1972 Chevrolet Malibu

The early 1970s were a bit of a high point for fans of the muscle car. In Australia, the Valiant Charger was introduced in 1971, Ford debuted the phenomenal XY GTHO Phase III the same year, and Holden brought out the second-generation HQ Monaro. In the U.S., the home of the beefed-up pony car, names such as Ford Mustang, Pontiac GTO, Chevy Camaro SS and Dodge Charger are well known to most enthusiasts and you can add to those a bewildering number of other muscle car models such as the Plymouth Barracuda, the Chevy Impala SS, the Dodge Challenger, the Oldsmobile Rallye, the Buick Skylark GS and the brilliant-looking Chevelle SS.

The Chevelle SS, or Super Sport, was the performance model of a Chevelle range first produced in 1964 and which included everything from coupes to station wagons. And it was a pretty big seller in its day with nearly 80,000 units sold in its first year of production.

No slouch on the road, the Chevelle SS looked good, sounded good and was available with a range of V8 engines delivering top speeds up to about 190km/h, quarter-mile times of about 14.5 seconds and power up to 375hp.

While that is some pretty decent grunt, the Chevelle on these pages is a good deal more powerful than that.

Owned by Michael Weber from Prestige & Performance in Brisbane, this Chevelle is a muscle car with added muscles, its original engine replaced by a 414ci Gen I small block Chevy unit – a unit that gives the car an impressive power figure of 583hp. Actually, says Michael, the true figure is likely to be a fraction higher.
“When we ran it on the dyno it was 583hp,” he says. “But that was done when we were just running in the engine. Now it has been tuned it should have a bit more than that.”

In fact, while this Chevelle is a 1972 model, it’s actually a tweaked version, with SS features added, of a model known as the Malibu. That being said, the amount of work and modification put into this car makes it far punchier and better handling vehicle than any SS that ever rolled out of the factory doors.

And there has been plenty of work done.

After discovering the car in the driveway of a man from whom he was planning to buy an engine, Michael bought the Chevelle and spent the best part of 2017 stripping it down and rebuilding it, turning the 46-year-old car it into a vehicle that, under the skin at least, is a lot closer to the hi-tech models from VW, Audi and BMW that he works on at his business day to day.

“It was fine to drive when I bought it, but it wasn’t really in good condition,” says Mike.

“So, the body was removed, the chassis completely reinforced with a chassis kit, all the rails boxed in and welded from front to back, and all-tubular control arms put in. The diff was fixed up too, top-notch QA1 coilover suspension was installed all round and all the bushes were replaced.

“The transmission was rebuilt by Bob Grant, a new exhaust installed by Men At Work Exhaust in Capalaba and the body resprayed by Cooparoo Paint & Panel. The trim is as I got it, but the instrument cluster is a Dakota digital one.

“I also changed it to a floor shift from a column shift. I did that because when you have a lot of power, a column shift can be hard to control – manual shifting just sort of slides. Now it has a proper ratchet shift you can just bash it and it will shift just one gear and not slide into neutral, park or reverse.”

The finished car, says Michael, is one that handles and performs much more like a modern car. Unlike some classic car owners, he is not worried about the originality of parts or how authentic his cars are.

“It’s not a show car,” he explains. “It’s for driving, not sitting around.

“And it is a lovely drive. It’s fuel injected, and with the chassis reinforcement and the suspension work it handles like a new Commodore. At my business we work on late-model vehicles and this car is now much more like those, and I can run everything off my PC and am able program settings and so on.

“It doesn’t bother me that it isn’t ‘original’. It has to work properly, that’s what matters. If it’s old and doesn’t work, it’s going in the bin!

“As for the paint, it is excellent work but we purposely asked the shop not to go mad on it because I didn’t want to be scared of getting it scratched or chipped. They were fine with that and thanks to them I’m comfortable parking it anywhere. As I say, we do whatever
we want with it – it’s for driving.”

Being driven on a regular basis means the Chevelle gets seen by a lot of people and with its looks, and the ear-bleedingly loud V8 growling away, it certainly garners a lot of interest.

“It is a real head-turner,” says Michael. “People come up and talk about it all the time, but you do have to be a bit careful when you are on the road – some people try to get a good look at it while driving and end up drifting towards you!”

Bearing in mind that Michael and his team at Prestige & Performance work on late-model, hi-tech European cars, the question is why a 46-year-old American muscle car, and why an American muscle car and not a homegrown Aussie one?

“I’ve always had tough muscle cars or old cars, and my wife loves them too,” he says. “I’ve had an HZ Statesman and a ’65 XP Falcon amongst others, but I had wanted a Chevelle for a long time – I actually had a model of a ’72 Chevelle sitting around for about ten years.

“Before I found this car we did think about getting another Australian model, but you just can’t get parts for them – everything seems to come from the wreckers and you have to recondition them.

“And that’s another reason we went for the Chevelle – parts are so easy to come by. In the U.S., the market for classic cars is so huge that I actually have a catalogue from which I could order everything I need, including the body shell, to build a complete Chevelle from scratch.”

With that in mind, perhaps its no wonder that there may, perhaps, one day, be a couple more pieces of classic American vehicular art making their way into the hands of Michael and his family.

“I’m not really looking, but there are a couple of old Buicks that I wouldn’t mind having at some stage – I’ve always liked the late-60s Buick Riviera – and my wife would like a ‘67 Chevy Impala pillarless coupe.

I don’t really have the space for them at the moment though – I’d have to build another shed!”