Projects 1961 Impala drop top B/B found in (pole) barn

Nice score Mark! This will be a great project for sure, knowing your attention to detail.
There's a nice '61 Impala in the town I live in, just saw it driving down the road yesterday. I always thought the '61 was one of the nicest of the late '50s-early '60s era. Subscribed!

 

A '61 Impala is one of my favorite cars. Make it a 348 drop-top and you have me green with envy. I would have paid that in a heartbeat for such a complete car.

 

A '61 Chev has been a bucket list car for me for decades. I think you got it cheap!

 

Pulled the F1 out of the garage for the 1st time in 1-1/2 years to make room for the Impala. Heard a bang but didn't figure it out. Drove to the end of street, turned around, parked out front. Walked into the garage and saw the pegboard chunk with some cords attached on the floor. Then it hit me, walked out to truck and an extension cord was hooked to the trailer hitch with a big wad of cord about 15 feet back.


Went to the DMV on Friday with a couple different 1959-1963 Oregon "Pacific Wonderland" plates not in that great of shape to see if I could get one registered. No problem. $166 for title transfer , VIN inspection, license sticker, special interest plate charge (no more license fees ever again) and if I ever find better condition plates, it's $11 to swap them. I even had a period correct Chevy dealership frame from a town close to me.



Gave the car a bath and found out all of the original glass is nice including the tinted shaded windshield. The crank-out wing windows do have some tiny bubbles along the back edge. Figured out the car had a complete repaint once in it's life too (bummer) but it was a professional job.


Cleaned out the car more and found an original Trico triangle glass bottle of windshield washer fluid, (there's a clip in the engine compartment for it) a new pair of front gas shocks, set of vertical rubber seals for the back windows, new trunk weatherstrip.

I found the filler valve for the rear air shocks and they still work. Also discovered it has 2 like new mufflers and all of the exhaust system looks solid,

Oh, the rally wheels won't be staying but I might have to try the old school American 5 spokes (gray with polished lip) off of my Nova wagon on it for size. They are 15x6 and 15x7. Probably look great on the there. The Impala did come with all 5 original wheels which are in good shape along with the hubcaps that polished up decent. Here's the new tire that was in the back seat. I mounted it up and tossed a cap on it.



Also found the center bar for the front grille guard under 4 different bumper jacks. I'm not sure if I have the correct jack though. Assembled the grille guard, dug out the grille with headlight surrounds, then gave everything a polish. (but not the jack)



3 of the 4 headlights are original T-3's with the triangle logo.

 

You did not pay too much for that car. Period. Almost a shame to blow it apart for paint.
The Impala accessory bumper guard is something that I love. It's those miniature bumper bullets.

 

Mark, I may have some T3's up in the attic from three old chev's that we parted out. If you want me to look for them let me know.

 

Good score. Not worth it? What's up? Did I miss that the world changed the year back to the 80s? Not in the Motor State, that's for sure. A bit over a year ago I was offered a 61Belair bubble (yes, I too call all the spt cpes in 61 a bubble top) that was an original B/B for $12K. A shell with new floors, legal paper, rolling on new suspension, nothing else. No interior, no trim mldgs, no grille, no radiator and no glass. "I already have one." I said. "Was yours a 409 car?" "Was this a 409 car?" was my reply. "He says it was. He has a couple of em." This thing was a rolling shell that was a bit better than mine, but mine won't take much to get there. Mine was born a 6 cyl and I could care less since it's going low n slow. It was sold a few weeks later so there must be some value to these cars be it HT or conv. A 348 too? Yer a lucky bastid, and mean that in the nicest way. Last thing, what's up with the gig in the middle of the grille guard? A light? Never seen such a thing.

 

It is a handle to open the hood latch. There is a cable hooked to it that attaches to the hood release lever. So you grab the little bowtie emblem and pull to open.

 

Congrats... That's a nice car...

 

Factory option?

 

Great car, I´d call it a survivor...It´s also my favourite color, autumn gold i think. My 62 is the same color. You scored a great car, I´d touch up the primered spot ans save as much of the original paint as possible, if it were mine. Have fun!

 

Very nice. Looks like you got quite a deal to me. Good luck with it.

 

I'm new to this era car. I know the guard is an option but haven't seen another one with the hood pull.

*EDIT* I Googled the grille guard and saw quite a few with the hood pull.

 

I got the interior cleaned out last weekend. Pulled the seats and carpet. The original carpet was under the "replacement" dirty gold stuff. Scrubbed the crap out of the interior and got a lot of junk off. There was a tire stored in the back seat for 20 years which left a mark on it that I can't get off. Too bad. Installed extra insulation and a Mylar heat barrier under the new carpet after I painted the entire floor with POR15.



CARPET GONE


BEFORE SCRUB


AFTER SCRUB AND CARPET INSTALL




BEFORE



AFTER



BEFORE


AFTER

 

The previous owner stopped by my shop to tell me he hadn't forgotten about the front bumper and he gave me one of these.

 

I remember your should I buy it thread. I'm glad you did. What a nice car to start with! Good floors too!

 

what did you use for cleaning the interior?

 

Awesome, I wish my 61 wagon was this nice

 

3 bucks at Walmart. I used 2 bottles.

 

Excellent car. Good job. I can't believe how well the interior is cleaning up.
Judging by the old Washington plate it would've been a Chelan county car. There's definitely worse (rustier) counties it could've been in.

 

The color looks to be Fawn Beige. The "bubble top" term used to mean '62 Bel-Air 2 dr hdtp, but since English is fluid and ever-changing, it now means anything that ine wants it to mean. In a similar vein, the flathead Ford was called simply the Ford V8 and not flathead until OHVs came out. My reproduction "California Bill's Ford Speed Manual" doesn't use term flathead, just Ford V8

 

IS THIS 61 NOT CONSIDERED A BUBBLE TOP?

 

I "grew up" in that town close to you, the first Corvette I ever saw was at Staytons' original Chevy dealership, Gene Teague Chevrolet when it was still in town, a couple blocks from my grade school.

 

I call those bubbletops, then again, I'm only 36 and both my X-frames have the later '62-'64 Impala style top with the fat C pillars....

 

OK let me clear up this Bubble Top stuff.
Here's the real McCoy.


and / or


BTW the B/B in the thread title stands for big block, not bubble butt.

The bubble top term was slang maybe starting in '62 to describe the difference between the new "opera" style roofline as seen on the white car below and the "hardtop" aka bubbletop roof on the gold hot rod. This was a GM hardtop roof used from 59-up. So when the bubbletop term starting being used, the 59-61 guys jumped on the bandwagon and it stuck.

I'm old but don't remember hearing it until the mid 70's? My buddy in high school had a '61 2dr but we called it Jeff's Impala. We always called them by the model: sedan or hardtop but also never considered 4 doors anything but parts cars.

As a side note when these cars were new, there were complaints about the greenhouse effect and many had the top of the back window tinted at the dealership. If you've ever seen a GM car of that era with a faded gold strip, that's it.

 

It is a bubble top to me. I have one and refer to it as "da bubble"

 

How's this one going? Any updates?

 

I went junkyarding at a local "old time" yard a couple weeks ago looking for a quarter panel and other knick-knack stuff including an air cleaner. A mid 60's Chevy 283 4bbl filter would have worked but I found this one on a 60 Pontiac. It's the same size and uses the same element as a factory Chev tri-power. It's derusted and painted now but no pics yet. Looks at home on the 348.





Here's a small block Chev compared to the '60 Pontiac. It's funny, I offered the old guy yard owner $40 before he saw it and he says OK. So, I go get it and bring to the office. He says "That looks more like a $50 air cleaner to me"... I agreed and paid him. Then we talked old cars for a while.



I'll be going back to the yard better equipped to pull parts. I spotted a few goodies.



I've been working very long hours lately. Have 3 cars going to the Forest Grove Concours d'Elegance on Sunday. All 3 need stuff and the the '57 F-code T-Bird will barely make the show. It's still being assembled.

The '31 Chrysler Dual Cowl was used for the concours advertising this year.
http://forestgroveconcours.org/



'57 Bird is one of 211 factory supercharged versions.
I should be driving it on a shakedown run tomorrow night.
This is an older picture so lots more is done.




The 3rd car is a Saleen S7 twin turbo.

 

Thanks for the update, the air filter seems to be a good deal even at the "upon further review..." pricing.