ARTWORK By Tavis HighlanderINSTAGRAM @TavisHighlanderTavisHighlander.com

hris Holstrom Concepts tasked me with helping to restyle an auction-purchased Corvette that was already done. Done is never really the final stage of any classic car though, and this Vette needed some help. A modern driving experience with classic looks is the goal here, and the foundation of this build is an Art Morrison GT Sport chassis with IRS. Up front, there’s a 427ci LS3 topped with Borla stack induction. A T56 handles the gears and Baer 6P 14-inch brakes keep everything in check. 

The exterior has been kept simple and classic but has an attention to detail that makes it that much nicer than any 1964 ever was when it rolled off the assembly line. Bumpers have been tucked and adjusted, gaps scrutinized, and the fenders/quarters have been widened. Rosso Corsa paint caps off the bodywork, while Forgeline RS6 wheels complement the vintage theme.

Inside the cockpit the theme continues with rich two-toned leather and subtle sculpting that pays homage to the original design. Details include Vintage Air A/C, MOMO wood rim wheel, and Dakota Digital HDX gauges. Tony Miller at Stitches Custom Upholstery will handle all of the custom interior upholstery. Miller excels at such interiors and will hand-sculpt the center console, door panels, and seat foam to his standards.

Vehicle Build By: Chris Holstrom Concepts
Owner: Steve Peterson

With racing and horsepower in his blood, Marc drove a healthy 1969 Nova throughout his high school years. The car was fast and well known within the local street scene. It was his daily driver—his only mode of transportation. Being his high school days took place in the mid-to-late ’90s, his burly ride was unlike most other cars in his high school parking lot, even in Southern California’s Inland Empire, an area known as a mecca for vintage muscle cars. It was a time when imports and practical rides were the norm. He was cool with the 1969, but Marc always had a fondness for the smaller 1966-1967 Novas, and in 2000 he was introduced to a 1966 Chevy II by his friend, Jeff Delisle, who was selling the car for $3,000. It was mostly complete, minus engine and trans. The car was in primer and the bodywork was fresh and sleek, it was almost ready for paint. Marc parted ways with the 1969 and pulled the trigger on Delisle’s 1966. All was going well with the project until Marc decided to leave his In-N-Out Burger gig to pursue a career as a firefighter. That change in employment sent the car into a 10-year slumber before he was able to finally give it the necessary attention it deserved.

As luck would have it that marinating process turned out to be a positive for the car and for Marc. A few years down the road, while attending the Del Mar Goodguys show in 2010, he bought the little Chevy a full suspension kit from Detroit Speed consisting of their QUADRALink setup out back and a hydroformed subframe up front. That purchase transpired into a relationship with Detroit Speed’s owner, Kyle Tucker, which led to the car being shipped to the Detroit Speed headquarters in Mooresville, North Carolina, for further R&D on their 1962-1967 Chevy Nova suspension kits and to dial in wheeltubs and header fitment.

Cool Cruisin’

Vintage Air’s SureFit system for 1966-1967 Chevelles is a state-of-theart heat and air conditioning unit that can be easily installed and operated via the original control panel.

BY Ron CeridonoPhotography Nick Licata & the Author

f all the additions that can be made to any early car for passenger comfort, a modern climate-control system has to be at the top of the list. Riding around on a hot day without A/C can feel like you’re in an oven. When the weather turns cold, it’s even uncomfortable for brass monkeys. Fortunately, we don’t have to suffer due to Mother Nature’s whims no matter what we drive, thanks to Vintage Air.

The heater portion of a climate-control system is relatively simple; hot water passes through the small radiator like a heater core with a blower motor to warm the passenger compartment. On the other hand, air conditioning is more complicated; it cools by removing heat and humidity from inside the vehicle. Basically an A/C system takes in air from the passenger compartment into the evaporator where it is passes across a coil assembly that absorbs heat and converts humidity to water droplets (that’s why the evaporator case has a drain hose to the outside of the car). Cooled air comes out of the outlets while the heat is carried to the condenser in front of the radiator. What makes this all possible is the refrigerant, commonly known as 134a; it’s a high-pressure liquid on the high side of the system, and a low-pressure gas on the low, or suction side. As Rick Love of Vintage Air explains, “refrigerant absorbs heat as it changes states from a liquid to a gas in the evaporator and then dissipates heat as it changes from a gas to a liquid in the condenser. Heat is absorbed through evaporation and dissipated through condensation (change of states).”

The Z was purchased new as a daily driver by the elder Deck and was given a plethora of ’80s bolt-on performance upgrades early on. Having been exposed to the car as a youngster, Alex recalls, “When I was a kid I couldn’t say Camaro, so it was always the blue car, and I would say that I wanted the blue car when I got older.” By the time he was old enough to get the blue car, it had an expired 350 and had suffered a Dark Blue metallic respray from Maaco. “When I was a senior in high school I put a crate engine in it from Year One,” he notes. That transplant allowed him to have a fully functional weekend cruiser during his senior year.

The one thing that Alex was never comfortable with while at the wheel of the Camaro was how it stopped. “Driving it around I realized that the drum brakes at the rear weren’t going to cut it,” He explains. “I spoke to the guys at Bent Metal Customs (BMC) and told them that I wanted some discs and maybe some wheels.” The crew at BMC dipped into their supplier’s parts catalogs and set the Z on the tarmac with some Forgeline wheels wrapped in sticky Michelin rubber along with some Baer six-piston calipers and 14-inch rotors. As is often the case when having custom work done on a car, you go in for one thing and everything else just snowballs around it. Rolling and stopping needed a proper suspension to be fully appreciated. Another dive into the catalogs yielded some Detroit Speed suspension hardware and JRi springs and shocks.

“The car had never been entered into a show until after he died,” Dusty states. “I’m not sure he would have even entered the car in a show, but I decided to enter it in the Cars for Charity show here in Wichita, and it won Best Chevy, Favorite Vendor Award, and was nominated for the Magnificent 7.”

Power comes by way of a stock LS1, as Jim’s idea for the portly Chevy was to keep it chill—just a mild street cruiser. Again, he built cars for himself, not for outside approval, yet the smoothed firewall and extremely sanitary engine room would suggest otherwise. The custom stainless headers add to the attraction and dump onto a 2-inch exhaust baffled by a set of Dynomax mufflers for a sedate yet authoritative rumble.

A factory 4L60E transmission worked over by the crew at The Tranny Shop sends grunt through a two-piece driveshaft spinning 3.73 cogs housed in a 9-inch rearend armed with Moser axles. Yes, the car has three pedals and a floor-mounted shifter, with the shifter ball indicating a four-speed manual transmission exists. Dusty explains, “The simple reason is that my dad just liked the way a manual transmission setup looks, so he made it appear like the car has a four-speed.”

There were only two logical reasons for anyone to buy a Chevelle 300 Deluxe: first, all else being equal, it cost less than other Chevelles, and second, it was considerably lighter than other Chevelles. Both of these attributes resulted from less content. The 300 Deluxe model got rubber floor mats in place of carpeting, less sound insulation, bare-bones bench seats, and no trunk mat. Everyone knows that lower mass directly correlates to faster speed, so buyers who wanted the fastest Chevelle possible combined the relatively lightweight 300 Deluxe with the SS 396 option package, and then specified option L78, which was the highest horsepower version of the 396 engine available. And that’s exactly what the original buyer of this stunning Dusk Blue 300 Deluxe sports coupe did.

Chevrolet produced slightly more than a half-million Chevelles in 1969, and the vast majority—some 300,886—were Malibu two-door sport coupes. Only 7,181 of the half-million-plus 1969 Chevelles were 300 Deluxe sports coupes, and of these it’s likely that fewer than 100 were fitted with the SS 396 package, and fewer still came with the potent L78 engine.

It was this incredible rarity, and the car’s Dusk Blue hue, that caught Grady Burch’s eye when he first saw the car in a friend’s garage. Grady is no stranger to über-rare Chevrolet muscle cars and just happens to have a gorgeous, 29,000-mile, unrestored, Dusk Blue, 427 COPO Chevelle in his collection. “As soon as I saw the 300 Deluxe, I thought it would look great next to my Dusk Blue COPO,” Grady says. “The fact that it is such a rare car and still has its original paint and original interior added to its appeal.”

Classic Performance Products (CPP) offers a number of full disc brake conversions running the gamut from cruisers with steel wheels to Pro Touring big-brake systems. For our Chevelle, we opted for a budget-friendly system that would fit behind our 15-inch rally wheels and improve our braking capabilities.

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