CC reader John Kelly has sent me a link to what is described as the “Rarest SS Malibu Built”. Instead of the expected hot Chevy V8, it has a six cylinder backed by the standard three-speed column-shift manual. Yes, regular Chevy SS models—with some exceptions—were really just trim packages, with bucket seats and a few other identifiers. But the power trains and other chassis elements were just the same as a non-SS version.
The standard six in Chevelles at the time was the 120 hp Hi-Thrift 194 six, but the 140 hp Turbo-Thrift was optional. There’s no indication as to which of these in this car, but one rather suspects it is the 194, since its original owner rather seems like a “Hi-Thrift” kind of person.
And the fender skirts? Are they from the factory?
I looked at two Accessory brochures for 1965 Chevrolets, and could not find them shown or listed. That doesn’t definitively prove that they weren’t available, but it pending further proof, I cannot verify this.
The linked article makes a point about this being a rare “137 VIN” car. That 137 seems to have been the model identification for the six cylinder Malibu SS. Curiously, my Encyclopedia of American Cars doesn’t list this number; it just has a “Chevelle Malibu SS” category with “138” prefix for the coupe convertible versions. That does not put the existence of the six cylinder Malibu SS in doubt, as the brochures make it quite clear that the 194 six and 283 V8 were the standard engines across the board, depending on which version was chosen.
The interior shot clearly shows the clutch pedal. A console was included when the Powerglide or 4-speed manual options were chosen.
Now if this had been a 1964, it could have also been ordered with the one-year only 155 hp Turbo-Thrift 230 six, which had a slightly more aggressive cam and even came with standard chrome valve covers and air cleaner. I’m still a bit puzzled by the existence of that engine, and it obviously was not a popular choice. In the light Chevy II, it made for a pretty sprightly car. On the other hand the 120 hp 194 was probably anything but sprightly in the heavier Chevelle.
On the extreme other end of the spectrum, Chevrolet built 201 Malibu SS396 Z16s in the spring of 1965. It was by far the best SS396 ever built, as it had a heavy duty convertible frame and a thoroughly upgraded chassis, which was fully up to the power made by its red-hot 375 hp L37 396 V8. Why Chevy only built 201 is not known, but it became an instant classic and its safe to say that it was the best all-round of the mid-sized muscle cars in 1965. The ’66 and later versions had weaker engines, frames, suspensions and brakes, but were of course very affordable, unlike the Z16.
So which were rarer? The six-cylinder SS or the Z16?
Related CC reading:
Engine History: The Quickest And Slowest Chevy Turbo-Thrift Sixes
1965 Chevelle SS396 Z16: 201 Built, And A Common 396 Engine Misunderstanding Finally Resolved
Car Show Outtake: 1967 Olds Cutlass Convertible With A Six And Three Speed Column Shift
Interesting about Z16 hardtops using convertible frame for one year.
Would this hold true for ’65 Beaumont SD396 hardtops?
IIRC, the HD conv frame was only in the Z16s.
I have heard that the Impala hardtops of that era also used an upgraded frame, perhaps the convertible frame to compensate for the lack of a center pillar between the front and rear doors.
The 1965.5 Caprice did use a heavier standard frame, but I’ve not heard that about the Impala. I suspect not, because it was a bit of a thing on the Caprice.
Once again, rarity does not equate to desirability or value. Pontiac Azteks are rare. Unfortunately today everyone feels the need to tout the rarity of their undesirable combos. Some things are rare for a reason.
The 1965 Chevelle series numbers are included in the second and third positions of the VIN. A 1965 VIN that starts “137” is a Chevelle SS with six cylinder. “138” is a Chevelle SS with V8. This is directly from GM, not some “Encyclopedia of Cars”. On the 1965-71 GM VINs, the third character is odd for a six and even for a V8 (at least in the A-body lines).
The HD frame option of using the boxed convertible frame under hardtops was common, at least at other divisions of GM. At Oldsmobile, for example, it was RPO F35, a $12.80 option available on just about any Olds non-convertible A-body.
Ah, the 1960s, when “strengthened frame” was an à la carte option.
They are only undesirable to people who want to have the same car as everyone else. Desirable? That is purely subjective.
The oddity of adding (or offering) fender skirts, to already well-skirted rear wheels. JC Whitney would approve!
I love oddly optioned cars! That said, those fender skirts don’t look like they’re factory fare at all, having the profile of any number of aftermarket skirts that show up on over-accessorized you run into at shows these days… though I’m open to being proved wrong!
My 1969 Impala SS (long stalled project car) is kind of an odd one. It was delivered new to Harlow Chevrolet in Whitefish, Montana, though I’m not sure if it was a special order… It’s a Custom Coupe (essentially the Caprice roofline) with a vinyl top, fender skirts (once again, think Caprice), and full wheelcovers that look much like you’d expect on a Caprice or even a base Impala. It has a 390hp 427, as did all SS Impalas in ’69, with an automatic and a 2:73 Posi. No console or buckets, so the Turbo 400 is column shifted. The only other option of note is a rear window defogger (one of the ones that recirculates air from the cabin and blows it at the window), plus a few basic amenities like an AM push button radio and a clock.
I really hate the fender skirts in this car. I don’t think they were ever a factory option.
Love the original ’64-’65 Chevelle’s and Malibu’s. In fact, love the ’66-’72 models also!
However, hate the fender skirts on these cars. To me, mid-sizers do not need fender skirts. Many of the big full-size bruisers look good with them, particularly Pontiac and Cadillac, but not the mid-size ones!
In the 2003 Cat in the Hat movie most of the cars were then-new Ford Focus ZX3 and ZX5 models with fender skirts. At the time I thought it was a ringing endorsement of fender skirts’ near-total disappearance. Now, looking at the pics of them to jog my memory, they look like what hypermilers did to cars like that.
Factory fender skirts? Maybe. All the years I was at dad’s dealership, the big Chevrolet book in the showroom had a chapter at the end of about 6-8 pages of bolt on options available thru the part department. This is where you picked up the fender skirts (at least Chevrolet designed), fake portholes, tissue dispensers, vacuum ashtrays, etc.
You know, all those unsightly gewgaws that restorers seem to insist on decking their cars with. I asked dad about the at one point (even as a child, I found most of them unsightly) and he said that they were never big sellers, but there was a market for them, and from a dealership standpoint they were cheap to buy, easy to inventory, and had a good markup, so they’d keep the more popular ones in stock and were able to order the other stuff within a couple of days.
The article is definitely making way too big a deal about this car having them. And, for all we know, they could be JC Whitney stock.
That’s what I was thinking. Nobody in Detroit put those on the car on an assembly line, and in the absence of documented proof that they’re Genuine Chevrolet Accessories (whether installed on this car at purchase or not), the burden of proof is on the claimer-of-rarity that they didn’t come out of the JCW catalog circa 1970.
The contours of the wheelwells simply do not look like they were designed to accept fender skirts. I’m calling aftermarket on these.
Tasteful colour scheme, reflective of the muted colours of the mid-60s. I especially like that interior. Can clearly see how mid-60s GM styling, impacted late ’60s Chrysler styling.
I could easily see Lynn Townsend telling Elwood Engel in 1964 that he wanted the new-for-1966 intermediate Mopars to look the same as the new ‘shoebox’ Chevelle.
One of the “rules” of scale modelling is that what’s common in scale is rare in real life and vice-versa, and these articles have enough to go by to easily convert Revell’s 1/25 Malibu SS Z16 to a non-Z16 or even a non-SS Malibu.
The ‘aggressive six’ is unique. The big three never aggressed their sixes. As soon as each brand had a V8, all the attention went into bigger and hotter V8s, and the six remained as punishment for nasty cheapskates.
Nash, Hudson, and Kaiser did offer hotted-up sixes because they couldn’t afford to develop a V8.
In New York, if something like this had been ordered by a customer and then the customer backed out, the dealer was stuck with what he would call a LATKE. The dealer would hope and pray that someone came along who would fall in love with it. Chrysler used to have “build out” cars at the end of the model year run that used up available components or lack of them. I remember 1973 Polara sedans built without Air Conditioning, a real bad item in the New York Market.
I have always liked the styling of the 65 Chevelle and thought many times of getting one to collect. Of course that was in 1974-76 when they were more numerous and far cheaper in San Diego. Never got around to it 🙁
Chevrolet (along with other mainstream manufacturers) was never in business to make great cars, or powerful cars, or exciting cars, or future collectible cars. They were in business to make *profits*. And there was more profit in “gingerbread” than in the cars themselves. So if a Chevelle 6 buyer wanted the SS package, let ’em have it, it was just more profit.
^^^^ Same thing today. Rather than give me good quality interior materials and some colors that aren’t so monochromatic they give me lots of higher priced electronic gizmos which I can do without. Not to mention plastic parts that really should never be plastic.
Many of us do not understand that the “SS” trim package could be ordered with any powertrain on Chevies of this era?
I was going to call shenanigans on that interior – but then it is specifically mentioned in the brochure – white with turquoise accents! I have never, ever seen a GM interior like that, so maybe that is one of the things that really makes this one rare.
I will join the chorus on the fender skirts being aftermarket. The tells to me are that the leading edge does not have a piece to extend the rocker trim, and that the skirt is flat, with no reference to the body line in front of it or after it. I say take them off as they detract from a really cool car.
Polistra, you obviously don’t now about the Clifford Hyper-Paks on the 170 /6’s from Mopar. Those were seriously hopped up engines for a six. So the 230 Chev from 64 is not unique.
And then there was the Pontiac OHC six.
Lose those “fender skirts”!
If any doubt remains related to model numbers, here’s a page from the GM parts catalogue
I’ll try again with the jpg.
If the photo you’re posting is in JPEG format, it needs to be less than approximately 1800 pixels wide by 1000 pixels high. Once it’s near that size, it should upload.
My thrifty Uncle bought a new ’63 Impala SS with a six and PowerGlide. I’m pretty sure that he bought it off the lot as the new ’64’s were arriving. It wasn’t a popular pairing, and he probably got a good deal. My Dad hated manual transmissions and base six cylinder cars. His ’59 Impala had a 283 and his ’64 Pontiac Tempest wagon had the 326. Both were automatics, of course!
Whether those fender skirts are ultra-rare factory accessories or not, they just don’t look right. Maybe on a sedan; definitely not on this.
As noted on other similar CCs, those weirdly-optioned cars start to make sense in any export market where fuel was expensive or tax classes were based on engine size or hp. In fact, I recently found out about the Mercury equivalent of the Chevy, a Comet Caliente hardtop with a six and 3 on the tree here in Austria, ordered new like this back in 64. You could have ordered the 260, 289 and (theoretically) the 427 – all were dealer listed – but at that point you’d have been at entry level Ferraris and Maseratis, so…
Thank you Joel and Mark .
Long ago I had a 1963 Chevy II NOVA SS that had the bucket seats but no console, three on the tree for it’s anemic 194 C.I. engine .
Ordered this way new in Kansas and yes, plenty of Impalas with and without the SS option came with i6 engines .
I used to work on these when they were just average cars and never encountered a Malibu / Chevelle with a 194 i6, all had the 230 i6 .
Those are American made “Foxcraft” skirts, I’m surprised no one one else noticed them .
-Nate
I wonder if the Chevy Il SS was available with the 153 4cyl? Now that with Powerslide would be a Real Dog! As the Beach Boys would call it: a No go Showboat! https://youtu.be/_F7CMOKbjpA
The 153 four was only available on the sedans and wagon, not on the coupe and convertible (1962-1967). In 1968 the Nova SS came standard with the 350.