Words & Photos: Tommy Parry

It’s hard to believe that this shimmering, lowline Chevy started as an aging relic full of rusted holes. Even so, there was undeniable potential, and despite the chipped paint and a ratty interior, that stunning yellow Chevy would eventually become a sectioned and chopped stunner.

Obviously, sticking around in the elements for half a century rusted out a good section of the floor; before any real restructuring happened, it would have to be patched.

Then came a four-inch sectioning, a long segment traced through the fenders. With the top sitting a bit lower than it was, the car looked clean but much more aggressive and intimidating. The welded lines along the edges of the car looked a bit like battle scars, and that only contributed to the image of the mean-looking machine.

After removing four inches from the roof, the car looked even more aggressive. It took a bit of welding around the b and c-pillars, and the tweaking would continue throughout the entire build. Because of that, the doors had to be pretty well-tweaked to fit at that point.
Next, with the Chevy 350 pulled and the front clip back on, the front end was lined up, taped, and sectioned like the rear.

With the front and rear fenders slimmed down, the rear end had to be squashed just a little. As the green tape started flowing, the challenging process began – and dumping all the innards from the trunk to make some room for the chop came first. It was no easy feat – getting these old trunks to line up right never is – but after the expected swearing, the frustration passed and the rear end looked great. Who doesn’t want a smaller backside?

While that stunning yellow paint could’ve been a show-stopper, it was stripped off, revealing the shiny underside. Next, a bumper was mocked up, showing just how striking this Slim behind could be with a bit of jewelry on top.

At that point, the attention was turned to the interior. A newer dash was stuck inside the car for a cleaner fitment. Like shaping the metal in the rear, getting the windows to fit with the altered shape of the car wasn’t a walk in the park, so the rear section of the roof was masterfully filled in with sheet metal to help straighten the rear window frame.

The custom metalsmithing didn’t stop there. The front fenders had corroded a bit over time, and to fit the new headlights, they had to be extended to meet the headlight rings.

After bagging the front axle, and improvising a simplistic block-and-bag setup in the rear, the footwork had been more-or-less addressed. Perhaps not the most advanced setup for handling, but it didn’t matter much – this car was about style and acceleration, and having a decent fuel tank to feed the Chevy 350 was just as important.

A gas tank from an old, dusty Pontiac Grand Prix was mounted high enough to avoid getting pelted by sharp rocks. Having the fuel leak onto the hot exhaust underneath would be a surefire way to see this old beauty go up in flames.

Cleaning the floor, pulling any unnecessary metal, laying down some carpet, installing the shifter, tossing in a set of Mustang seats, and getting the dash aligned were the easy parts. Getting the windows, b-pillars, and interior trim to line up just right filled a few feed buckets with sweat and profanity from all the frustration.

The process was far from complete, but with the Chevy 350 humming, the wheels given a fresh coat of slime green and the front bumper attached, it was nearly there. When she moved under her own power that day, the feeling was fatherly, to put it mildly.

But a build this demanding needed a little more in the looks department before it was over. After placing a mesh grille in the Chevy’s gaping mouth, a couple of baseball bats, sawed in half, were joined and tipped with turn markers for a grille ornament that was simple, stylish, and funny.

Continuing on that trend, the car was polished and given a clear coat and a set of whitewall tires. On the trunk went a piece of custom art bearing the build ethos.

Of course, a build this pretty needed a leather interior. Slime green-and-white seats might not be everyone’s color, but they look pretty good from this angle.

It was not a simple build. Nothing with this amount of chopping, trimming, and fine-tuning is ever easy. However, it was a major success due to the insistence on perfection and a willingness to try new things – who buys a sewing machine to improve their car’s interior? Slime green accents, a mirror finish, little visibility, and more than enough grunt to fire this monster towards the horizon could be used as talking points, but what makes this one special is the hundreds of hours that went into tweaking and shaping each piece so it was just right.