Yup, looks just like my dad’s.
My first car was a battered and rusty '63 Biscayne wagon, about as basic as you could get - 3-speed manual column shift without synchro, inline-6, crank windows, and no AC, PS, or PB. It did have an AM radio though. Yep, big steering wheel - many turns lock-to-lock.
Not mine, but when we visit relatives in the country we drive past these. I thought it was finally time to take some photos.
Agreed, I'd love to see them rescued.
I don't remember seeing any back in the day (I was in high school). Every two door pillar less coupe I ever saw was an Impala SS.
And as lowriders. Lowrider Magazine seemed always to have one of these in every issue. I saw more than a few dolled-up Impalas when I visited Albuquerque, and on Federal Avenue (Saturday night was "cruising night") in Denver when I lived there in '97-'01.
Read an article in the paper some years ago about the popularity of full-size Chevys in the middle-east. Apparently Kuwait was gaga over the '90 - '96 Impalas and Caprices. These were the last of the RWDs. There were exporters in the States making good money buying them up and reselling them there.
In '75, our grad class was raising money by doing various jobs, including putting on a car wash. This was in '75. I was washing a '67 Impala and noticed that there were 99K miles on the clock, which was a big deal. I asked the owner about it, and he said it still ran pretty well most days. I was impressed.
When I turned 16 I learned in my parents' 1959 Bel Air four-door hardtop, dark blue roof over sky blue, six-cylinder, two-speed auto with power nothing and a vacuum-tube AM radio, passing the written and driving tests first time. Parallel parking that beast the first time (three chances in the test) even surprsed me.
Well done!
I would guess the owner thinks they are worth $10K each because he saw a restored convertible version sell for $30,000 at auction. Offer the $1-2K they are worth, and he says he will restore them one day. This situation is repeated all over the country. Eventually either the cars are consumed by the earth or the owner dies and the relatives then scrap the cars.
