SATURDAY CAR: SEEING RED

YOU NOTICE THE WHEELS, THEN THE BIG BRAKES DRAW YOU IN CLOSER — GARETH JAMES’S ’71 CHEVELLE IS THE PERFECT EXAMPLE OF ‘THE MORE YOU LOOK, THE MORE YOU FIND’

The story of Gareth James and his Chevelle doesn’t start like most others. There’s no long history of his having wanted one or growing up with one in the family, or even scouring the net just to find the right deal. Quite the opposite, in fact. Instead, James had set out on a hunt for a Camaro … you know, the same as every other American car lover out there, but that all changed when he laid eyes on a ’71 Chevelle. Falling in love with the look, the Camaro dream was over, and it was Chevelle or nothing. “I bought the car four years ago at Sony Beach Hop 14. I had been talking to a guy who was selling another Chevelle online and went to Onemana to view it. The car wasn’t as tidy as I wanted, so [I] walked away feeling pretty disappointed. As I was wandering through all the parked cars, I came across this one with a small ‘For Sale’ sign in the window. I worked out a deal and bought it,” Gareth states.

The recipient of an older American restoration, the paintwork had been done and looked to be in great condition, although it was mechanically very standard, with air shocks and drum brakes on the back. For Gareth, this was never going to be an issue, and he was happy to set about bringing the car into the modern world. “Over the next couple of years, I upgraded the brakes and suspension, changed the wheels and replaced the original 2.78:1 diff ratio to 3.42:1. I also replaced the dash gauges with a Dakota Digital gauge package that still looks old school but has digital info as well,” he says, making it sound a whole lot easier than it was.

That said, even Gareth will admit that it wasn’t all smooth sailing — “Before Beach Hop in 2017, I decided to give EFI [electronic fuel injection] a go, so purchased a FiTech unit, an EFI fuel tank, and all new lines, and installed them all. But, try as we did, we weren’t able to get it to run properly, and it was horrible to drive. We’re pretty sure [that] it was a faulty unit, as my brother-in-law has [one] … in his Nova and it runs well, so, after suffering through the Beach Hop event with a poorly performing car, we returned the unit and went back to a carb.” With brother-in-law Quintin as a readily available bad influence, the work on the car continued to snowball before Repco Beach Hop 18, when Gareth decided that it was about time the matching-numbers big block got given a freshen up. Of course, to make it easier to remove from the engine bay, the front bumper, lights, and radiator support panel were removed first, which meant that, when the engine was dropped to Royce McCort at Autospeed Engineering, Gareth was left with an ugly-looking engine bay to deal with.

While Royce set about prepping the block for the new Scat rotating assembly, which would take capacity out to 408ci, the trans was sent to Jason at GRP Automatics for its own overhaul. “When we removed the body mounts for the radiator support panel, they were original and very worn out, so I ordered a new set. They arrived, and I could see straight away [that] they weren’t going to work with the rest of the body mounts — this is when the engine overhaul went a little further!” laughs Gareth of the moment that he knew there was no going back. Convincing his ever-patient wife Coralie that he was better to save money by buying the tools required to do the bulk of the job himself, a threebay man cave / shed was built and a hoist installed — a hoist that would soon come in very handy. “I lifted the body off the chassis to replace the bushes and thought, why not strip and paint the chassis?, so I stripped it down and sent it to Counties Sandblasting to get blasted and painted. While that was getting done, I started to wirebrush the floor [off] of years’ worth of dirt and grime, finding a really solid rust-free floor, apart from a hole that the old long tube headers had rubbed through. To have that repaired, I needed to remove the interior to get to it, so I removed all the old insulation and replaced it with Dynamat and fitted new carpet,” he continues. With the factory-fitted air-conditioning unit taking up plenty of under-bonnet real estate, that, too, was removed, and the firewall holes filled and smoothed. Richard Burnett from RSB Automotive was soon called in to rewire the whole lot, shifting the battery to the boot, before Julie from Counties Auto Painters sorted out the paintwork in the engine bay, along with the front guards and bonnet. Thankfully, the newly reworked motor came back from Royce just in the nick of time to allow Gareth and company to get the car back on road in time for Repco Beach Hop 18. Here, as with previous years, the car caused a stir, always drawing people in for a closer look. No one at the event would have guessed that it was Garth’s first build of this magnitude, but the bug has well and truly bitten, and there’s already talk around the dinner table about the next one. While we can’t tell you what it’ll be, we can guarantee you that it’ll be equally as stunning!