panel is available] to keep the mat from sagging and then splitting.
I went thru a lot of “test mats” to come up with this solution, as we tended to work on the more rare cars where replacement mats were simply not available. It does work, but can take a long time. Don’t rush the job, and don’t try to fold the mat during the move. Most of the time we cut a piece of plywood to slide under the mat, then took it out of the car on the plywood.
The last car I did this to was my 1948 Packard Super 8 convertible, I found a parts car with a mint Super 8 sedan front mat [they are the same]. We let it sit covered & soaked in Armor-all for almost 2 years, but it made the move without damage, and the Armor-All improved the mat’s look as well.
And FYI — the rubber mats sold thru JC Whitney and other mail-order car parts companies in the 1960s and 1970s are rarely exact replacement mats, some aren’t even close, even when marked as fitting that specific model. They never seem to look right once in place.
And try finding the material to recover that factory “heavy duty rear seat” and the “heavy duty front seats” as well as the “heavy duty floor mats” – all listed in the factory sales brochure.