Project Car Hell, Free Chevy Edition: Nova Or Impala?

Last week, we saw the William Faulkner Stutz beat the Vince Neil Pantera in our Fat Bankroll Edition PCH poll (though the margin of victory was slimmer than any hope of finding Stutz parts). That got us to thinking- when you spend a lot of money up front for a Hell Project, that probably means you have some more money to throw at the thing. Hell, you might even have enough to pay someone else to go through hell on the project. That's why we're going cheap today. In fact, we're going better than cheap! Yes, a couple of free cars, courtesy of owners who just want them gone. Their loss is your loss, er, gain!

Now, you might tend to look a gift Chevy in the mouth and assume it doesn't run at all. However, in the case of this Late Malaise Era Nova (go here if the ad disappears), your suspicions would be unfounded. It's free and it runs! It does need "a new gasket," whatever that means, but as the seller says: "its free, so dont complain." So once you've solved the paperwork hassles (what, you think a free car is going to have a title?), you can budget some nickels and dimes for a junkyard 350, some tall leaf-spring shackles, and every April Wine tape ever sold. Oh, and there might be some other repairs needed as well- hey, it's free! Add a rattle-can black primer paint job and you'll have an incredibly good Fun Per Dollar ratio.

That Nova looks promising, no doubt about it, but if you're going to take on a free car for your project, you want something with a little more style. How about a genuine 60s Chevy Impala, for the low, low price of nothing? Say, this '69 Impala 4-door (go here if the ad disappears, which has been sitting in a meadow for years? Don't let that rough exterior scare you, because it's never a good idea to judge a book by its cover (though this book looks to have had most of its pages eaten away by rats and silverfish). It's got an engine (allegedly a 283, but the possibility of a 307- or worse- looms). The buyer wants only tow-truck equipped buyers, not "lookers," and he or she wants the car gone before the mud in the meadow gets too gooey to extract this diamond-in-the-rough. Hey, a little bodywork here and some upholstery work there, and next thing you know you'll be looking sharp in a clean Impala!

Gawker Media polls require Javascript; if you're viewing this in an RSS reader, click through to view in your Javascript-enabled web browser.