To please the muscle-car crowd, Chevrolet built muscular Chevelles in 1970 with 396-cubic-inch, 350-horsepower V-8 engines that could light up the highways. And that was the year that 16-year-old Stephen Polatty got his driver’s license.
Like most teenagers, Mr. Polatty could only dream about the new muscle cars pouring out of the factories in Detroit.
“I couldn’t afford the best back then,” Mr. Polatty says. “but I was always an admirer of muscle cars and an enthusiast.”
An older cousin, Ed Hoffman, had an impressive muscle car that fueled Mr. Polatty’s interest. “I never rode in anything that had that kind of power,” he recalls.
After graduating with the Clarion, Pa., high school class of 1972, Mr. Polatty got on with life. “Years went by, bills had to be paid, and I had a family to raise,” he says.
About the turn of the 21st century, with all three children educated, Mr. Polatty wanted to make up for lost time. A few years of searching for an appropriate muscle car proved fruitless. But in summer 2004, a friend informed Mr. Polatty that his father-in-law had a muscle car for sale nearby. The friend wasn’t sure of the year, but thought the car was a Chevelle and offered to take Mr. Polatty to see it on his day off.
An anxious Mr. Polatty didn’t want to wait. He went to see the car that night. When the owner opened the garage door, Mr. Polatty saw a 1970 Chevrolet Chevelle. “My heart was beating outside of my jacket,” he says.
He quickly determined that the beautiful forest-green Chevelle with white stripes on the engine hood was out of his price range. However, closer examination showed that the Chevelle wasn’t living up to the asking price. The original 396-cubic-inch engine had been replaced with a 350-cubic-inch V-8, as had the original transmission and rear end. Negotiations followed, and the next day Mr. Polatty returned with a certified check and became the owner of a muscle car.
The Chevelle, with its imperfections, was worth it, Mr. Polatty says.
“I drove it straight to Burr Corbett’s shop in Clarion the following day,” the new owner recalls. “I told him I wanted to put it back the way it came from the factory.”
With those marching orders, Mr. Corbett refitted the car with a correct 396-cubic-inch 350-horsepower engine, a Turbo 400 automatic transmission and a Positraction rear end. While the car was disassembled, the entire wiring harness was replaced.
A thorough inspection showed that the body and frame were in perfect condition, proving that the car had never been wrecked. Mr. Corbett examined the car and found evidence that it had been rebuilt by two people. The body and paint work were first-rate, but the mechanical part, according to Mr. Corbett, was no good.
Mr. Corbett told Mr. Polatty that when the car was built in November 1969, it left the factory equipped with air conditioning that had since been removed. That item is where Mr. Polatty strayed from his goal of returning his Chevelle to like-new condition. “I want every ounce of power going to the rear wheels,” Mr. Polatty told Mr. Corbett. The steering and brakes are power-assisted.
With parts of the car scattered about the garage, Mr. Polatty was apprehensive about how his car would ever fit together. He was relieved when “it went together like clockwork.”
When Mr. Polatty got his rebuilt car back, he quickly occupied the driver’s bucket seat and fired up the big V-8, now capped with a four-barrel Rochester carburetor. He said the car has a highway fuel economy of about 13 to 14 mpg. That kind of mileage is only achieved with a light touch on the accelerator pedal.
“I have to be careful not to burn those babies right off,” he says, referring to the rear tires.
After years of searching for the correct car, Mr. Polatty acknowledges, “The main reason that Chevelle looks and runs the way it does today is because of Corbett’s knowledge of muscle cars.”
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