1948 Mercury V-8
Model 89M Town Sedan
By Roger Lee Randles
MT. JULIET, Tenn. — Dog bites man. No big deal, right? Happens all the time. But if the story is man bites dog, we listen. Now that’s unusual, out of the norm. We’re interested to hear the facts.
Forty years down the road a man buys a car just like his first one and restores it to perfection as a tribute to and reminder of that first love, that first automobile in his life. Again, not an unusual tale; it happens all the time. But if a man still has that first car and restores it to a pristine condition nearly forty years after he originally bought it, well you just don’t hear that story everyday.
But here it is. Steve Meadows bought the cool-looking ’60 Impala pictured here in November of 1963 and drove it daily until October 1973, then he stored it until March 2004 when a frame-off restoration began. That restoration was completed and the Imp was driven for the first time in 36 years on December 23, 2009.
During the restoration process, Meadows had power windows added and a rather special option from the ’59-’60 Cadillacs — power vent windows. He also had all suspension parts — everything that unbolts from the frame he says — replaced with new parts. All of the original body bolts have been replaced with new ones made of polished stainless steel which really give the car a nice finishing touch when you look under the hood for example, or happen to get a glimpse of them in a wheel well. Every attention to detail has been taken to make this Impala a very special classic vehicle. Even the underside of the car has been treated in a special way — what may look to the casual observer like typical undercoating is actually the pickup truck bedliner known as Rhino Liner, which should protect this beauty from the bottom up for a very long time to come.
The beautiful Imp looks perfect in the DuPont Hot Hues Indigo Blast, which is one of the deepest, bluest blues we’ve ever seen. Meadows says he actually had to mix factory-packed colors to achieve the exact color he wanted, emphasizing that it is blue and that it doesn’t have any green in it. He worked from DuPont’s color charts and said that one color was too light, one too dark. “I started mixing it and it came to about $230 in materials to come up with a combination, taking their colors and pouring them out of factory containers, blending them all together and painting the car.”
And while we’re talking aesthetics, the 15-inch chrome-reverse wheels with baby moon disks add a nice touch to this Imp as well. While this gorgeous Impala may not be stock, it is certainly eye-candy in every respect, and Meadows assures us that it is “era correct” as far as the upgrades he’s had executed.
Although Meadows says that his prize possession was refurbished basically for his enjoyment — “It wasn’t made for car shows; it was made for me,” — it has the good looks that will always turn heads.
“I pulled it out in the driveway when we were driving it on the 23rd, and some people went by in an old antique Lincoln and they just stopped in the middle of the street and looked,” he admitted.
Meadows sent the speedometer/odometer combination to Michigan after the car was refurbished to have it refaced. “They sent it back and it was supposed to be set to zero all the way, and it had one-and-one-tenth miles on it when it came back. I didn’t complain about that. Now I’ve driven it 68 and 4-tenths miles — which is actually 67 and 3-tenths,” he said with a chuckle.
When Chevrolet introduced the Impala in 1958, it was a new, high-end, sporty trim package for Bel Air coupes and convertibles. This “first generation” Impala had unique features such as its six taillights which set it apart from the lower trim packages which had just four.
The “second generation” (’59-’60) proved that classic styling would continue to be a hallmark of the Impala and it became a separate model in 1959. Available now in two-door convertible, two-door coupe, two-door hardtop, four-door sedan and four-door hardtop versions, the Impala quickly became the hottest selling car in the Chevy lineup.
The Impala utilized body-on-frame construction, incorporating the “X” frame used on other Chevrolet models, as well as Cadillacs. The exception for the six-taillight styling was the 1959 model, which used the “teardrop” taillight shape as did all other Chevy models. For 1960, the styling was revised to be more conventional, with the trademark triple taillights reinstated. Those triple lights would remain consecutively through 1985.
In 1958 the Impala was the best seller of all the various Chevrolet models, and in 1960 Impala became the best-selling automobile from any manufacturer in the United States — a position that it held for the next decade. •
| Wheelbase | 119” |
| Length | 210.8” |
| Width | 80” |
| Height | 54” |
| Weight | 3,838 lbs. |
| Engine | 348 cid 8-cyl |
| Bore | 4.125” |
| Stroke | 3.25” |
| Compression | 11.25:1 |
| Horsepower | 335 @ 5,800 rpm |
| Carburetor | tri-power (three 2- bbl carbs) |
| Electrical | 12 volt |
| Tires / original | 7.50X14 4ply |
| Transmission | 4-spd floor mounted |
| Price / new | $2,704 |
| Owner | Steve Meadows |
— Home — ©2010 AutoGraphic Publishing Co.