Chevy High Performance – November 2019

68 CHEVY HIGH PERFORMANCE II NOVEMBER 2019

★ Greetings Chevy High Performance readers, and welcome

to the debut installment of Bashed Bowties. Each month this

column will present images and stories of rare, special, unusual,

and shocking Chevrolet discoveries found in junkyards all over

the country by your author Steve Magnante.

Big-Block Chevelles – Concours of Confusion

BASHED BOWTIES

TEXT & PHOTOS: Steve Magnante

✶ This stripped relic is 1 of 72,272 SS396s built in 1966 to defend Bowtie honor in the supercar sweepstakes. Of the total, 44,362 got the base 325-horsepower

L35, 24,811 got the 360-horsepower L34, and 3,099 came with the 375-horsepower L78. The L35 and L34 were pretty quick but needed headers and induction

upgrades to run high 13s. The L78’s baked-in 11:1 compression; big valve, big port heads; aluminum intake; and fat Holley wasn’t afraid of anything short of a Street

Hemi or 427 Sting Ray. Twelves were headers, a sharp tune, and a set of slicks away.

we’re in Shelby, North Carolina,

at Sundell Auto Specialties

(704.434.6759) taking a look at

Chevy’s foot soldier of the supercar

’60s: the Chevelle SS396. But don’t

be led astray by the Concours. Read

Readers of Car Craft magazine will the captions and you’ll understand.

recognize the format—and author—

from CC’s monthly Junkyard Crawl

column, which has been active for over

a decade. Naturally, here in Chevy High

Performance we’ll restrict our coverage

strictly to Chevrolet products.

And while we usually share

contact information for the junkyards

we visit (when appropriate), Bashed

Bowties is not a dating service. It’ll

be up to you to discover whether

featured vehicles are for sale or not.

And finally, for those Chevy High

Performance readers who subscribe

to MotorTrend on Demand or watch

MotorTrend TV, be sure to tune

in to Roadkill’s Junkyard Gold.

That’s where we bring the junkyard

discovery process to life with moving

pictures and sound in a half-hour

formatted television show that’s

made fresh every month, just for you.

In this inaugural Bashed Bowties,

Steve Magnante has been a full-

time automotive journalist since

1991 and is the author of several

books on junkyards, building altered

wheelbase match-race replicas, and

muscle car trivia. He is a TV vehicle

commentator for the Barrett-Jackson

collector car auctions and is the host

of Roadkill’s Junkyard Gold, both on

MotorTrend TV.