Member: Doug Cann
Car: 1968 Chevelle
Car: 1968 Chevelle
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We are the proud owners of a numbers matching 68 Chevelle SS 396 400 automatic. This was not the car I was looking for at all. I was trying to find out if my 1963 Impala SS was still alive somewhere. After approximately on year I actually found it. I live just east of Winnipeg, Manitoba and up until 1999, the ’63 was still in Winnipeg. I found the car in Ontario and was lucky enough to talk to the owner. He had just sold the car to a friend of his who had been bugging him for a long time to sell it. He told me about the car, colour, motor, interior etc and it really was not the same car at all.
. I seemed to be O.K. with that and was at peace knowing the car had survived even though it wasn’t the same car. The owner’s last name was unusual and I recognized it. I asked him about his family and to my amazement, I found I had worked for his dad one summer some 30 years ago! Not only that, he remembered me working there when he came into the shop with his dad as a young boy. It truly is a small world.
I loved that car. It was a 327, 4 speed with a borg warner super T-10 trani. Red, of course, with a unique black vinyl top. It also had the tach mounted on the steering column, which I’ve been told only the 409’s had, but this 300HP 327 had also along with some other goodies, like a power antena! While looking for my ’63 Impala SS I fell in love, again, with the Chevelle family. I was looking for a 1967 Chevelle when I stumbled upon my 1968. I found it on E-Bay and I put a bid in. I was surprised to be the highest bidder and “won” the car. The car was located just outside Chicago, Illinois.
After all the e-mails back and forth and, of course, the money, I flew down to Chicago to pick up my prize. The owner was priceless. He picked me up at the airport, drove me to his house, we checked out the car together and the deal was done. A car guy is a car guy no matter where he lives. He told me the car had a 1,000 mile warranty and he meant it. He said if anything at all happened to the car on my drive home, to call him and he would “come a running”.
I drove the Chevelle home from Chicago to Winnipeg in one day. What a blast! The car was a dream on the highway, even though I had trouble keeping up to the Americans on their highways. The Chevelle burnt one quart of oil per tank of gas for the first 3 tanks then no more. It averaged 18 MPG on the way home. Getting across the border was no problem but strange. The American guards didn’t even look at the car to verify it was the correct car, they just released it.
The Canadian guards were a little different. The guy at the booth asked me if there was a sale down in the states. I didn’t know what he was talking about until he pointed to the ’67 Camaro sitting in the holding area. The guards had a good time looking at the two cars, comparing them and arguing which was the better car. All that was left to do was to pay the GST.I guess he thought I was trying to use a phoney bill of sale because he asked me how did I buy the car so cheap. I said I must have got a deal. He went so far as to check the E-Bay site to verify the selling price!. It made me feel good to know I really did get a deal.
Anyway, off I went. 900 miles in on day and I loved it. We drive the car as often as we can, get a lot of thumbs up and a lot of “nice car”. Nothing like living your youth over again!I’ll enclose a couple of pictures and my membership renewal cheque.Sorry for the written letter but I waited too long and have no other choice.