Kerry has had his 1972 Chevelle for 43 years, He bought it in 1979 from an elderly couple for $300 who bought it new, and it only had 53,000 miles on it, that was a year before he met his wife.
Throughout the years, the 1972 Chevelle was their daily driver, He has watched the odometer roll over 5x, and believe him when he says those weren’t easy miles. Kerry was 17 years old, and he tore the crap out of it. So, it was time for a complete rebuild, and he meant a complete restoration. Every single nut/bolt, screw, bushing, bearing, suspension piece, steering box, rear axle, frame, quarters, interior, wire, you name it, there’s literally nothing that isn’t either new or rebuilt, clear down to dissembling the seat belt latches. When it came to the body, frame, and suspension, every single square inch was sandblasted inside and out, then sprayed with a chassis saver.
The engine is a 350 4 bolt main bored .060 over, flat top pistons, ARP studs/bolts, profiler 195 heads, street denominator intake, Lunati voodoo cam, MSD ignition, Edelbrock carb, Hooker Headers, and a 4 Speed.
The hardest part of this is it started out as a family restoration project almost 8 years ago, but unfortunately, Kerry’s wife passed away almost 4 years ago, then still reeling from her passing, his youngest son (33) also passed away, so progress has not only been extremely slow, but now he is raising their two grandkids by himself, which makes it all that much more difficult. Guaranteed there were many times Kerry felt like just giving up, but he just didn’t know how to do that, so he kept at it. Kerry’s wife picked out the color before she passed, (deep cherry crystal pearl with a lot of extra pearls) so he painted it in that, and now he is at the final stages of putting the finishing touches on it, like stickers, whatever adjustments to the windows, or anything else.
All in all, it may not be a perfect show car, but he didn’t build it for that, he built it to enjoy like he always has, minus tearing it up. The best part is, that not only did Kerry do most of the work in his backyard, but he also painted it in his garage, and he put less than $20,000 into it.
Kerry plans on entering it into local car shows, enjoying it, and it will ultimately be passed down to his grandkids.
