Cool Features & Quirks of the 1966 Chevrolet Impala: Tastefulness for the Masses

Well for 1966 Chevrolet decided to refresh its Impala just a little bit and it bore a new front end. The hood was the same but the grille as well as the header panel and the fenders were changed to give the Impala a bit of a new look. The cross hatch style grille was retained but the grille had a different form. Now it was sporting more of that so-called dog bone like front end where you can see above the headlamp area the grille is wider than in the center portion. That was kind of a pretty stylish theme for the time and something that Chevrolet decided to adopt with the 1966 model year. And you'll notice some of the differences versus the inset which is a 1965 Impala. Here the upper portion of the grill goes over the top of the headlamps and the grill is clearly spilling out behind the headlamps as well. So really new front end for 1966. Not quite sure if I like it better than the 1965. I think I still like the 1965 better. It's pretty hard to improve upon that, but still a handsome front end overall. Now as we rotate to this front three-quarter-ish view you can see more of the differences versus the 1965 model that's in the inset and most probably we already talked about the front end and how that was a little bit different. But notice here for 1966 you have kind of the top of the fender and the profile the top of the fender replicated in that crease that starts just above the bumper and then does a 90 degree bend and goes rearward on the car. This contrasts with the 1965 model that had more of a datum line that went around the entire car, a crease that just kind of enveloped the entire vehicle, including the front end. I thought it was interesting how designers went for this kind of parallel crease form on the fender, and that allowed them to integrate that into the door and carry over the door and just have a little bit different theme to the front end, but do so in a cost-effective manner. By the way, if you have not yet watched my interview with Len Casillo on this channel about the 1976 to 1977 Cutlass that he was the chief designer for, well, Len also executed the fender design for the 1966 Chevrolet, so this is his design, the one-year-only kind of parallel crease. It would be gone again in 1967. Pretty amazing how often the sheet metal changed on these cars back during this time frame Chevrolet division would invest so much to change the fender profile. You'd think they'd just change the grille a little bit and maybe the taillights, but a lot is different between the 1966 and 1965, not only out front, but also out back, and we'll get around to the rear in a little bit. Now as you take a look at the side view, this is one of the best views of, I think, the 1966 Chevrolets because you can see that beautiful crease, which I wish this car did not have the body side molding. Unfortunately, so many of these cars have this protective body side molding that I think takes away from the styling of the car. At least it doesn't have door edge guards, so that's one step in the right direction. But notice how high that crease is, and then you have a crease on the lower portion of the car as well that starts... All the way actually in front of the front wheel and then continues down the side of the car. It's interesting that this crease starts and really initiates up front and then hops over the front wheel, continues down the side, hops over the rear wheel. A little bit 1966 Tornado-esque in that regard but certainly far more muted. The wheel arches here are nothing like the Tornado at all and really the dominant Theme that you see from this side view as well as the rear three-quarter view that we're going to take a look at is the surface that emerges behind the door and almost like this surface from the Corvette, you know, kind of that Corvette during this era had those four fender bumps and the Impala, I think, is trying to channel a little bit of that Corvette heritage and do something that was uniquely Chevrolet. Of course, you can also see the fastback style roof design. Fastbacks were really popular during this. particular time period, and I think it's one of the best car designs that GM has ever done. The full-size fastbacks, all of them were just gorgeous two-door coupes. Interestingly, for 1966, this would be the second year of the Caprice, and it would get its own unique roofline. It would be more of a notchback, kind of more formal-style profile. To separate itself from the Impala, in 1965, the Caprice would be introduced midway through that model year and was only a four-door. But for 1966, it would gain a two-door model, and for whatever reason, Chevrolet thought that it needed to have a unique roofline on the Caprice, and it got this more formal-style roof, very similar to upper-end cars like Cadillacs that had that very upright C-pillar. Another thing I'll point out in this side view. It's just the tasteful use of chrome. There really is not a lot of chrome on this car. And, of course, it's a Chevrolet, and it's not the Caprice. It's the Impala. But you have this very thin rocker molding, very thin wheel opening moldings. And I think it looks tasteful. It actually doesn't look cheap. It looks tasteful on this car and gives it a little bit of character but also some restraint. And I think that restraint is needed, particularly when you think about that huge surface that's coming out of the quarter panel. Your eye is really drawn to that, especially on this, I believe this is Artesian Turquoise is the name of the car. A beautiful metallic color that's showing off all of the highlights and lowlights associated with the surfacing. Now when it comes to the rear three-quarter view, you notice some other distinctive differences versus the 1965 model year car. And the first thing is that on the 1965, remember I talked about that datum line, that crease that ran around the entire length of the car? And that continued into the decklid. The decklid and the opening of the decklid really continued the datum line on the rear. Here, you've got the decklid that kind of dips down in between the tail lamps, and the cut line is different on the 1966. You still have the... Three element tail lights that were introduced with the 1958 Impala and will continue on Chevrolets for a number of years. But now it's really integrated into one light as opposed to three distinctive lights on the 1965. And in 1965, you had two of those lights that would go with the decklid. One was kind of stationary. Here, it's all just part of the same lamp. And then the decklid dips down, as I mentioned, Thank Two tail lamps. You interestingly also have a three-piece bumper. here and that was something that chevrolet did you for a number of years and the thought was for insurance companies that if you let's say dented one very of the sides of the bumper you could just replace that panel you didn't have to replace the entire bumper itself Yeah. much. i suppose it kind of worked but you'd have to have to be a light dent or ding because otherwise you're going to compress the other portions of the bumper if something gets hit pretty hard another thing about the 1966 rear versus the 1965 is i think it's Considerably flatter in profile notice if you compare the 66 rear to the 1965 rear the quarters kind of pull out farther on the 1965 and here it's a lot more blunted and kind of chopped off and gives the car a little bit more of a formal look. Kind of like the Tornado had the chopped off rear, although this is obviously a very different style to the car. But it's just a different look and I think a little bit more formal and something that allowed customers to have a differentiated car for 1966 versus 1965, whether or not somebody was looking at the front or the back. And speaking of the back, here's a dead-on rear view. And you'll notice the three-piece bumper, as I was mentioning, the bumper is Very, let's say, thick on this car, almost surprisingly thick for the era. We often think of these vehicles as having relatively thin bumpers, but certainly not true on this Impala. I do love how you have the kind of quarter panel and the peak of the quarter panel that then dips down to form the surface with the deck lid. And there's not really a crease or anything in the middle of this deck lid. It's just kind of flat and then has that. That radius where it curls under to complete the decklid where it ends up coming close and touching the bumper for the closure. But you do have the C-pillar that pulls inward very nicely away from the quarter, and it gives the car this, I'll say, look of width. It's certainly not a wider stance, I would say, because notice where the wheels are relative to the body. They are so far inboard, which was. Typical for the era to having these very inboard wheels, but it does look a little bit like a hippo on roller skates from this particular view because those tires are so skinny and so far inboard relative to the sheet metal. They're actually almost aligned with the C-pillar placement on the car, which is far inboard of the outermost section of the body. Now as we rotate to the inside, you'll notice just a very handsomely trimmed Interior. And this is not an expensive car. It's a Chevrolet. But it still looks good. The dashboard does look rich. Interestingly, this is a non-air conditioning equipped car, so you don't see any vents on the instrument panel. And you've got the kickwell vents with the pole knobs down there for fresh air ventilation. I bet nobody under the age of 30 years old knows what those are for today or hardly anybody. But the other thing you have when you didn't get air conditioning was there's really no vacuum servos or actuators. under the dash to move the air from the heater area to the defrost area it's all operated by cables and everything on this car is cable operated with respect to the hvac from the cold to hot operation to where the air is coming out and you know i guess that wasn't offensive But something you certainly don't see today, I mean everything has electronic climate control almost today, but even in the 80s if you got the base car and HVAC setups, sometimes you'd at least have vacuum motors to move some of that stuff. Not in this car. The other thing that the keen eye will notice is the shift quadrant, and you see PRNDL. This car has a Powerglide transmission, and Ford never had, really, in this era, a two-speed automatic. If you got a Ford with an automatic, you were getting the three-speed. But Chevrolet stuck with the Powerglide for many, many years. And interestingly, this car has a big block under hood. So it's a big block with a Powerglide. I think that's pretty sweet. combination and as we look at the seat stitch pattern here and the door panel again this is an impala it's not the top of line chevrolet by this point even but imagine you had just bought this car it would be hard to say you didn't feel like you got great value the interior is beautiful the exterior is beautiful it's tasteful And it's a Chevrolet. It's almost kind of hard to say, why would you pay so much more for a Cadillac? Yes, there were a lot more luxury features and the cars were longer. If you got a more expensive car back in this timeframe, you got a longer wheelbase. But the Chevrolet was just such a great value. It's no wonder why people flock to these. And the thing that I love about this is you had so many different interior colors back during this timeframe. Today, you know, the number of interiors is just in terms of the colors is just so few you kind of get a black and maybe one or two other colors but here this one the the exterior is turquoise you get a turquoise interior a so-called dipped interior where the interior matches the exterior and it looks fantastic you don't see turquoise interiors today sometimes you'll see a red maybe Certainly blacks, browns, grays, but really rare to get such a richly colored interior. And everything is colored, the headliner, the A-pillars, the seats, the carpet, the dash. Now if you get a different color, often the headliner is still just, and the B-pillar and the garnish trim is kind of a neutral tan or something. It doesn't change. But back in the day, they changed everything, and I think that's the way that it should be. And as I mentioned, this particular vehicle is equipped with the 396 cubic inch big block V8, making 325 horsepower. 396 was introduced in 1965, that would be the first model year, and these big blocks really replaced the good old-fashioned 409s, as an example, and the previous Chevrolet big blocks. Now you could get a whole host of engines in your Impala, everything from a standard 155 horsepower thrifty six-cylinder engine, the Turbo Thrift I believe it was called, and the standard engine in some other Impala models was 195 horsepower, 283 cubic inch V8, There are a pair of 283 cubic inch V8s that were available, a 327, a 396 cubic inch V8, and then a couple of different choices for the 427 cubic inch V8. Now, the 396 was the largest engine that you could get with the Powerglide. After that, you were getting the turbo-hydromatic, which you could get with the 396. But if you got the next up 427 cubic inch V8 that made 390 horsepower, you're getting the turbo-hydromatic. And if you've got the top engine. 425 horsepower 427 cubic inch v8 you were forced into getting a manual transmission you could not get either the turbo hydromatic or the power glide so you had a whole host of engine options that were available on the impala and i think that was another reason for its success is that you could A ton of different engines, the six-cylinder, a couple 283s, a 327, a 396, a couple 427s. You could get the Powerglide, you could get the turbo-hydromatic, you could get the new fully synchronized three-speed manual transmission or a four-speed manual transmission. So the number of powertrain combinations was just extremely high, and I think that meant that buyers could really pick and choose what they wanted, and certainly they could pick and choose the options. This car, for example, you can see the power steering pump. does not have power brakes and power brakes were nice but not necessarily required on drum brakes because they're self-energizing disc brakes if you don't have power on a big car like this you're really going to be exercising your right foot to stop the car so you could just get a whole host of different options Custom tailor your car from the engines to the transmissions to the colors on the exterior, the interior, the body style. It's no wonder why these cars are so popular. They were great values. They looked great. And they drove great, to be honest. They really did. The only thing about these, some of them had some engine mount issues. And that was something that Chevrolet would later recall. The engine mounts would break. And then it would. Jammed the throttle open, potentially. And this was one of the reasons why they added a safety catch to the engine mounts. In the event they broke, the engine couldn't rock more than a certain distance because of the issues that Chevrolet had during this time frame. I believe they also had some front-end issues with the ball joints during this time frame. They were a little bit weak. But by and large, these really were nice cars that drove very well and were very durable and would last, aside from the rust piece. In any case, what do you think of this 1966 Chevrolet? And do you like the 66 better than the 65? Or which Chevrolet do you like the best? Put a comment in the comment section and let me know. Thanks again for watching.