William Durant, a wagon maker who had just acquired Buick, founded General Motors in 1908 as a holding company with the intent to purchase more automobile manufacturers (he got the idea for the name from General Electric). To celebrate its fiftieth anniversary, all the divisions got to build a new, special, extra-deluxe version of their top of the line car.
Chevrolet's anniversary car was an even higher-zoot version of their Bel Air that they dubbed the Impala.
Available as either a Sport Coupe or a convertible, the Impala was available with a variety of powerplants. The most vanilla was the 235 cubic inch Blue Flame six, the latest iteration of the by-then long in the tooth Chevy Stovebolt, rated at 145 SAE gross horsepower.
But why would you get a swoopy Impala with such a dull grocery-getter of a motor? Moving up the option list came three variations of the 283 Turbo Fire small block V-8: a single two-barrel carb version with 185 horsepower, a 230-horse 4-barrel, and the Ramjet fuel-injected 250 horsepower version. (The latter two were down a few ponies from the previous year because they now had 9.5:1 compression and hydraulic lifters to civilize them a bit.)
The real news, though, was the debut of the new Turbo Thrust 348 cubic inch big block V-8. In single four-barrel trim the 348 was rated at 250 horsepower, while the triple-two-barrel Super Turbo Thrust put out 280.
The Honey Beige ragtop in the photos was snapped in July of 2023 using a Canon EOS-1D Mark IV and an EF 24-105mm f/4L IS zoom lens.
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