Classic Car Stories - My 1962 Chevrolet Impala SS

In early 1970, before graduating high school, I continued to drive a 1957 Chrysler New Yorker for a while which I kind of “inherited” after my dad bought another vehicle. The car had a hemi engine and I was satisfied with it. One night I stopped at the Clark gas station I worked at to visit for a while, staying an hour or two. I walked out to the car to leave, opening the door to a cloud of electrical smoke billowing out! The engine was not running as I had the keys in my hand. I raced to the front, opening the hood to disconnect the battery, which took a few minutes as I had to find a wrench to loosen the bolt on the terminal. It was way too late as a mass of electrical wiring had shorted out under the dash with the plastic coating melted off. Thankfully, a huge blaze and a call to the fire department was averted.

That meant my hemi Chrysler was toast as it would have been way too costly and time consuming to fix with well over 100,000 miles on the odometer. My dad came out, said “forget it” and towed me to Larry’s junkyard in Butler for my last drive in it. That put me in desperate need of a vehicle as it was winter and all I had was a Honda 160cc motorcycle for transportation. A few days later, my buddy, Ross called, telling me he had seen a nice 1962 Chevy Impala SS in a parking lot with a “For Sale” sign on it. I asked how much and he replied “$400”. Exactly how much I had! Well, I wasn’t a Chevy guy, but figured I’d go take a look at it. We went over and it was in great shape, had a 300hp 327 V-8 and factory 4-speed. I drove it around the block and the guy said he would take $375 for it. I then went home and got my dad to come tell me what he thought about it. He looked it over and said “It’s your money, buy it if you want it”.  

That was the first Chevrolet that I ever owned and have had quite a few of them since! First thing I did was install Cherry Bomb glass pack mufflers, Hurst shifter, the biggest wheels and tires I could stuff under the rear of it and had a lot of fun “breaking” it. My auto mechanic buddy Rich came over with some tuning tricks up his sleeve. He advanced the timing a couple degrees more than the spec factory setting and there was a very noticeable increase in power that I could feel. Able to get rubber hitting third gear, I was drag racing it out at the strip and on the street. One time, racing a guy in a 383 Roadrunner, he got a half length on me in 1rst and 2nd gear but I pulled up even to him in 3rd until we had to shut it down. That 300hp 327 ran strong all the way up to 5800rpm where I set the red-line on the tach as you could actually hear the weird engine noise as the valves began to float. For all the abuse that engine took, it never let me down.

There was an abandoned Army Disciplinary barracks compound and old Nike missile site near Hopkins and Florist in Milwaukee that still had some concrete paved roads in it. I had an absolute blast going over there at night and racing around those streets treating it like it was my own personal race track. I would be sliding sideways around the corners having a great old time beating on that car. 

The Impalas of that model year had two piece driveshafts between the transmission and differential with what they called a center support bearing in the middle with three total u-joints. I had to replace that center support bearing numerous times which was frustrating. A mechanic speculated that I probably twisted the suspension out of line as the cause of all the failures. I blew the transmission twice, clutch, two rear ends and several u-joints! Lying under that car in the back of the Clark gas station in January was no fun. It was about 5 degrees and I was freezing my butt off putting a differential in it.

All in all though I came of age as a driver in that car. I learned a lot of skills that helped me immensely later in life as a professional driver. Also learning a few hard lessons, I remember driving one night with Rich on the 41 freeway just northwest of Milwaukee in a snowstorm. Joyriding around, the roadway was snow covered and I was drifting the car sideways back and forth at about 65mph and no traffic. I was trying to impress a buddy with my driving skills and lost it, spinning the car around into a snowbank. The driver’s side had some body damage and a flat tire. While changing it out a county sheriff’s deputy drove up and chewed me out big time. He must have seen the see-saw tracks in the snow and figured out what I had done. I didn’t get a ticket but he ordered me off the freeway at the next exit.  

By the time I went to Army boot camp in 1971, there wasn’t much life remaining in that car. Having blown the 4-speed tranny twice, I couldn't afford another, so I replaced it with a junkyard 3-speed with a bad synchro in second gear! That's how I first learned to double clutch. My dad sold it for $20.00 after I left for Fort Polk. A lot of great memories in that car, one of my favorites and a great classic car story!

Other of my car story posts:
Classic Car Stories:1970 Pontiac GTO - Dick Hands me the Keys!
Classic Car Stories: My Buddy's 1968 Plymouth GTX
Classic Car Stories: My Hemi Chrysler
Classic Car Stories: My 1965 Buick GS400
Classic Car Stories: Mopar Man to Chevrolet
Classic Car Stories: My Second Corvette
Classic Car Stories: My First Corvette
Classic Car Stories: My 1993 Camaro Z28
Classic car Stories: My Three Camaros - One Good, One Bad and One Great!
Classic Car Stories: Mom's 1961 Plymouth Valiant

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