My 1965 Chevy Chevelle “Malibu”
2-Door Wagon

(1965 production of the 2-Door wagon totaled 1668 and few remain)

I have been a “gear head” pretty much all my life.  I have had some cool cars (my opinion anyway), some not so cool cars and I have killed (its a fact!) some cars. One of my favorites was a 1964 Nova wagon.  It had a 327-300hp engine that was salvaged from the junk pile at Jack Douglass Chevrolet.  Its previous life was in a Corvette that had spun a bearing.  Turned out the bearing wasn’t all that spun and after a quick rebuild – just bearings and rings without a visit to the machine shop – it was up and running. Bucket seats, Muncie 4-speed, headers, aluminum intake, Holley 4-barrel and a duel point distributor from a Corvette all made for a great time in that car.  This odd fetish of mine, continuing to this day, has resulted in my owning (quite proudly) a 1965 Chevelle (300) wagon.  Chevrolet produced 1668 of these “long-roofs” and I doubt whether many survive today.  The purchase and subsequent rebuild is a really long and tedious story so for now I won’t bore you with the details.  Don’t miss the picture gallery for images from the car’s sale listing, its delivery, the work required to make it into a solid reliable driver and, did I say, a really cool car.  By the way – a huge thanks to Randy and all of the guys at Midwest Hot Rods – they rock!

DRIVE TRAIN

• GM Performance ZZ383 factory rated at 425hp / 449lb-ft torque with aluminum Fast-Burn 62cc heads fitted with 2.00″ intake / 1.55″ exhaust valves, 4.00″ bore and 3.80″ stroke, 9.6 to 1 compression, four-bolt main block with forged pistons, crank and rods, steel hydraulic roller camshaft .509″ / .528″ lift 222º / 230º duration and1.5 to 1 aluminum roller rocker arms.
• Hedman Hedders ceramic coated headers.
• Streets & Performance (S&P) chrome accessory drive system with chrome alternator and A/C compressor.
• GM chrome (S&P) Ramjet Electronic Port Fuel Injection managed by GM 1227730 (Z28) OBD1 ECM.
• GM polished  (S&P) distributor with Taylor blue spark plug wires.
• GM 700R4 4-speed automatic transmission, lockup torque converter with Derale heat sink transmission cooler.
• Polished aluminum raditor with dual electric fans.
• Flowmaster mufflers connected with 2.5″ exhaust.
• GM 12 Bolt 3:46 gear set with Richmond’s Powertrax traction (No-Slip) system.

BODY AND SUSPENSION

• Saginaw 700 variable ratio power steering box by Mullins.
• Wilwood 12″ brake rotors, 4-piston calipers and integral parking brake.
• Chrome power brake booster and master cylinder with stainless steel brake lines
• Painless Wiring 18-circuit wiring harness with all new sub-harnesses.
• Energy Suspension motor and transmission mounts.
• Global West tubular front and rear control arms and sway (1 ¼” front and rear 1″) bars.
• Global West “Del-a-lum” bushings.
• Classic Performance Products 2″ drop spindles.
• Edelbrock Inertia Active System (IAS) classic shocks.
• Moog coil springs.
• Budnik (17″ – 7″ front 17″ – 8″ rear) wheels and “Stinger” steering wheel.
• Pirelli “P” Zero (235 /50/17″ front 245/50/17″ rear) tires.

INTERIOR

• Vintage Air heating and air conditioning system.
• Lokar floor shifter.
• Original Parts Group gauge cluster with tachometer.
• Ididit chrome steering column with tilt, 4-way flashers and headlight dimmer.
• Power windows.
• Power tailgate window.
• Power (4-way) seat.
• Original Parts Group door panels.
• Dynamat Xtreame sound deadener and heat shield.
• Julianos 3-point OEM style shoulder and lap seat belts.
• Glide Engineering reclining bench seat with center arm rest.
• Shaved door handles with remote electric door release.
• PPG custom blue pearl.
• Ken Harrison AM/FM Cassette radio.

Picture Gallery

The images below are of the car from the day I first saw it listed for sale, its delivery to Chicago and some of the work being performed.  If you see a picture that is interesting, you can click the image to display a larger view.

From eBay listing – December 2007

From eBay listing

From eBay listing

From eBay listing

From eBay listing

Delivery – Midwest Hot Rods

It started – 10 below zero – Nice Chevelle too but it needed a jump.

Emerging

Emerging

It’s cold (5 below zero) I wanna go inside

Control arm / header interference

Trans cooler – Not real pretty

Global West suspension

Global West suspension

Global West suspension

Wilwood disc brakes 4-pistion caliper and 12″ rotors

Rust

Rust

New Painless wiring harness

Rear disc brakes

4-piston caliper

Journeyman (performed by the previous owners) metalwork – NOT!

New floor pans are stiched in

Old rusted floor with patches laid in

More rust holes.

Installing floor.

Trans cooler – hard plumbed.

Another view

Looking forward from rear.

Masked off for 3m undercoating.

Ramjet fuel injection, ECM (OBD1) from a 1992 Z28, bundle by Streets & Performance

The Ramjet TPI replaced the carb and was done over the winter of 2008-2009

Winter 2008-2009

Power (4-way) seat, added winter of 2008-2009. Now I can slide my wheelchair in and out of the backseat without removing the wheelchair wheels.

Winter 2008-2009

Spring 2009

TTS Power System’s Datamaster

This image is date from the ECM as collected and displayed by the Datamaster program. Since I grew up on carburetors, feeler gauges and continuity testers this is just amazing stuff.

Tilted Kilt Car Show – July 2009

Tilted Kilt Car Show – July 2009

Tilted Kilt Car Show – July 2009

Willow Springs Car Show – August 2009.

Don’t know what class or place. Could be for “Best Blue Car Owned by Guy in Wheelchair” award for all I know. They did have real judges with real criteria but I still find the whole thing amusing.

Downers Grove Car Show – September 2009 – “The Lil Girls” at the last show of the season in DG.

Tilted Kilt Car Show – September 2009

Tilted Kilt Car Show – June 13, 2010. My Long-Roof took the trophy for “Best 60’s Muscle”