Why I love doing car photography? Why didn’t I choose to aim for fashion for example. Well, the first and foremost reason is that I love cars, and plus, you don’t have to tell the rides to look straight, do this, do that, etc. For me it all comes easy and naturally. And I am quite thankful to the people who let me photograph their cars.
Mr. Sikandar was very kind to let me have a shot at his ’63 Chevy Impala parked outside his home in an open area. The car itself is a pure master piece of its time. Inside the car I looked at some of that vintage stuff that I have never seen before. This is a car from a year where lights turned on by pulling a lever and the radio fitted in it was seriously out of my understanding.
The car still runs on the original straight six engine and is also for sale for those interested in keeping it in a better shape than it has ever been in.
So here is my review on the 1963 Chevy Impala.
When we got to the location which was described by the owner, I spotted the car at the end of the street and went straight towards it.
The solid body made it look like a tank ready to fight a war and maybe eat a Mehran raw, not even cooked!
Looking more deeply on the details of this, I noticed the front end gave me the look of that old era mafia gangster cars. Because this car was is in its original condition I made up my mind to sit in this with my Tommy Gun and rob a bank. Probably some because of their bad service.
The door handles were chrome and better than the plastic that we have these days. Even if hulk was to open this car, the chrome handles would never break.
The rims looked small. Maybe it needs bigger wheel, atleast 20″ wheels in my opinion. Or may be I am too much influenced by Pimp My Ride. But as this is an original classic these are the best looking wheels for the car, which also suit its personality.
As this is a 51 year old car so there were of course some touches and bruises which included some tail light damage but still, these did not make it look like a piece of junk and as the owner tells me, a guy actually got a serious beating by the owner’s servants for asking this car in 3 lac cash. Which is a bit of an over-reaction.
The actual pull buttons for head lights, windscreen wiper and ventilation. Although modern day cars have a lot of buttons and gizmos but these three just lying there looked so decent and simple that I had to pull one of this just out of curiosity.
As we all know that Chevy used to be a solid American brand so this must be in MPH rather KMH used in Pakistan. And I forgot to ask the owner his top speed in this but who cares, most classics are not designed for their top speed.
The empty hole is actually a lighter and the curved gap on the left of it is where the key goes in. The four buttons on the bottom, I don’t know what they do but in the top right is the most antique radio I have ever seen in my life.
Although my uncle used to have an old cassette player and a big cassette deck but this folks, let me tell you, is not what I can operate while driving this 5 meter long beast.
This car was a pure treat for me to write and it has so many things that I had to cut down from sharing with you, a lot of stuff still unseen. The engine was a mystery too. It was a straight six old rusty carburetor engine but atleast it ran. And even after taking a peek under the hood, I was not able to identify the engine but as far as I think it was genuine.
A few bonus pictures:
