This 1969 Chevelle Malibu Has Managed To Weather The Odds!
By Matt Litwin
October 6, 2024
The debate regarding when American car manufacturers started building muscle cars is decades old. Did it start with the Stutz Bearcat? Buick’s Century? Oldsmobile’s Rocket 88? Fuel-injected 1957 Chevrolets? Each makes a solid argument as the groundbreaking performer, but there’s no disagreement about the demand Detroit’s hot supercars supplied during the Sixties. Countless blue- and white-collar hot shoes who were part of that scene have since shared their tales attesting to that fact. Our sister publication, Hemmings Muscle Machines, is brimming with street-and/or-strip antics of that “golden era.”
And then there are stories that don’t quite match what’s now accepted as muscle- gospel, circa 1969. One case study is that of Vernon, New Jersey, resident Gary Vizioli, and his ’69 Chevrolet Chevelle Malibu Sport Coupe on these pages – a story that begins with an entirely different Chevy.
“I initially owned a 1963 Impala Super Sport that I had good success with at local drag strips before I was drafted into the U.S. Army. The car was equipped with a small-block 327, and I would take on the likes of fuel-injected 1957 Chevys and occasionally beat them. While I was in the service, my oldest brother, who lived in Florida, stored the car for me. It was my pride and joy, and I would probably still have it today had it not been stolen shortly after I was discharged,” Gary says.
Admittedly, he chalks the theft up to an unfortunate chain of events – a likely but unprovable setup – during a night on the town. Minutes turned into hours before the inevitable set in: The Impala was beyond recovery. Heartbroken and relegated to borrowing his father’s car, Gary contemplated a suitable replacement.
“I hadn’t started my new job yet, but I knew my next car had to be equal parts fun and reliable, just like my Impala. I didn’t want a full-size Chevy; they were already too big for my liking when I was shopping in April 1969, so I looked at the Chevelle. I liked its size, so I examined all its specs. I’ve always been a small-block Chevy guy, and my eyes went right to the 300-hp 350. The V-8 looked to be as good as the 300-hp 327, so I checked off options on the order sheet, outfitting one the way I thought would make a practical drag racer. Remembering the good old days on the drag strip was an influence. I loaded a Chevelle Malibu with that 350, and every heavy-duty option obtainable. I skipped power windows, power seats, power door locks, and such because that’s something we didn’t look at; I wanted to make it as light possible for the track, yet functional for the road. Of course, it had to have a four-speed manual.
“On April 30, 1969, I handed the order form over to a family friend who was a salesman at the Chevy dealership, and when he looked at the list of 22 options I selected, and then noticed the model was a Malibu, he shook his head in confusion. He asked, ‘Why aren’t you ordering the SS 396? Everyone else is.’ There was something about that 396 that just didn’t turn me on. I told him I didn’t know if it would be a good daily driver. We didn’t use that term then, but I was thinking of the car’s use beyond the strip,” Gary says.
The salesman’s remark wasn’t a ploy to entice Gary into a premium high-performance model. History has since proven that Chevrolet assembled 86,630 big-block, 396-powered Chevelles, in addition to roughly 323 COPO variants fitted with the legendary 427-cu.in. V-8. That made Gary’s freshly ordered L48 optioned Malibu a relative rarity, as just 30,099 of those 300-hp 350s were installed in Chevy’s stylish A-body. Gary took delivery of his black-over-black ride during the first week of June.
“The Malibu was everything I hoped it would be. It was as strong, if not stronger, than my lost Impala. The M20 four-speed transmission and 3.55 Positraction differential were a perfect match to the engine, and the heavy-duty options – suspension, radiator, battery, disc brakes, alternator, and temperature-controlled fan – were not highly visible, but they were in harmony with the small-block. I never did race it though – legally, that is. I did have a few matchups with a few 325-hp 396 Chevelles, and my Malibu held its own with them, so the car was no slouch,” Gary says.
His built-to-race-but-technically-didn’t comment rubs against the very grain of muscle car lore, making Gary’s story a virtual enigma. It begs one to ask what he did with the muscular-looking Malibu. According to Gary, it became a trusted commuter.
“I was living in Yonkers, New York, and my job was in Harrison for a couple of years before the data center I worked in was transferred to Sterling Forest on the New Jersey line. I commuted about 100 miles round trip every day. I worked second shift, an easy drive for the Chevy because my commute went against the normal rush hour flow. We moved to New Jersey in late 1973, but the miles kept adding up. The car continued to serve me well, and over the course of 12 years and just over 170,000 miles, no mechanical rebuilds were needed; even the clutch went the distance. It was incredibly reliable. The Chevy was the chariot ride home from the hospital when each of my three now-adult sons were born. But those 12 winters of salt-encrusted roads took a toll on some of the sheetmetal. So, I took it off the road in 1981 with the idea that I would restore it.”
Gary immediately got to work. “I wanted to get it functional and looking good again, but not by taking the body off the frame. I thought, ‘Why would I want to do that? I just want it to be a driver.’ I put a new windshield in and had a local body shop address some of the rust, and then put the Malibu back in my garage. This is where life got in the way; you always hear that, and it happened. Not that I was ignoring the car. My friends told me about Carlisle’s spring and fall swap meets and I started amassing parts. Initially I found a pair of fenders and different odds and ends – all NOS stuff. Nobody really knew what they had or what its value was then. Heck, I wasn’t even sure what I needed. I just purchased parts as I found them.
“Eventually I got back to the restoration, thinking I would do it in my garage as soon as I finished working on my 1969 Corvette’s spindles. But life happened again, and when my 94-year-old neighbor told us she was selling her 10,000-mile, all-original 1964 Chevelle four-door sedan, I couldn’t pass it up. That meant I had to move a car. My Malibu went into a wooden portable garage I bought which my friend let me put on his property. That was in 1985. I would check on it every now and then, and one day I noticed the roof developed a leak. Water didn’t drip onto the Malibu, but it got humid in there, which exacerbated the rust; it took a toll on things. Time marched on and the car sat, until late 2015 when my wife, Susan, said, ‘You’ve got to get that car done – you’re not getting and younger.’
“She was right, so I went to see Lou Calasibetta of Old Stillwater Garage in Stillwater, New Jersey. I met him back in 1979 and we became friends, and even then, I thought when the time comes, he’s the guy who should restore my car,” Gary says. “We put a plan together, after which I freed the brakes on the Malibu, pulled it out of storage, and delivered it to Lou on a trailer.”
Remember the existing rust and years of humid storage?
“Lou, being the good man he is, called me after evaluating the car and said, ‘Gary, find something else. This is not going to be a cheap job. Just find another car and make it like this one.’ I told him I wouldn’t have any interest in doing that – this was the car I wanted to do. There was a pause and he said he and his team would do everything they could, but reiterated it wasn’t going to be cheap. And the spreadsheet I kept confirms that. Sometimes I don’t want to look at it.”
To help defer some of the cost, Gary became the parts manager, whether it was continuing to source items, or oversee component restorations by specialists. The latter included items like replating trim, rebuilding the master brake and wheel cylinders, and original water and fuel pumps, and had the original two-piece front brake rotors turned. According to Gary, there was just enough metal left to allow it.
“The list of people who did that kind of work for me, while Lou and his team were spending countless hours restoring the body and frame, was extensive. I didn’t pull any punches. When a part came off the car that had a date code on it, that part went to the best people in the industry. For instance, my original dash had cracks in it, and I didn’t want a reproduction, so I sent it, the gauges, radio, heater control, and even the kick panels to Instrument Specialties Incorporated in North Kingston, Rhode Island. What they returned was jaw-dropping perfection. It was like that with everything, even the original horns,” Gary reports.
“As we got deeper into the restoration, it was progressing beyond driver quality, but I thought why not? The car warranted it. On the other hand, it made finding a few needed parts extremely difficult. One standout was the base of the air-cleaner assembly. It’s different between a 350 paired with an automatic and one with a manual transmission. It was a nightmare finding the correct manual transmission base, but I did. To get it, I met the seller at a rest stop on the New York Thruway while returning from a trip to Burlington, Vermont,” Gary says.
Malibu was effectively the mid-level trim line within the Chevelle series in 1969 that could have been equipped with one of seven engines. Gary ordered his Malibu with the 300-hp 350 cu.in. small-block option, thinking he would drag race the car after weekly commutes.
With the months turning into years, other aspects of the Malibu fell into place. This included the original four-speed manual and 350-cu.in. V-8, both of which were rebuilt by first-gen Camaro guru Jerry MacNeish. According to Gary, “One of Jerry’s guys works for Hendrick Motorsports, and he has access to the machine shop for side jobs. That’s where my block was machined. During reassembly, I asked him to install a 350-hp cam designed for a 327 V-8 – it was the same cam I used back in the day, and it’s the only change made to my engine. When the engine was done it pulled 350 hp on the dyno. That V-8 runs like you can’t believe. It was back to me by the time the chassis was ready for reassembly.”
Final reassembly, most of it accomplished by Old Stillwater Garage, included upholstery work done by Jerry Ambrosi of Master Upholstery in Newton, New Jersey, who is renowned for concours-quality results. From start to finish, the collaborative effort was done in five years.
“It took longer than we thought, but you don’t rush things like this. When it was time for the final road test, it was only fitting that Susan had the honors, as she steadfastly supported the endeavor. More than 30 years of Carlisle excursions, long road trips to who knows where to buy an elusive part, endless hours in the shop; she was right there!
“We were left with absolutely no disappointments. The work performed by the Old Stillwater Garage, Master Upholstery, and the legions of experts around the country who worked their magic on dozens of components was amply recognized. At its first show, the 2021 AACA Eastern Spring Nationals in Saratoga, New York, the Malibu received a 1st Junior award, with a zero-deduction score sheet. At the AACA Fall Nationals at Hershey that October, it received its Senior. Then at the AACA Virginia Beach 2022 Grand Nationals it was awarded a 1st Grand National. It’s since received a Senior Grand National and has been nominated twice for an AACA National Award.
“Recently, Susan asked me when I’m going to start driving it again. I’m very proud that everyone involved was able to turn my Titanic-like rust bucket into this unbelievable finished product, but now that the hard work has been recognized, the time is near for my Malibu and me to hit the road again.”
