The 1970 Chevelle is regarded by most as the epitome of performance in the muscle car era. With the LS6 package that shoved a 454 cubic inch motor under the hood, there weren’t many cars that could touch this fire breathing dragon. Chevrolet was on their game – and winning.
Enter Chris Wissing and his overly supportive wife Rebecca and their 1970 Chevelle. Wissing grew up as a car guy, and really loved A-bodies having restored several Chevelles and El Caminos. This particular gem he picked up way back in the early 1990’s. He quickly tore into the car, but life happened. Between other projects, buying a house and work, the car sat. Many nights Wissing would look at the car, wishing of having it back on the road again.
This vintage photo was taken by Chris’ Mom, his biggest cheerleader!
Fast forward twenty years, and that day came for him. In order to fund this car, he wrenched countless hours and finished off an El Camino and then did something he swore he’d never do – he sold it. With the Elky gone, he came back to this ’70 ready to make his dreams come true. But while wrenching away on his Elky, his wife was keeping a close eye on Chris. She realized that with a newborn in the house, work, and everything else, Chris wasn’t going to have the time to restore this ’70 himself, much less with the level of detail he wanted.
The Best Wife Ever?
The most amazing thing happened after that. Rebecca told him “send the car out and have it done how you want if you want the car finished anytime soon.” Rebecca made his wish come true and Chris started talking with his buddies on who should build the car. Chris ended up sending his ’70 to Eron Anderson and Chad Weston at Precision Classics and Collision. You see, Chris wanted tons of detail in the car, and no corners being cut. Eron said he was up to the challenge, and soon they tore into the car.
Setting the Foundation
Originally, Wissing wanted a Pro-Street car, but before he built this car, the fad had passed. That’s when he knew he wanted a Pro-Touring beast that looked even better than it performed. Precision Classics and Collision started by sandblasting the frame and body to really get down to square one. That’s when they discovered that the frame was in rough shape and would need a ton of work to make it right. Instead of spending countless hours on fixing the frame and bolting on aftermarket suspension, they gave a call to the Roadster Shop and picked up a complete frame and suspension.
Nestled in-between the frame rails of the Roadster Shop chassis lies a built LS3 engine making 525 horsepower with a set of Ultimate Headers and Flowmaster mufflers. Backing the powerplant is a T-56 six-speed, which allows for all the get up and go, with a smooth freeway ride. Putting all the power to the ground is a set of Boze Alloy wheels attached to a Ford 9″ rearend, with massive 20×13″ rims in the rear and 19×9″ in the front, wrapped in Bridgestone Potenza tires. Making sure his steed can stop is a complete set of Wilwood disc brakes, six-piston up front and four-piston in the rear.
With The Foundation Set, Time To Build Rome
With a work-of-art rolling chassis, Wissing knew the rest of the car had to look as good as the chassis does. He wanted a ton of detail put into the body to match the chassis, and fix a few of the things he didn’t like on the Chevelle’s factory body. They ended up smoothing out the bumper jack holes, used an El Camino front bumper for round turn signals along with pinching the bumper to snug it up against the car and getting rid of the license plate mounts.
Going even further, they shaved the firewall, inner fenders, core support and built custom close outs in the engine compartment. A sheet of aluminum was added under the hood and painted to match the stripes on top. All the gaps on the panels are perfectly aligned as well, something that took a lot of blood, sweat and tears to accomplish.
With all the fabrication on the body finished, the time came to lay down the paint. The color originally started as a sage color that Wissing found. From there, Eron started mixing up custom batches of paint and sent samples to Wissing before he agreed on the perfect shade of green. Dual-layered racing stripes adorn the top of the hood and trunk lid along with the engine compartment.
Cutting Up Hides
The interior of this car received the same level of treatment as the rest of the car. The interior is modern, clean, detailed and refined. Wissing knew that he wanted a set of GTO seats in the car. He picked up a set from an ’06, which Precision Classics and Collision went to work on to make fit in the A-body.
The factory dash was completely removed in favor of a trick new dash from The Shop LLC, with the holes being filled by SpeedHut gauges. They also picked up a set of their door panels, which flow nicely with the dash. The console holds a custom made shifter, topped with a Ring Brothers shifter knob. From there, a completely custom headliner was made to match the dash and door panels. The last part of the car was to upholster the trunk, one final detail.
Special Thanks
Chris wanted to give a huge thanks to his beautiful wife Rebecca, Eron Anderson and Chad Weston at Precision Classics and Collision and lastly, Jon Lind of Jon Lind Interiors.
From here he plans on taking it to more shows and filling up his trophy case! Check out the full gallery below.
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- The day it was brought home in 1992!
