chevelle

In the late 80's my brother bought a 4-door 1968 Chevelle Caprice Classic. It was that bright chevy sky blue with a dark blue interior. It was stock and had been meticulously maintained by one owner until the high school kid my brother bought it from bought it and beat the front end up in a fender bender somewhere in Paris Ky. The single-barrel Rochester- aspirated 307, 2sp Powerglide and steel wheels with hubcaps soon gave way to a full rebuild (the 307s had soft cams), a 4bbl, 350 Turbo trans, headers, glass-packs and a pieced-together set of vintage Cragar Rockets. The doghouse was replaced and never got out of primer. It was like a dog with a big black nose. We worked hard to straighten the cheese grate grill but thin aluminum never gets right once bent. The car had been garage kept and the original paint and chrome shined like new. The interior was flawless. The am radio was replaced with a Pioneer Supertuner II, a 50watt pioneer component amp mated to a fresh set of 120-watt Pioneer 6x9 speakers mounted in the rear deck. We cruised. We drank. We listened to music. There were girls, but my brothers were better at that than me and I was always the weirdo kid that just wanted to get stoned and cruise. Lots of stuff happened in that car. One night, we had all been out running around and had ended up back at the house-it was an odd night- a school night. We'd run Paris from one end to the other and there just wasn't much happening. We had all smoked a few joints and had been passing a 5th of George Dickel but hadn't really found the party we thought would happen. Chris parked the Chevelle in the front of the house and we just stayed in the car- passed the bottle, smoked another joint and listened to the stereo. We ducked when a car passed- not because we were scared someone would see us- just to keep our little room private. It WAS a room. A room on wheels. Right now I'm sitting in the back seat of my 72 Plymouth Valiant in my driveway drinking a beer and listening to a classic rock station out of Lexington- and thinking about the times that we had in that old car. And my brothers. When this thing is running right, we're going to get in some trouble.