Excessive Tickets Parked this 1970 454 Chevelle for 40 Years – Now it’s Restored
In the mid-1970s, the gas crisis and automakers’ move away from high-performance models made used muscle cars affordable – even for teenagers. Original buyers of the peak performers from a few years earlier were dumping them for models with better fuel economy or family cars as they matured.
For Bob Satterfield, that meant as a 17-year-old he was able to afford a ’70 454 Chevelle Super Sport powered by the monster LS6 – the 450-horsepower, big block. Even better, the car had the M22 “Rock Crusher” four-speed and a Positraction rear axle with 4.10 gears.
]Tier2]
What happened next should not be a surprise. Many a teen in those days went down the path of modifying his car for even better performance and then exploring its limits on public roads. For Bob that meant earning too much attention from Georgia law enforcement. An excessive number of points on his license prompted the decision to park the car.
Four decades later when Bob decided to resurrect the Chevelle, his youthful decision to save stock pieces that were replaced in search of more power paid off. Those original parts made the restoration process easier for the team at Thunder Valley Customs and minimized the need to hunt for a lot of replacement or reproduction pieces.
Bob’s Chevelle has all the best high-performance pieces offered by Chevrolet in 1970, but a few features fall into the unusual column. First, the four-speed option would usually mean bucket seats and a console; Bob’s SS has a bench seat. Second, Autumn Gold was a relatively common color for other Chevelle models, but not so much for Super Sport cars. Same for the Saddle-colored interior.
Otherwise, the 454 Chevelle fits the high-performance profile from the peak of the first muscle car era. Obviously the 450-horsepower big block mated with the four-speed and tall gears in the Positraction rearend anchor the ride. Add the functional cowl-induction hood, special performance suspension option, power steering, and power front disc brakes, and you have the quintessential LS6 Chevelle.
The interior of Bob’s SS features options like tinted glass, an AM radio with rear speaker, and the Astro-Ventilation system. Power-robbing air conditioning was left off the option list.
Contemporary road tests on Chevelles equipped like Bob’s showed quarter-mile times in the mid-13 second range on the stock F70-14 Goodyear Polyglas tires. Those same road tests showed miles per gallon averaged between 7 and 10mpg. There were plenty of smiles, though!
Bob’s 454 Chevelle SS was manufactured in mid-February at the old GM Lakewood plant in Atlanta, so the roads it roams around his Georgia home are not only near the car’s birthplace, but also close where so many of those spirited driving memories were created.
Photos by John Jackson
