78 Impala Restoration

Hey everyone.  

I wanted to share my family's 78 Impala's restoration.  This has been a LONG time coming.  My grandfather bought the car new on 5/3/78.  It visited Arizona not too long after they bought it, and took a few trips to Florida.  By the time I came around in 87, my pap pretty much used it as pick-up truck.  He made a custom roof rack that carried lumber, building supplies, and the trunk was always full of tools, a lawn mower, etc.  By that time it was pretty whooped.  Dents, rust, and all that jazz had taken their toll, but I always loved that car.  There were a lot of memories from my pap picking me up from school, to being in it when it rolled over to 100k miles, to cleaning it to take to car shows.  We collected parts for it, for about 12 years.  If I saw an old B-Body at a junkyard, I'd be begging my dad to take me there to get parts.  eBay made it even worse.  I'd try to snag any NOS parts that would pop up and before too long, I had filled the better part of a closet with parts.  My pap and I never got a chance to get it restored together.  He passed away in 2005.  One of the last things I mentioned to him was fixing the car up.  He said that there wasn't going to be time for that for him.  

Fast forward to 2013, and my family finally had the money put together to get the car done.  We found a local body shop. It took 18 months to get her back, but they did an AMAZING job on it.  The paint looks better than anyone ever remembers.  We did leave the door moldings, Impala C-pillar script, and Chevrolet script on the trunk off (mainly because they look bad), and got a smoking deal on rally wheels for it.  Other than that, its a 305, auto, Sage Green on Sage Green 78 Impala.  

Without further adieu, here are the pics!









































And the finished product!













I hope you guys enjoyed all the pictures. I'm hoping to get some before and after pics done soon.

Oh, and if anyone is looking for certain parts for theirs, let me know. I have a 77 Impala Parts car that donated a lot to the 78, but still has a lot of the smaller parts intact.

That's a great looking car it looks like the body work was done very well. I am glad you are getting that 77' where you it to be it definitely looks like it was worth the effort.

Very, very nice! Well worth the time and effort. Welcome to the forum!

Welcome!! Oh man, that turned out just beautiful! I really like that color too!

Thanks for sharing with us, great pics!

Phew!  So its been awhile since I posted on here.  Thanks for all of the compliments!  We've had a few changes since we got it out of the body shop a few years ago, but first I have to saw its been an absolute BLAST driving around in the restored car.  We've had a lot of folks tell us good stories of when they or a family member has owned an old B-Body.  Some of my favorite stories come from the old factory workers from the now closed Fisher Auto Body Stamping Plant outside of Pittsburgh.  One gentleman looked it all over and said "I remember stamping the floor boards for these cars! I always love seeing them on the road now."

Since the last time I posted, she's gone through a few changes.  I was finally able to put on some of the NOS pieces I had laying around for years.  We also had the engine pulled and rebuilt last fall.  We originally were hoping for it to be done by the AACA show in Hershey, but our engine builder ran into some issues with it.  Lets put it this way, 109,000 hard miles will take their toll on an old 305.  After a complete rebuild, the car runs better than ever and looks better than it did when it left the factory.  Enough of my bloviating.  On to the pictures!

Looks like it turned out amazing.  Happy cruises to you and your family!

Goooooood stuff! Nice GM Corporate Blue, can't wait to rebuild my original engine, I've got a few cans of GM blue waiting for when I get my butt to rebuild it lol. Looks beautiful!