looking for a 1970–1972 Chevelle candidate to restore, you should have in mind what the finished product is going to be used for. Are you looking for a daily driver, a weekend family cruiser, something for the local car show crowd, or are you expecting to do a full concours restoration for perfection? Your expectations will dictate the amount of labor and money it will take to achieve your goal.
Whether you start with a running, driving car or a rolling shell, carefully inspect the Chevelle for what is present and what is missing. If you have doubts about it being a true SS Chevelle, get a professional inspection.
Determine Your Goals
With a straight body, good paint, and sound mechanicals to start with, your investment for a daily driver (okay, maybe an only-good-weather daily driver) can be kept to a minimum, and you can add dress-up and power options as time and your wallet permits. Something a bit nicer for family and friends cruises and competing at local car shows in a restored class can cost a bit more because you may need to do some bodywork, invest in a quality paint job, refresh the interior, and ensure original or original-type components are used. That can take a bit more time and money to accomplish.
If you are planning on a full, no-expenses-spared concours restoration, you will want to start with something as complete and original as possible. Maybe not so much the body, interior, and mechanicals condition, as those will be rebuilt and/or replaced anyway. But, if you are looking at a concours-quality L34, L78, LS5, or LS6 candidate, having original driveline components is paramount because some items can be expensive to obtain and it is difficult to locate correctly dated pieces.
Know What You Are Looking For
Nobody likes to get duped into buying a car that is not what it is represented to be, especially if you are looking for a true SS-optioned Chevelle. The 1964 model year is easy to determine as a Malibu SS: the vehicle identification number (VIN) will begin with 457 or 458; the 1965 Malibu SS VIN will begin with 13737/67 or 13837/67;1966 through 1968 SS396 VIN will begin with 13817/37/67/80, depending on the year. There is nothing in the VIN for 1969 through 1971 Chevelles that will tell you if one is a true SS-optioned Malibu (or 300 Deluxe in the 1969 model year only). It was fairly easy to clone/fake/recreate 1969–1972 Malibus. So, know what you are looking for.
The 1972 VIN will only be an aid in one case: in 1972, Chevrolet began putting the particular engine size in the VIN with a letter code in the fifth character position. If this fifth letter is the letter W, it indicates the LS5 454-ci engine was originally installed in the car, and the LS5 454-ci engine could only be ordered with the SS option. Basically, the same is true for 1970 and 1971 in regard to the 454-ci engine being SS-specific, but nothing in the 1970 or 1971 VIN indicates which original engine was installed in the car.
Protect-O-Plate
In 1971 and 1972, any optional V-8 engine could be ordered with the SS option. The problem here is these three optional V-8 engines could also be ordered without the SS option. So, documentation such as a warranty card (Protect-O-Plate) showing the original engine identification is of no help in determining if the SS option was also ordered, and a matching-numbers 350- or 402-ci engine cannot be used as a determining factor in 1971 or 1972 of the SS option.
Cowl Tag
The Fisher Body number plate—also known as a trim tag, cowl tag, or firewall tag—typically does not list options on a US-built Malibu. The Oshawa, Ontario, assembly plant did show RPO codes Z15 or Z25 on an SS454- and SS396-optioned Malibus in 1970. The practice did not continue in 1971 or 1972, making it much more difficult to visually identify an SS-optioned, Canadian-built Malibu. The Kansas City assembly plant is suspected to denote the SS option on its trim tags with the letter L stamped below the lower body color number. This is believed to mean a change in body trim from standard Malibu trim to SS trim, but while it is a popular belief, there is currently no published documentation to support this theory. Suffice it to say a Kansas City-built Malibu without this L is most likely not an SS-optioned Malibu but possibly is if the letter exists on the trim tag.
Beginning about February 1970, Kansas City-built Malibus began appearing with either the letters B or W stamped below the upper-body-color number/letter to indicate black or white sport stripes. The RPO D88 sport stripes could be ordered on any Malibu sport coupe, convertible, or El Camino without the SS option as well, so either B or W could be stamped without the L letter. While not definitive proof, it is something to look for.
None of the other 1970–1972 assembly plants put any identifying codes on their trim tags that might help.
Hire a Professional
If you are not well versed with how to determine if your candidate is a legitimate car, it is worth a few thousand dollars to have the car inspected by someone who does concours restorations for a living and get their well-respected and expert advice before the purchase. This could save you thousands of dollars in the end by not paying a premium for a, shall we say, highly suspect or fake car to begin with. This inspection can also determine what original and correct parts are on the car now and what is needed to be purchased or rebuilt. The inspector can also look for overall signs of previous restorations to determine how much labor might be involved to bring the car up to quality standards.
The inspection can also determine if the correct and original driveline is intact or if the car has been rebodied or the engine ID stamp and partial VIN stamps are legitimate. All of these factors will then give you a good feeling about proceeding with the car or turning it down and continuing your search for a better candidate.
Always use an inspector who is an expert on the type of car you are interested in purchasing. Do not use a generic classic car inspector, as they will not know any of the nuances that an expert in a specific car will know. Ask for a detailed inspection report. More often than not, the inspection report can be used as a bargaining tool to negotiate the price of the car. In almost all cases, the lowered price will cover the entire cost of the inspection, so in essence, it cost you nothing and gives you peace of mind as well as a valuable report to keep with the car.
I’m not suggesting that car appraisers cannot be helpful as well, but often they do not know what to look for in determining a true SS-optioned Chevelle and may be biased toward the person paying for the appraisal.
How Do I Know the Car Is What It Is Claimed to Be?
Documentation for a car is always good and can give you peace of mind on an initial purchase. This is particularly true in the case of 1970–1972 Chevelles and their assembly plant broadcast sheets, commonly called build sheets. These build sheets will show when the car was built and what options it was built with. Assuming the build sheet is authentic, it can go a long way in determining just how real the car you are buying and/or restoring truly is. A build sheet will also give you the car’s original exterior color, interior color, and seat type.
Be careful with build sheets. There are a lot of unscrupulous people out there who will create a fake build sheet for a car and even age it to look authentic, plus charge several hundred dollars for their work. Luckily, these build sheet creators have not perfected their art yet and often use broadcast codes or verbiage from a different plant, making them fairly easy to spot as being fakes. Some assembly plants put some numbers on the Fisher Body Number Plate from the build sheet, so this is one method of checking a build sheet against a particular car.
Body Broadcast and Chassis Broadcast Build Sheets
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