My 1964 Chevrolet Impala 2 door Sport Coupe
How I found this one
I had driven the 64 Impala 4 door to Charleston WV a few years back (1998) while working for Unisys on an IT project. I was staying at a motel where I struck a conversation with the manager of the cleaning company when he saw the 4 door 64 Impala and he mentioned that he knew someone in the area with a 64 Impala 2 door for sale. I asked him to give me the guy's number, which he did, and I called the guy to go look at the 2 door 64 Impala.
I did it Myself!With Tools and Instruction
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The guy wanted $1500 for the 64 Impala with a chevy 350 cu in small block in it. He said he was selling it because he has a 69 Camaro he was working on and didn't have the time for 2 classic car projects (sounds familiar). I looked the 2 door 64 Impala over and found it had rust, but it was mostly just the floor pans. The rocker panels and inner rocker panels were still good, and the floor pan supports were still good too. I knew this classic car got this way from leaky weatherstripping. The exterior of the 64 Impala was good, someone had done some bodywork on it. The firewall was bare, as was the underside of the dash which was missing all of the A/C parts, and the front end had been removed and poorly re-assembled. I didn't get much history on this 64 Impala from the seller though. He had another 2 door 64 Impala that went with it for parts. I went to look at the 64 Impala 2 door parts car. It was irreparably rusted out but had a lot of good pieces on it, in fact it was rather complete.
At this point I was assuming I would work on the 2 door 64 Impala and then migrate the engine and parts from the 4 door 64 Impala I was driving, so I asked if he wanted to sell the 64 Impala without the motor. He wanted $800 without the motor. I told him I wanted it and gave him a deposit and said I would be back by next weekend to pick it up. I was excited now, because I really wanted a 2 door.
I enlisted the services of Simply the Best towing. Ron came highly recommended as someone who is famous for taking care of classic cars and custom hot rods. It was a bit of a trip from Baltimore to Charleston, WV and luckily Ron had to drop off his own 37 Chevy truck at a paint shop for a flame job along the way so he gave me a decent price. The trip to pickup my 64 Impala 2 door sport coupe was painless.
64 Impala 2 door Specs
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2 Door Hardtop (Sport Coupe)
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Made in Atlanta, GA plant.
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2 Tone, Sunfire Red in color, with desert fawn inside the side molding
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Red Interior
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283 Cu In Engine w/2 barrel Rochester twin jet
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Powerglide Automatic transmission
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Power steering
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AM Radio (non push button)
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Tinted Windows
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Rear antenae (don't know why that was worth a digit in the serial number)
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Factory in dash air conditioning; A/C
Finding the missing parts for this 64 Impala
Why I need to find the parts this 64 Impala is missing will make sense when you know the history. I got a bit of history on this 64 Impala from the owner in Ohio previous to the seller in West Virginia. Since the seller never titled the car, he gave me a title that still had the previous owners name and address on it. I called the guy and got the story. The car was brought to Kentucky from Atlanta by a young guy (3 owners ago) who wanted to restore it. The body shop he put it in went out of business while his 64 Impala was in there. When he got the 64 Impala back, it was stripped and the parts were no where to be found including the engine. He got discouraged and sold it to the owner in Ohio. The owner in Ohio let it sit in his yard for 2 years before selling it to the guy in W.V. Then I came along. The only thing that kept it from becoming a parts donor car was that the body was in good shape.
The parts missing on this 64 Impala would be easy to come by on any donor car if I was looking for a 64 Impala without A/C. Since this one has A/C I've got to do some scrounging. I did not have the time to strip the underdash parts out of the donor 64 Impala that came with the car and I did not bring it back home either. I took what I could remove in about 2 hours and left it behind.
I found all the A/C parts on an internet ad site where a guy in Atlanta was parting out a 64 Impala 4 dr sedan. I called and explained that I would need all of the under dash ducting, any control cables and wiring related to a 64 Impala with A/C. He said that would not be a problem and he sent me the parts. The only part he could not find was the bracket for the A/C compressor that bolts to the intake manifold
I was looking for a 283 core to rebuild and thought I would called the guy that sold me the A/C. He had one sitting in his yard that came out of a 64 Chevelle. He new it was a 64 casting, just not for a 64 Impala. I went down there again to pick it up since shippers wanted an insane amount of money to ship it.
I dropped the chevy 283 engine onto the motor mounts for safe keeping once I got it home.
Now that I have sold the 4 door 64 Impala, it is time to start the restoration on the 2 door. The first thing that needs to happen is to replace the floor pans so look for more upcoming documentation as I move forward with this.