As a petrolhead who fell in love with classic cars decades ago, I’ve seen hundreds of rust buckets, some in horrible condition due to their owner’s ignorance.
Rust is car cancer; in some cases, dealing with it is nearly impossible, so the car you try to save has no chance of returning to the road.
A 1959 Impala I came across on Craigslist could easily fall into this category.
The car looks like it’s been sitting for decades outside on some sort of farm or forest. Surrounded by trees, it probably had to deal with high humidity levels for many years.
You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to determine where this is going. Humidity doesn’t play nice with metal, so the car now comes in a frightening shape with huge holes, especially in the undersides. The owner says the frame is still solid, but the floors and the trunk look wrecked otherwise.
The dash is missing, as a previous owner allegedly cut it out, and most of the interior is in a condition that makes it useless anyway.
Part of the engine is still in the car, but I don’t think this makes any difference. Most likely, the car served as a donor for other projects, so I don’t expect it to work (or to exhibit a fixable shape in the first place).
The 1959 Impala is an essential figure in automotive history. Chevrolet first presented the Impala in 1956 at General Motors’ car show, but the production model debuted in 1958 as part of the Bel Air lineup.
The Impala rapidly became a separate series thanks to its massive overnight success. Chevrolet picked the 1959 model year as the starting point for Impala as a stand-alone model, despite still sharing most parts and engines with the Bel Air.
Marketed as the second-generation Impala, the 1959 model year is considered by Chevy enthusiasts the first series, as this was the year when the car started making a name for itself without being part of the Bel Air family. This generation remained in production for two years, as Chevrolet introduced a restyled model in 1961.
Unfortunately, this Impala’s chances to return to the road are pretty slim, and I don’t think it can be used for anything other than parts. The owner still seems confident they can make good bucks with the car, so they expect to get $4,500 for this Impala.
This is a very optimistic expectation, not only because of the car’s overall condition with the wrecked metal and everything else but also due to the lack of a working engine and so many other parts missing.
If you believe the car is worth a live inspection, you can find it sleeping, possibly for eternity, in Burbank, close to Los Angeles.
