History

I bought this car in San Diego in 1993 while I spent half a year there, doing some BMX-Freestyle Pro Contests all over the States. I had some other American cars before, which I always bought while I staid there. But this time I wanted a car to take back to my hometown Gmunden in Austria. I really wanted to buy a nice 64 to make a lowrider out of it. The cars I found weren't in my price-range. I almost wanted to quit the search, when I saw a lovely nice red Impala, which belonged to a friend of one of my buddies. I then bought the car for $4.500.- and shipped it over to Austria.

The Restoration

I did most of the restoration work myself. I disassembled everything, cleaned or chromed all the parts and put everything together again. I just didn´t do the repaint myself and the electric stuff and some other things like alignments where I got professional help from Rudi Kerschbaumer from American Special Parts.
The car still has the original 327 engine which runs smoothly and purrs like a kitten. After the original powerglide transmission used to fail permanently I switched to a 350 transmission soon. All other parts in the engine bay were changed as well. I installed an Edelbrock carb and lots of chrome and goldplated parts for the right look. The car is on airride now which serves me very well. I also installed disc brakes on the front axle and improved the brake system. All this work was done in the long cold Austrian winters and it took me 6 years before the car was finished.