Why the 1969 Chevrolet Chevelle SS 396 is the Timeless Muscle Car That Never Jumped the Shark

On Woodward Avenue late on a summer evening, all eyes were on a black 1969 Chevrolet Chevelle. Owner Darrin Slota gave the throttle squeezes that briefly lifted the nose and smoothly shifted the Muncie M22 Rock Crusher four-speed gearbox. I couldn’t help but think that it was a cruise night in 1969.

“It’s more than a half-century old,” said Slota, “but I can’t think of anything else I’d rather drive.”

Turning back the clock is, in many respects, the entire point of owning a classic muscle car. Yet few cars telegraph the vibes of the era as honestly as a Chevelle. It’s one of the few muscle cars that never jumped the shark.

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In the fall of 1977, the TV sitcom Happy Days, deep into its fifth season, featured an episode in which “The Fonz,” riding water skis, jumps over a shark. It was beyond ludicrous, and “jump the shark” entered the lexicon as a metaphor for taking a creative product or brand in an absurd, damaging direction.

The year 1977 also happens to be the final one for the Chevelle. We think that’s slightly more than a coincidence. Most nameplates, if they’re around long enough, get bounced around a boardroom and slapped onto some model that infuriates the faithful. Some would say Pontiac strapped on water skis when it called an Australian coupe “GTO.” Ford was perhaps guilty of the same when it put the hallowed word “Mustang” on a battery-powered crossover.

Not Chevelle.

I was a high school sophomore in late autumn of ’63 when I first met the Chevelle. I needed to take a driver education class and wasn’t thrilled. My dad had already taught me how to pilot a car at the wheel of our aging stick-shift Rambler, and I figured I knew it all. But my mood changed when I saw the machine I would be trained in—a bright red ’64 Chevelle, the all-new car I had read about in magazines. Yeah, it was a six-cylinder automatic with a bench seat, but it was Chevy’s latest, and I was geeked.

A lot of young folks were impressed with GM’s new car (which corporate marketing had likely planted in driver-ed programs). Its unadorned, sharply creased styling—hallmarks of GM design chief Bill Mitchell—was a clean break with the finned and bedazzled Chevys of the previous decade.

The Chevelle is one of the few muscle cars that never jumped the shark.

Automakers’ battle to win the wallets of the rising baby boomer generation was already brewing: Ford had its 427, Dodge and Plymouth rolled out the Hemi, Pontiac had Super Duty 421s, Chevy had the she’s-real-fine 409. To up the ante, automakers stuffed some of their large V-8 engines in smaller cars, including, famously, Pontiac’s 1964 GTO—a Tempest with a 389-cubic-inch barnstormer. Not to be outdone by its internal rival, Chevrolet quickly began offering its own high-compression small-block in the Tempest’s platform-mate, the Chevelle. By the end of 1965, there was a trickle of Chevelles equipped with Chevrolet’s new big-block V-8. The trickle soon became a flow: For ’66, the larger engine became a widely available option and had a new name—Chevelle SS 396.

The proving ground for these machines would be right here on Woodward Avenue, the big, broad street that begins in downtown Detroit and blasts straight through the suburbs. It’s the street where, in 1896, Henry Ford, on a bicycle, chased Charles Brady King, who was test-driving what is said to have been ­America’s first automobile. By the 1960s, its stoplights were teeming with Chevelles, GTOs, and big-block Mopars and Fords. Many had tacit factory backing and, in some cases, car company engineers behind the wheel. According to Floyd Allen, former chief powertrain engineer for Chrysler, Big Three engineers participated in organized street racing on Square Lake Road, just east of Woodward. Held after midnight, the races were sometimes clocked with electronic timing equipment. Research, you know.

For ’68, Chevy introduced a new Chevelle with a swoopy look and aggressive posture. Under the hood of the SS 396 was a conservatively rated 375-hp, 396-cubic-inch V-8. Serious racers skipped the hardtop and opted for a post car—a B-pillar–equipped version that offered more rigidity. The trip from the showroom to the drag strip could be short. (Slota believes his Chevelle was raced by a pair of brothers in the early ’70s.)

The second-generation Chevelles continued with only mild cosmetic changes until ’73, winning fans and stoplight drag races. Then it was over. Gas shortages and emissions regulations robbed the big V-8s of power; rising insurance rates and increased police enforcement greatly quieted the cruising culture on Woodward. Many of the muscle car nameplates soldiered on, but not necessarily for the better. The Chevelle largely avoided that fate. Third-generation Chevelles, introduced for 1973, had less power but retained a full range of V-8s, including a new 400-cubic-inch small-block. Then, in ’77, the nameplate disappeared from the Chevrolet lineup. Like other 1960s legends, from Janis Joplin to Jimi Hendrix, the Chevelle left us in its prime. The nameplate never graced a front-drive Beretta or the like.

Many muscle car nameplates soldiered on. But not necessarily for the better.

With thousands upon thousands produced over a decade-plus run, Chevelles remained plentiful for the next generation of enthusiasts. Slota was among them. He grew up in Warren, Michigan, in the 1980s and is now a GM engineering designer. He bought his first Chevelle when he was in high school—just a grocery-getter with a 307-cubic-inch V-8. He has fond memories of driving it around with his sweetheart, Cari. He has been loyal to both ever since: Cari is now his wife of 38 years, and they own two 1969 big-block Chevelles.

He first met the black beauty you see on these pages while cruising Gratiot Avenue (another Detroit artery) in the late 1990s. It was a post car and had the L78 engine—a solid-lifter, high-power version of Chevy’s 396 that was a special order at Chevy dealerships.

Slota recalls it was, at the time, a “20-footer”—it looked good from a distance but was a bit rough up close. The then-owner apparently agreed, because soon thereafter, he tore it apart, planning to do a full restoration. Like many others who have attempted the same, he never got beyond some initial bodywork, and the car became a plethora of parts boxes in the garage. In 2008, the owner threw in the towel and told Slota he could buy it. It took him two years to do a full restoration.

Woodward has also gone through a restoration process of sorts. In 1995, a group of car buffs, who had grown nostalgic for the hot-car summer nights of the ’50s and ’60s, organized an informal cruise on Woodward, scene of their past glories. The event, which raised money for a soccer field, was a success, so they did it again the next year, and the next, and they’re still doing it. Today, the Woodward Dream Cruise attracts more than 30,000 muscle cars, hot rods, and classics, along with a million or so spectators. The event is largely responsible for reawakening the cruise scene on Woodward. On the night we went out—more than a month before the official Dream Cruise—late-model imports and motorcycles vied for attention with hard-charging SRT Challengers and the occasional exotic. Most of the drivers are far too young to remember (or care about) Woodward’s 1960s heyday. Indeed, the only things you don’t see too often in the run-up to Dream Cruise are older muscle cars. They have become valuable, irreplaceable machines—not the sort of thing you take out on a random weeknight when a bunch of kids are darting and weaving from stoplight to stoplight.

Slota doesn’t seem to mind. On this night, he and Cari drove some 40 minutes from their home to meet us in Ferndale, a suburb just outside of Detroit. We cruised north, pausing at local establishments that cater to car enthusiasts and entertaining the spectators who had gathered on the banks of Woodward with a few blips of the throttle and some big-block baritone blasts. We rolled through Birmingham and Bloomfield Hills—the tony suburbs that have long been home to Big Three execs—before continuing through Pontiac, where a racetrack and car condominiums now sit on the former grounds of a General Motors factory. (M1 Concourse, as it’s called, is the host of the ­annual Roadkill Nights drag races that take place right on Woodward.) Continuing north on Woodward with the rest of the evening cruisers, we dropped into Pontiac’s Wide Track loop, where the avenue circles around and sends the traffic right back on Woodward, cruising south. Ready to do it all again, which we of course did.

Chevelles are cars. Not “investments.”

Stopping for ice cream after sundown, Slota remarked, “People think that if you own an old muscle car that you’re rich,” he says. “I’m not rich.” He’s just a man obviously in love with his automobiles—and one who has the skills to make them right.

This may be the other critical way in which the Chevelle has avoided jumping the shark: Most haven’t become “investments.” They remain wildly popular—the 1968–72 model is Hagerty’s fifth most-insured car—and for the most part attainable. The average first- and second-generation Chevelle insured through Hagerty is valued at less than $35,000. A Chevelle with a 307-cubic-inch engine, like the one Slota started on, remains within reach of a high school student—good examples hover around $12K, according to the Hagerty Price Guide. (Rare options like Slota’s L78 396 and the mighty LS6, a 450-hp version of the 454, obviously cost way more.)

As we wrapped for the night, Slota crawled under his Chevelle with some wrenches and adjusted the shift linkage—it was getting caught in second. Then he tore off toward home, a muscle car disappearing in the darkness on Woodward Avenue.

Woodward Avenue used to be a hotbed of late-night drag racing. Lesser Chevys, Fords, and Mopars were probably used to seeing SS 396 taillights.