My first Chevelle; the story continues

Below is the 396 in its first incarnation in the Chevelle. At this point the engine was equipped with a stock steel crankshaft, factory rods and standard bore factory cast pistons. The cam was a second-hand Crane CC290-NC solid lifter stick I picked up from a local racer who'd stepped up to a bigger bumpstick in his car. The heads were stock 702 oval port closed chamber castings that I pocket-ported and had rebuilt with new guides, springs and a stock valve job. Yes, I was on the cheap then. $3.50 an hour at the local gas station didn't provide many options when it came time to buy parts or machine work.

The intake was the stock cast iron Holley flanged unit that was installed from the factory on Steve's Chevelle. I topped it with a rebuilt 700 cfm double pumper, but only after finding out that the throttle bores in the intake were too small and wouldn't let the 700 open up completely. Another afternoon spent with a grinder took care of that issue.

The ignition was handled by a Mallory Unilite distributor and an Accell SuperCoil.

Of course, I had to top the mill with the obligatory (for the day, anyhow) Moroso chrome valve covers and Mr. Gasket velocity stack air cleaner.

Doesn't sound like much, does it? But for no more than what it was, it ran pretty well.

It wasn't much to look at, but it worked. The blue fenders were less-rusty replacements that I hadn't yet gotten in black primer before this pic was taken.

The above pic is from the only outing to the drags I ever made with this car. The 396 was still in it's first configuration, and the pass above was only my second pass ever down a dragstrip. The pass before this one resulted in a mid-14 second e.t. at only 90-something miles per hour. The miserable e.t was due to a severe lack of traction, and the low mph was due to the fact that I'd never been down a dragstrip before and didn't know where the finish line was! I let off when I crossed the first stripe, which was the first mph line. My friend's dad (who trailered me down there that day) showed me where the actual finish line was, and the second pass was notably more successful than the first one.

On the pass above, I feathered the gas trying not to spin the tires as badly as I had the first time, but I still couldn't get the car hooked until well into second gear. I no longer have the e.t. slip from this pass, but I remember it was a 13.2 at 107 miles per hour. Not too shabby all things considered. Yes, the bike whooped me.

I did go for a third attempt, but misfortune struck as I wound up spinning a rod bearing in the burnout box which ended my first-ever outing at the drags. Even so, I still had one of the best times of my life that day.

In case you're wondering where this pic was taken, it's at Kil-Kare Dragway in Xenia, Ohio. The pic was taken somewhere during the summer of 1983. The 396 was pulled and rebuilt a second time to repair the damage done by the spun rod bearing. The second rebuild saw the addition of forged 11-1 pistons, reconditioned rods with good bolts, and a switch from oval port heads to rectangular port units and a factory aluminum dual plane intake. Unfortunately I never got the car back to the track in that configuration, but the performance improvement was pretty dramatic to say the least.

In the pic below, a friend had mentioned to me that he had some film in his camera he wanted to get developed, but there were still 2 or 3 unused shots on the roll he didn't want to waste. As such, he asked me if I would entertain him with a quick burnout shot in front of his house so he could take a few pics. Being the good friend that I am, I naturally obliged.

It was around this time that the Chevelle's aesthetics (perhaps stated more accurately, the Chevelle's lack of aesthetics) finally started to get the best of me. It was ugly, but it was fast, and it was cool....but it was UGLY. Did I mention it was ugly?

So I started tearing the car apart with the intentions of rebuilding the suspension, and then to tackle the bodywork and paint. Big mistake on my part. What I failed to do was develop a PLAN before I began to tear the car apart, I just dove in head-first. It didn't take very long at all to blow the car completely apart. However, getting it back together again became the insurmountable task. I quickly ran out of time, patience, and most importantly, money.

It was then that I found myself forced to make the same decision countless other hot rodders have been forced to make over the years; it was time to get rid of it. I didn't necessarily want to get rid of it, but I knew there was no way I would be able to come up with the necessary funds to do the car right in any reasonable amount of time.

So I sold the car. I still kick myself in the a** for doing that.

I thought I'd left myself an option to possibly get the car back someday by selling it to a good friend who was (at the time) in a much better position to finish the car than I was. A deal was struck where if he ever decided to sell the car, I would get first shot at buying it back.

My friend got so far as to finish the front end rebuild and installed his own drivetrain in the car (mine was a bit more wild than he wanted). Any guesses as to what happened next?

Yep. He met a girl.

You can probably guess the rest, but in a nutshell, he soon decided that he wanted to get married, so he wanted to liquidate everything he had that was non-essential to raise funds for a down-payment on a house. Of course the Chevelle was the first thing to go up for sale. He told me his asking price, and remarkably enough I was in a position to buy the car back within a few weeks. Unfortunately he couldn't wait that long and sold the car to someone else just days before I was to have the funds to buy it back.

This would normally be the end for most similar stories, but this story takes an interesting twist here.

Soon after I'd purchased the car, I lost the title for it. I had to get a new duplicate title issued for the car so I could get plates for it once I had it running. Several years after my friend sold the car, I stumbled upon the original title I'd lost many years before. Since I had the VIN at my disposal again, I decided to see if I could track the car down. I called the local licence bureau and was informed that they weren't at liberty to divulge any information about the car. Figuring the pursuit a lost cause, I shelved the idea of locating the car again for several years. But in 2005 I decided to try once more as I had to call the DMV anyhow in regards to some other title issues.

Miracle of miracles, this time I struck pay dirt! I explained the situation to the exceptionally kind lady at the DMV, and at first she said she couldn't tell me anything about the car due to privacy laws. I asked her if she could at least tell me if the car was still registered, and she said it was, and that it was still here in Ohio. Then she told me it was regsitered to a used car dealership. I asked her if she could tell me the name of the dealership who had the car now since it wasn't technically a private party who owned it, and she said yes, she could.

You could've knocked me over with a feather at this point. A dream that had lasted nearly 20 years since I'd sold the car to my friend was on the verge of becoming a reality.

She gave me the name of the business who owned the car, and I looked up their contact information on the internet. Taking as VERY deep breath, I placed the call.

The "used car salesman" (key term there, if you get my drift) who owned the car was, in the kindest of terms, less than encouraging. The bodywork had been "done" and the car was a "driver", but I was told it had some pretty serious issues that still needed to be addressed. Then I inquired as to his asking price. I won't repeat the figure, but suffice it to say that going solely by his verbal description of the car in its current state, he was clearly suffering from a severe case of "eBay-itis."

Going WAY out on a limb, I asked him if he could send me a few pictures...just in case there might be any chance I would be willing to buy the car back for anything near his asking price. After reviewing the pictures he sent, I was forced to once again abandon my dream of once again owning my first Chevelle. I can only hope that whoever owns it today takes good care of it.

And so closes this chapter of my Chevelle saga.

Next up: Chevelle #2; "The race car with license plates"