56 SUPER CHEVY SEPTEMBER^2019“I’d never taken anything like this
on before. It was my intention to do
the whole thing. We tore it all down,
I got a rotisserie to mount the body,
and ordered the rolling chassis from
Schwartz Performance in Illinois. It
kinda sat for a while because I was so
busy with work and everything, but
one day I realized I wasn’t ever going
to get this done. I just wasn’t making
any headway,” he explains.
That’s when he started looking for
a shop to work with. After an extensive
search, Mike McLin and the team at
The RestoMod Store took over the
project, and did a bang-up job executing
David’s vision.
He had simple guidance, “I wanted
it to be a really cool one-of-a-kind
vehicle, but I didn’t want to make it so
different that you couldn’t tell it was a
’67 Chevelle SS.”
Although he reused the low-mile
ZZ502 engine and a couple of the other
pieces, which were on the car when he
acquired it, everything else—including
the G-Machine chassis from Schwartz—
is brand-new and represents an excel-
lent upgrade from the running gear a
’67 Chevelle would have worn on its
original delivery date.
Behind the big-block engine, the
powertrain consists of a TREMEC TKO
five-speed manual transmission, a cus-
tom driveshaft from Inland Truck Parts,
and a Schwartz Performance-assembled
Moser 9-inch rearend housing filled with
a limited-slip differential and 4.11 gearset.
The A-body G-Machine chassis from
Schwartz Performance takes the classic
lines of the Chevelle (which, in this
humble author’s opinion, are some of
the cleanest of the muscle car era) and
gives them a stout-performing package
underneath. In cooperation with the
18-inch Boze Alloys Intake wheels and
grippy tires, the Chevelle now handles
and performs like a modern muscle car.
The G-Machine setup—200-percent
stiffer than the OE frame—is ideal forcorrecting the Flexi Flyer-esque ride
quality and performance of the original
’60’s-era chassis. It combines drop spin-
dles with improved geometry, RideTech
adjustable coilover shocks, and tubular
A-arms to provide exceptional on-road
and on-track performance. In the rear,
RideTech’s airbag suspension matches
with a set of the company’s shocks and
the Schwartz Performance four-link
arrangement to provide excellent
chassis control. Wilwood brakes are at
all four corners and are a huge step up
from the factory 11-inch front disc/rear
drum configuration that was on the car
in 1967.
Once the performance aspect was
sorted out, two parts of the build in
particular were extremely important
to David: the colors used on the car’s
flanks and those used in the interior.
With his guidance, The RestoMod
Store replaced the factory gauges with
a Dakota Digital VHX Series panel,then built a custom console and outfit-
ted it with a full Kenwood audio system.
They also covered the interior surfaces
in a mixture of sepia and peat-toned
Ultraleather. A dark briar brown cut-pile
carpet finishes it off.
David went back and forth with the
RestoMod guys trying to pick out the
perfect shade of paint. It took about
six weeks of going back and forth with
custom colors and sample panels sprayed
before he finally made his choice. David
calls this custom exterior color Aubergine,
the British word for eggplant.
“I wanted it so that no matter what
light you looked at it or what direction
you looked at it, you couldn’t tell what
color it was if you were standing back. It
looks black, or purple, but then when you
get up to it you can really see the color.
I wanted it to look different colors from
different directions,” he says.
We think they nailed it—and everyone
who sees the car agrees.RELIVING MEMORIES
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