Epic car stories sometimes begin with someone’s lead-footed Grandma who ordered and babied her beloved hot rod. Later in life, the elderly driver passes the torch to a lucky drooling teenager who either (A.) Continues a tradition as the family curator and occasionally stomps on it or (B.) wraps it around a tree a week later. This gold 1972 Chevrolet Chevelle Malibu near Boston, Massachusetts belonged to “some old lady”, according to the listing, and then passed through the hands of family members until being listed here on craigslist. It gained some updated parts along the way including a 377 cid (6.2L) stroker in place of the original 350 (5.7L) V8, but thankfully no one has wrapped it around a tree yet. You can write the next chapter of its legacy for $14,500, or $13,500 without the stroker and with the original 350 in pieces.

Seriously folks, take the extra 10 seconds to get the entire car in the picture. At least the pictures are shot in landscape orientation not selfie/portrait style. Nevertheless, a shiny Malibu with five-slots comes close to selling itself. A good friend of mine inherited his Grandma’s ’72 Malibu coupe back in the ’80s, blue paint and interior with a white vinyl roof. Decades later he still has it, that lucky dog!

Normally I’m not a fan of the all-black interior, but considering the original was “brown,” and I’m a huge Pittsburgh Steelers fan, I’m down with the black and gold on this Patriots Country (Massachusetts) muscle car. The interior offers little to complain about. The bench seat might be a slippery proposition when autocrossing this 400+ HP Chevy, but if your plans include mostly the occasional straight-line blast to smoke that Honda revving its little engine beside you, the data-friendly bench seat will do just fine.

Brilliantly basking in an almost heavenly light, the 377 (stroked 350) is shown before its installation. After accumulating about 200 miles to date, this mill should be past the chances of “infant mortality” and hopefully ready to provide years of prodigious thrust. How would you treat the old lady’s legacy?