Pretty in Purple: 1965 Chevy Impala on Bring a Trailer

Car and Driver

5 hours ago

The full-size 1965 Chevrolet was a million-selling car, but not very many were painted or powered like this one.
This was the last year for the 409-cubic-inch V-8.
Add a one-year-only color, and you have a rare Impala.
Announced in December of 1960, the W-series big block 409-cubic-inch V-8 was Chevrolet's Christmas present to the drag racing community. Equipped with twin four-barrel carburetors, and later stroked out to produce a 427-cubic-inch version for NASCAR and quarter-mile fiends, the 409 was notorious enough to get its own Beach Boys call out, a year before Little Deuce Coupe. By 1965, however, it was being phased out in favor of the new 396, making a '65 Impala SS with a 409 option box checked a very rare beast indeed.
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This 1965 Impala SS Sport Coupe has the 409 V-8, fed by a single quad-carb setup and paired with a four-speed Muncie manual, and it's up for sale on Bring a Trailer (which, like Car and Driver, is part of Hearst Autos). It's also optioned with air conditioning, power windows, power steering, power brakes, and a limited-slip rear differential.
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1965 was a very good year to be a Chevrolet executive or dealership owner, as that model year saw the Impala hit the million-sales mark. With 1,046,500 sold, the Impala was more than 11 percent of the entirety of U.S. automotive production, and accounted for nearly half of all Chevrolets sold.
Thus, the full-size Chevys were everywhere, but perhaps you didn't want to be parking a carbon-copy of your neighbor's car in your own driveway. With so many cars flying off the lots, Chevrolet expanded its options range, and extended it to some pretty special colors, in this case the wonderful Evening Orchid. It's gorgeous, and you can just imagine how it looked in-period with neon lights reflecting off that big trunk with its signature six-pack of taillights.
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As mentioned, the 409 was a drag racer's dream, happy to rev despite a displacement of 6.7 liters. In this application, power was a little more modest at 340 SAE net (the dual-quad-carb setup was over 400 horsepower), but that's plenty when paired with a four-on-the-floor manual. Getting those 14-inch bias-ply tires to hook up for a decent hole shot would be tricky, even with the Posi-trac rear end, but this was a plenty quick car in its day, and no slouch now.
The driveline and mechanicals of this example are largely original, though it was cosmetically overhauled in the mid-1990s, including fresh paint and new-old-stock bumpers. The carpet was also replaced at the time, but the interior was left largely alone apart from a decent deep cleaning. The odometer shows 58,000 miles, and the overall condition bears that out.
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With a build date of early January 1965, this is pretty much the last gasp for the '65 409 Impala, of which just over 2000 were built. The one-year-only color makes it that much rarer, but it's not so much the rarity alone here that makes this car special. It's an eye-catcher with big-block power, an it splits the difference between boulevard cruiser and stoplight warrior. Behind the wheel, you'll be in the pink.
Giddy up, 409.
The auction ends on July 2.
Brendan McAleer
Contributing Editor
Brendan McAleer is a freelance writer and photographer based in North Vancouver, B.C., Canada. He grew up splitting his knuckles on British automobiles, came of age in the golden era of Japanese sport-compact performance, and began writing about cars and people in 2008. His particular interest is the intersection between humanity and machinery, whether it is the racing career of Walter Cronkite or Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki's half-century obsession with the Citroën 2CV. He has taught both of his young daughters how to shift a manual transmission and is grateful for the excuse they provide to be perpetually buying Hot Wheels. Read full bio