Sound Your Horn
Fond ’59 Chevrolet memories
Like Angelo Van Bogart, I am also a big fan of 1959 Chevrolets. As a 19-year-old college student in 1963, I purchased a 1959 Chevy Impala convertible off a used car lot in Dallas, Texas, for $1,200 without my father’s consent. It was white with a black top and black accent stripe and a red interior. It was one of the most beautiful cars I would ever own. It was very clean and was showing 43,000 miles (that was probably not correct as odometers were easily adjusted in those days). It had four accessories: a radio, a heater, a padded dash (that had already faded and cracked in the Texas sun) and whitewall tires. That’s right, it was a trusty 230-cid six-cylinder with a standard three-speed. No power steering on a 4,000-pound car is not for the frail. Top speed on a long, flat Texas straight-away was about 80 mph. But no matter, it was a super chick magnet. It was easily the flashiest car in my dorm parking lot.
I got rid of the rubber mats that were standard and added a new red carpet set. I stripped off the cracked padded dash and painted the metal dash red. I added spinner hubcaps
