| I bought this car in about 2007 from the original owner out of Colorado. It did not quite look like this (see the original pictures below). In fact, I probably should have taken it directly to the junk yard! The car lived its whole life in Colorado before coming to California for its new life. Although the car was not a California car, it was pretty solid with some rust in the notorious spots for a ’59. If you scroll through the pictures, you will see my initial vision I had for the Impala build in a couple of the computer drawn renderings we had done…..and it turned out looking like them almost exactly! The Impala is equipped with a LS1 motor package, 4L60E Tranny, and a custom built Currie 9inch Ford rear end. The motor has CNC ported and polished high flow heads, a custom ground cam, ported and polished intake and custom intake system, and of course tons of computer programming mods to the stock ECU. All motor accessories are Street and Performance. The motor is cooled by a custom polished aluminum cross flow radiator and a huge electric fan controlled by a Dakota Digital adjustable fan control. The car is upgraded to include power steering and an Ididit tilt steering column that we painted to match. The custom fuel tank is made of stainless steel with internal baffeling and internal fuel pump by Rock Valley Tanks. The suspension is all Air Ride Technologies, also utilizing their Strong A-Arm system. Wheels are 22 inch and 20 inch Billet Specialties, and brakes and calipers are Baer mounted on 2 inch drop spindels. We ended up using a Wilwood master cylinder on the car simply because we liked the look of it against the painted and smoothed custom firewall. We left the car with manual brakes to keep away from the mushy feel of power.
Paint and Body was all done by Tim Doyon of Kosmic Kustoms in Eagle, Idaho. Tim welded in all the front and rear seams giving the car a one piece feel. He cut the exhaust through the rocker panels, and sucked in the front and rear bumpers about 3/4 of an inch towards the body. The car was painted with one of Kosmic Kustom’s custom blended Candy Wine which was sprayed over the metallic silver base. All the trim on the car is original, and of course was all un-dinged, straightened and repolished by George. The interior was designed and built by Alan at Conejo Upolhostery in Thousand Oaks, California. The front seats are 1964 Impala SS buckets that we cut and lowered so they would not sit above the window line. The car has just over 7 full hides of leather in it! Electronics include all electric windows (including vents), Home Link System, and full memory Air Ride Control. Auto meter gauges were sunk in to the original dash to give it an almost stock look. The dash was smoothed and the original radio was deleted, as well as the original heat and vent controls. The Impalas audio system includes an in dash Pioneer 7 inch monitor, 10 total speakers, and Rockford Fosgate Amps and subs. Switches have been nicely disguised in the center console, so nothing is visible unless you want to access it. The car only has about 300 miles on it so far, and it seems to drive real well. She is a heavy beast! Here is some interesting history on the 1959 Impala. The story of the `59 Chevy starts in 1957. Harley Earl, who was in charge of styling for General Motors, got pretty shaken up after viewing the new crop of Chrysler products that were being released. They were fresh, long, and striking. And they had fins–fantastic fins of monumental proportions. Upon seeing these cars, it is said that Harley Earl had all the existing `59 GM designs scrapped in preparation for all new cars. GM wanted some “Chrysler Killers,” and they were also reeling from the fact that Fords were selling near or above their own production figures. The `57 GM line, with the exception of the Chevy, had not been well received by consumers. It was too late to change the `58 line, but the time was right to go in and shake things up for the next year. With a few improvements to the `58 systems, designers used the same drive trains and frames but changed the sheet metal completely. The `59 Chevy was the last car that Harley Earl designed for GM before retiring, and his flamboyant style was very evident. The rear fins, rather than sticking straight up, were placed nearly parallel with the road and dropped into a “V” in the center. The taillights were redesigned as a sideways teardrop to flow with the drop of the fins. A complete departure from the individual lights of the year prior, the design would return to individual lights for 1960 and continue on for many years (read more about this in Chevy59 Blog). The headlights were moved to the grill rather than above it, a style queue that was common for the model year that slimmed the look of the front end. The window area of the car was increase greatly. Visibility improved, but with a price; the cars tended to get quite hot inside, because of the glass that went far into the roofline. Spearhead trim was used on the vehicle’s sides in varying width, depending on the model. Impalas, naturally, got the widest shiniest Stainless Steel trim while the Biscaynes got skinny anodized spears. Impalas also received a dummy exhaust port above the rear window, one of the few styling queues carried over from 1958. 
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