In 1958, Clare MacKichan celebrated his 40th birthday and the start of his 20th year at General Motors. Having worked his way up from the position of apprentice designer with the Buick division in 1939, he became the chief designer of the Chevrolet studio in 1951 under the leadership of GM Vice-President and design guru Harly Earl. MacKichan worked alongside Robert McLean under Earl’s guidance on the 1953 Corvette, which was known as Project Opel during its development. MacKichan became best known for his 1954 Chevrolet Nomad concept car and the first sketches of the Motoramic style used for the 1955 Chevrolet Bel Air, the first of the Tri-Five Chevrolets. Despite their success, MacKichan worked on the complete redesign of the Tri-Five models, leading the Sculpturmatic design team in the creation of an entirely new two door sedan for 1958, the Chevrolet Impala. This was not just a rebodied Bel Air.
The Tri-Fives had a perimeter frame, while the new Impala sat on an extended X frame, with a longer wheelbase and coil spring suspension. The new model was lower and wider and sported a unique air extractor vent above the rear window. The vent was originally designed to be functional, until during testing it was found that it actually sucked air back into the cockpit instead of expelling it at speed. With a deadline looming for the car to hit showrooms, there wasn’t enough time to eliminate the feature in the roof design so a fake vent was installed instead. The 1958 Impala was a one-year-only model with 55,989 produced. The second-generation car that debuted in 1959 had been redesigned to share bodyshells with lower-end Buicks, Oldsmobiles, and Pontiacs as part of an economy move by General Motors. Because Harley Earl’s last project was the 1960-62 body design which featured tailfins that flattened outward, instead of pointing upward, and teardrop taillights, the Impala’s sculpted look changed dramatically. Earl had reached the age of mandatory retirement in 1958 and his departure from GM coincided with the plan to use shared body styles, effectively putting an end to the Sculpturmatic design produced by MacKichan’s team. When Earl was replaced by Bill Mitchell as head of the Design and Styling Department, MacKichan had been working on the Chevrolet Corvair and was chief designer of another compact, the 1962 Chevy II. He left Chevrolet and moved to Germany to take up the position of Director of Design for GM’s wholly owned German subsidiary, Opel, where he is credited with leading the design development of the Opel GT which debuted in 1968, even though MacKichan returned to GM in Detroit in 1967.
This ’58 Impala was recently listed for auction on eBay. It sports the original Chevrolet Rio Red (a repaint) and has the 348 cubic inch V-8 with the optional 3x2bbl carburetors and a Powerglide automatic transmission.
One of the unique styling features of these cars was the steering wheel with several holes in the transverse section. While they don’t serve any functional purpose in this iteration, holes had been drilled in the steering wheels of racing cars including some NASCAR stock cars in the 1950’s as part of an effort to trim overall weight. This style point was meant to infer the sportiness of a race car, while the antelope logo on the exterior of the rear quarter panels accented the grace and speed of the car’s namesake. The Impala name was first used for the full-sized 1956 General Motors Motorama show car that bore Corvette-like design cues, especially the grille. The Impala concept car featured hardtop styling and MacKichan’s design team, along with designers from Pontiac, started to establish basic packaging and dimensions for their shared 1958 General Motors “A” body in June of 1956. The first styling sketch that directly influenced the finished Chevrolet automobile was seen by Harley Earl in October and seven months later, the basic design was developed.
Perhaps the most famous example of the 1958 Impala is the white model driven by Ron Howard’s character, Steve Bolander, in American Graffiti. It featured red stripes on an arctic white body and was equipped with a 348 cubic inch V-8 engine, 4 bbl carburetor, and three-speed manual transmission. The American Graffiti Impala had been customized with the standard round tail-lights replaced by glued-on bullet-style taillights from a 1959 Cadillac, and the exterior door handles had been shaved. That meant that if Howard or anyone on the movie set rolled up all the windows, pushed down the door locks, and closed the doors, they had to smash the window to get back into the car.
When production wrapped, Henry Travers, who was the transportation captain for the film, placed an ad in the San Francisco Chronicle with an auction list of movie cars for sale. The Impala was sold to a 17-year-old high school senior from Vallejo, California for the princely sum of $285. It didn’t go far and was parked in a garage from 1974 when its owner enlisted in the Marine Corps, until 2015 when NASCAR legend Ray Evernham bought it and restored it to its movie-days glory. While the movie car has an estimated value in excess of $1 million today, more reasonably priced models can be found on the popular auction sites and on classic used car lots. While well-kept or highly restored convertibles fetch top dollar above $150,000, a #3 Good Condition car averages $66,300 according to the Hagerty Valuation Tool. The more common “sport coupe” model with the 348 Cid/250hp 4 bbl setup in #3 condition can be found for a low retail of $34,500 and a high retail of $67,500 USD according to the J.D. Power Pricing and Values Guide. Although those are the prices quoted, a quick view of current auctions shows the range for a running example varying from a low of just under $60,000 to a high of just over $180,000. At the dealer in 1958, the base coupe model retailed for $2,586 while the convertible sold for $2,724.
