awww cool its one of those mini-mobiles! they had a 57' like that for sale near my house awhile back.
Thanks, I got a lot of compliments on that car and always enjoyed driving it. My grandsons used to call it "Pop's noisy car" and loved to go cruising with me. As much as I liked 58's, I never saw a lot of grille options that interested me other than the original. My 54 grille idea worked out better than I expected and gave my car the simple mild custom look I was going for. I have since sold the car and believe it may still be near Rome New York.
468 480HP RHS crate motor, 3.73 gears, built 400 with a 2500 stall, 830 Holley and Hooker Super Comps, M/T 9x28 slicks all installed in an O/T 69 Chev musclecar. 1st pass was 12.70 @ around 108. Once the tire got "seasoned" and I had the launch figured out we were getting 12.40s @ 111, and a best of 12.38 @ 112. On 'juice' it went 11.70 @ 118 shootin ducks at the top of 2nd gear due to a cold bottle. The car was about 3800# at the starting line with driver/fuel. I totally buy the 1/2 mile gig if that's true, but 1/4mi? I'd rather just love the car for how it looks, how it screams 60s kool. It's like that super hot girl that everyone thinks is some sort of genius or prodigy. Who cares what she knows as long as she looks like she does or knows how to, uh, well...
Way cool '58. As far as the 116, well it IS a magazine article...predecessor to the internet, where we KNOW everything's true... It just stated AT the drags, no mention of quarter mile. Half mile sounds feasible, full mile no problem, out of a B-52, absolutely!
Thanks Ryan, awesome story as always. In the realm of "think about that shit" take a look at this: ...The Ramchargers, a famed drag racing group, worked on the engines, and in 1963, Ramcharger Herman Mozer piloted a Max Wedge to a 12.22-second time at 116.73 mph at the U.S. Nationals. How about lining a up in a Ramcharger and running door to door with damn thing! Crazy.
I cannot vouch for the 116 mph drag time but that car was a head turner where ever it went and could frequently be seen on Fri or Sat nights in the early 60's at Bob's Big Boy (one of Dales cruise spots) on Whittier blvd in Whittier, CA where I grew up. Everything on it was either candy apple red, white tuck'n roll, or chrome. . . a stunning car in it's day!
I remember Bob's on Whittier. My sister worked there for awhile. It's a shame that it got demolished. I also remember the barricade on the side street next to Bobs to keep the cruisers out of the neighborhood.
If that's the engine in the picture then I'm amazed! The second worst intake you could ever put on a 409 would be the 3 deuce intake. That also means he had small port heads on a 409. The higher horse 409's in the day had large port heads and you couldn't run a 3 deuce intake with those high horse heads. I'm totally surprised that it says 460 horsepower and not 360 hp. It does say that the heads were worked but still it would be like breathing through a straw. The 3x2 and small port heads were fine for a 348 but Chevy dumped the 3x2 when the 409 came out.
I thought what you said was interesting in regards to the advertised horsepower and whatnot. I'm not super familiar with W motors so I did some digging. What I found everyone might think is neat or that I'm just shooting into the dark. You're absolutely right in thinking that someone would be an idiot for dumping money into a new 409 and then slapping 348 heads and intake on it. That'd be like (to step into my own field of knowledge) taking a 292 or 312 ford with ecz-g heads and slapping on some 239 heads. It just makes no sense. However, I don't think that happened here. I think what this guy did was mill off the top of a 2x4 intake and fab up his own 3x2. And I think I may have found the intake. http://www.ebay.com/itm/409-Lg-Port-3x2-Tripower-Big-Block-Chevy-Aluminum-Intake-Manifold-B-B-C-/191042170983?_trksid=p2054897.l4275 Again, I don't know much of anything about W motors or BBCs in general but if you look at this intake, and a standard 348 chevy tripower and the engine in this '58 impala you'll see some of the similar stuff going on. The placement of the carbs is off compared to a standard 348 intake (atleast from my nearly blind eyes.) Not a whole lot more to offer, I just think it could be weird that the intake from that car (unless this was common practice or I'm completely wrong in my looking) would show up on ebay.
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