The Jaywick Chevy

[GingerNuttz]

I had a look at a few pictures of this a week or so ago and it's very fixable as long as a quarter panel and trim can be sourced. Car can be straightened on a dozer and everything else can be made from sheet steel.

Would make one hell of a rescue story too. 

[barrett]

I disagree, there are loads of people in the UK who would happily restore a '60 flat-roof Chevy. I just suspect they have no idea this car is for sale. Shipping parts from the US is barely more expensive than getting stuff from Europe, these days. No idea what these things are worth in decent nick, but I'd have thought it would be pretty difficult to lose money on it tbh

[eddyramrod]

I'm wrong in my assessment?  I do hope so!  I would love to see someone prove me wrong, and even more so if it was someone from here.  I love the style of the GM flat-tops of that period.

[danthecapriman]

As I said, I’d love to be proven wrong.

I just can’t see it happening. I’ve seen better condition yanks go to the oval before now… Racers will pay more than you think for an unusual or rare car to race. 
How much is this up for?

[PhilA]

They were and are popular cars.

Panels and trim are available for $modest

[Amishtat]

1 hour ago, danthecapriman said:

As I said, I’d love to be proven wrong.

I just can’t see it happening. I’ve seen better condition yanks go to the oval before now… Racers will pay more than you think for an unusual or rare car to race. 
How much is this up for?

Two grand was the figure mentioned. I believe you're right, but I hope we're wrong. 

[danthecapriman]

1 hour ago, Amishtat said:

Two grand was the figure mentioned. I believe you're right, but I hope we're wrong. 

Same here. It’d be fantastic to see it saved and repaired. Mind you, it’d have great if some twat hadn’t ruined it to begin with!

[bunglebus]

I'm amazed the culprit managed to leave the scene in their car, can't see a modern doing too well against a Yank tank, even one with corrosion 

[AnthonyG]

These are not particularly strong, and less so if there is rust affecting the panels or frame. These cars were built on an X frame, which didn’t do them any favours in the impact resistance front. The panels are welded together and then bolted onto the frame, but it’s not a monocoque (‘unibody’ in US speak). The lack of any side frame, standard in the ladder design, meant side impacts were a particular weakness.

If you want strong American cars from this era you need to be looking at Chrysler Corporation products. The bigger ones had both a unibody (from the firewall back) and a frame! 

Somebody crashed a 2009 Chevrolet into a 1959 one about a decade ago. As you might expect, it didn’t end well for the 1959 one. The 2009 Chevy was a Malibu so think Mondeo Mk4/5 size. 

GM abandoned the X frame quite quickly for them, and 65 onwards Chevrolets went back to a stronger design.

[PhilA]

Considering that's the frame they rejected in favor of the "new" X frame... Yeah.

[AnthonyG]

Now that’s strength!

[rickvw72]

Not sure how you would put this back on the road for any less than mega coin sadly. Big old beast that would run you for a couple of grand in paint work after repairing it. 
 

Sadly, like so many old motors it needs an owner with money, a love for it, a fully equipped workshop and even more money if you can’t paint it yourself. It would be cheaper to do a better one if you fit the criteria. 
 

Ive fixed worse, but 5 grand won’t “put a dent in it” excuse the pun.

[Angrydicky]

1 hour ago, PhilA said:

Considering that's the frame they rejected in favor of the "new" X frame... Yeah.

If I didn't know better, I'd think that was the chassis from a Counties Austin!

[rickvw72]

On the subject of strong Chrysler’s, I beleive the old imperial model is one of the few things banned in unlimited bangers, for being too strong!

[GingerNuttz]

Would be around £2000 in materials including paint to put this back on the road but that's me making all the panels bar the quarter and trim. 

[GingerNuttz]

Wouldn't want to be involved in a head on in one of them 😂

[Amishtat]

43 minutes ago, rickvw72 said:

On the subject of strong Chrysler’s, I beleive the old imperial model is one of the few things banned in unlimited bangers, for being too strong!

I'm not sufficiently well up on  the current rules to know whether they're banned at all tracks but I have seen a couple raced at UK tracks a few years ago . They weren't the machine of choice if a race win was required but they just lapped relentlessly crushing whatever happened to be in the way. 

[captain_70s]

49 minutes ago, GingerNuttz said:

Wouldn't want to be involved in a head on in one of them 😂

Dunno' what you're talking about. No dealing with a sore neck for months or any shit, just straight up dead. Nae hassle.

[PhilA]

57 minutes ago, captain_70s said:

Dunno' what you're talking about. No dealing with a sore neck for months or any shit, just straight up dead. Nae hassle.

Always the funny point when people talk to me about my Pontiac. "Wouldn't like to crash a modern car into that! It's made from real steel!", they say. 

No, most modern cars are much heavier and are designed to keep the cabin in shape. The key strength in both the Impala and the Chieftain is the chassis, and the bumpers are way too low to be of any significant use against a post-1977 Federal spec vehicle. The bodywork is there just as that; the pretty shape of the vehicle exterior. The firewall is a single thickness sheet of steel with very little in the way of corrugation or additional strength. Plus the only collapsible part of the steering wheel is the rim, leaving the shaft, securely attached to the chassis, as a skewer pointing at the driver.

A head on frontal impact would send the firewall folding up and inwards towards the occupants because the joints would shear and the engine would be shoved backwards. Audi saw that issue with their cars and introduced ProCon-10 (go look it up, a cable system causes the engine to break free, get pushed under the car and at the same time as it does, pulls the steering wheel away from the driver).

That's why the back end of the Jaywick car folded up as it did. There's no additional bracing in the back there, just a single sheet thick, in the shape of the rear wing and trunk floor.

 

Phil

[AnthonyG]

Imperials were certainly banned from most US demolition derbies for many years due to their inherent strength. 

Imperials were built on a different body/frame to Chryslers for more than a decade, as Chrysler tried to distinguish them from Newports and New Yorkers in an effort to establish Imperial as a competitor marque to Cadillac and Lincoln, and these were the models that were banned.

I think these unique Imperials started circa 1958 and ran to about 1969.

This plan of brand differentiation never really worked, so in the early 1970s they were badged as Chryslers again, and became effectively a top spec version of a New Yorker. 

[Rod/b]

Anyone know where this is being advertised?

[Dick Cheeseburger]

6 hours ago, Rod/b said:

Anyone know where this is being advertised?

I posted the owner's name and number earlier in the thread as part of a facebook for sale screenshot. 

Got plans?

[lesapandre]

11 hours ago, PhilA said:

Always the funny point when people talk to me about my Pontiac. "Wouldn't like to crash a modern car into that! It's made from real steel!", they say. 

No, most modern cars are much heavier and are designed to keep the cabin in shape. The key strength in both the Impala and the Chieftain is the chassis, and the bumpers are way too low to be of any significant use against a post-1977 Federal spec vehicle. The bodywork is there just as that; the pretty shape of the vehicle exterior. The firewall is a single thickness sheet of steel with very little in the way of corrugation or additional strength. Plus the only collapsible part of the steering wheel is the rim, leaving the shaft, securely attached to the chassis, as a skewer pointing at the driver.

A head on frontal impact would send the firewall folding up and inwards towards the occupants because the joints would shear and the engine would be shoved backwards. Audi saw that issue with their cars and introduced ProCon-10 (go look it up, a cable system causes the engine to break free, get pushed under the car and at the same time as it does, pulls the steering wheel away from the driver).

That's why the back end of the Jaywick car folded up as it did. There's no additional bracing in the back there, just a single sheet thick, in the shape of the rear wing and trunk floor.

 

Phil

This is pretty clear...

[Three Speed]

This is what a 59 Impala looks like without any clothes.

I suspect from the photo that the impact was higher than the frame. So the frame may not be badly damaged. (Disclaimer- I haven’t sen anything that you haven’t seen and have no idea really).

The last year of separate body and frame for most of the Forward Look Chrysler / Mopar range was 1959. Imperials had their own version with additional cross members and isolation and support for a centre prop shaft bearing which the lesser versions (like mine) didn’t get. From 1960 everything else went monocoque but Imperial kept the separate frame until 1967.

 

 

[Crackers]

6 hours ago, Three Speed said:

It's little wonder those old barges had so little torsional rigidity. There's a lot of weight being moved around through that narrow central beam.

[Zelandeth]

If they are asking that little for it if I had the room for it I'd probably have had their arm off.  Have a look what that sort of motor in reasonable nick are fetching over here these days.

Not going to be cheap to repair by any means, especially if you want to go down the gleaming show car route...but if you wanted to just get a car that ran and drove well and keep the patina and as such don't mind some rattle can paintwork and are happy to just do it a bit at a time as a back burner project I reckon it wouldn't stack up badly at all.

[eddyramrod]

Well if you want somewhere to park the Jag while you do it, Huggy doesn't mind company...

[Crackers]

44 minutes ago, Zelandeth said:

keep the patina and as such don't mind some rattle can paintwork

This.

There's plenty of old Yank cars running around as rat rods and everyone loves them. If it's safe, the Jaywick Chevy could be done as a genuine survivor/ratrod and it would have a brilliant story behind it to boot.

I'm not the man for the job - money, skills, experience, equipment and time are all against me - but I really hope someone can save it.

[Dick Cheeseburger]

On 7/19/2021 at 7:42 PM, GingerNuttz said:

Would be around £2000 in materials including paint to put this back on the road but that's me making all the panels bar the quarter and trim. 

G.I.B. You've done  sterling job of saving Cpn 70s Acclaim and Dolomite - this old girl would be a walk in the park*.

[Dyslexic Viking]

When it comes to safety on these, I can mention an accident we had here in Norway 3 years ago. Where a 1959 Cadillac Coupe de Ville drove into a mountain the car was deformed 1.5 meters and killed all 5 in the car.