Photo: Street Side Classics
Imagination is a wonderful thing. It can help shape the future, and it can also help prevent boredom. Whenever I'm on a long drive, I start imagining project cars with no budget limit. Several years ago, I was dreaming about stuffing a Judd V8 engine into a drift car. And then Ryan Tuerck went on and built that exact project.
We sometimes tend to forget that people are not all the same. Different people will have different thoughts. Perhaps people with similar interests would build similar projects. Most racetrack enthusiasts would build a project car using a lightweight chassis and a high-performance engine. But if you're more interested in going fast in a straight line, then the same rules don't apply anymore.
And if you go further down that path and ask for some comfort, too, you're looking at a completely different picture. When I first saw this 1996 Chevrolet Impala SS, I couldn't help but feel it bears a resemblance to the infamous Donks. Depending on your point of view, 24-inch wheels may seem too small or ridiculously big. Most performance enthusiasts would probably stick to 18-inch ones, while donk fans would probably take things up to 32-inches.
But this restomod certainly has a special air to it. The paint is still kind of fresh, as it went through a respray in 2019. The interior has been upgraded as well, and most notably in the trunk area. For some reason, I'd expect anyone that's driving this to be a big fan of that "I've got King Kong in the trunk" song. A standard Impala SS would run on a 5.7-liter LT1 V8 engine.
That makes for a total of 260 horsepower and 330 lb-ft (447 Nm) of torque. But whoever built this car thought it would be a cool idea to take things up a notch or two. So a 6.2-liter LSA engine was swapped in. Yes, that's the same kind of supercharged V8 you'd find in a Cadillac CTS-V or a 2012 Camaro ZL1. With all the upgrades installed, the seller notes that it should be capable of producing 600 horsepower. That should be enough to gap most road-going Hondas, right? The only question is, are you willing to pay $61,995 on a 1996 Impala?
And if you go further down that path and ask for some comfort, too, you're looking at a completely different picture. When I first saw this 1996 Chevrolet Impala SS, I couldn't help but feel it bears a resemblance to the infamous Donks. Depending on your point of view, 24-inch wheels may seem too small or ridiculously big. Most performance enthusiasts would probably stick to 18-inch ones, while donk fans would probably take things up to 32-inches.
But this restomod certainly has a special air to it. The paint is still kind of fresh, as it went through a respray in 2019. The interior has been upgraded as well, and most notably in the trunk area. For some reason, I'd expect anyone that's driving this to be a big fan of that "I've got King Kong in the trunk" song. A standard Impala SS would run on a 5.7-liter LT1 V8 engine.
That makes for a total of 260 horsepower and 330 lb-ft (447 Nm) of torque. But whoever built this car thought it would be a cool idea to take things up a notch or two. So a 6.2-liter LSA engine was swapped in. Yes, that's the same kind of supercharged V8 you'd find in a Cadillac CTS-V or a 2012 Camaro ZL1. With all the upgrades installed, the seller notes that it should be capable of producing 600 horsepower. That should be enough to gap most road-going Hondas, right? The only question is, are you willing to pay $61,995 on a 1996 Impala?
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