"The Tyrant" 1966 Chrysler Imperial by HPI Customs

[64pontiac]

Ok so my sincerest apologies for not posting this for everyone to look at! We decided that due to the uniqueness of the car, we wanted to save a little wow-factor for our SEMA debut in the Vortech/Paxton booth! I didnt want to see 5 or 6 of these things at SEMA........(ya like that would happen!)

I have a ton of build pics, and I think I will post them up somewhat chronologically so you have to look at it all! haha. The idea for this came from our client and us trying to figure out what kind of car to build for him to shuttle his family around in. 3 tall kids in the Vette, Elky, or Firebird really doesnt work! We wanted something european inspired, sort of a M5-ish car. Lincoln continental was out, because we didnt want to have to air bag and 22 the sucker, and as cool as Impalas are, it just didnt have the look. When we were tossing around ideas, the new green hornet movie was out and I guess the Imperial kind of caught our eye. I think we can agree that we took this a bit further than "Black Beauty", but we don't have 30 cals or RPGs

We started compiling ideas and Ben Hermance gladly helped us out with some of his kick ass ideas, and heres the final versions of the renderings. Initially we were going to do a set of one-off center locks, but budget changed and it wasn't in the cards, just yet.

[WSSix]

thought it was a kick ass build so I'm definitely interested in build pictures. How does it drive/ride?

[64pontiac]

I will start posting up pics tonight. We got to drive it for a photoshoot out in the desert after SEMA, and let me tell you it kicks ass! Ride is absolutely proper on our Speedtech equipped custom chassis we built. For those of you with torque arms from them, you know exactly what I mean! It feels suprisingly nimble, nice and flat in the bends, and holy crap does it pull like a mother!

Sound from the blower is always welcome too!

[214Chevy]

Cant wait to see more pics. Sweet 4-door.

[jarhead]

i like it!

[Tuske427]

Yeah, this was one of my favorite rides at SEMA this year. I too look forward to the build pics.

I'm also curious to to where the car was located. I heard most were used up in the movie...

[64pontiac]

Here's what we started with. The car was found in Alberta, and driven back as is to our place in Manitoba. Thats a 1400 km trek for an old original car on bias plys! Funny part was, when we went to take it apart, we noticed that the trip meter was broken and stuck at 666.6! I am not even making that up! Needless to say, that was the start of an "interesting" build with its fair share of evil.

[camcojb]

Probably should do a feature on it. That is a cool car.

[64pontiac]

Right on! I have some decent beauty shots of it from Saturday after SEMA. I'm getting there, gotta work in between posting!

[64pontiac]

Here is the behemoth of a stock frame. Those center rails are basically 8 inches x 8 inches, and we found out later after cutting it up for scrap that the frame is all 3/16 thick! Without the front spindles and brakes and the rear end, the frame with leafs was 1100 lbs. Ours is much lighter, like almost 800 lb lighter! (just the frame)



And the body stripped