RUST BROTHERS TAKE '68 CHEVELLE ON A CROSS-CANADA `TEST DRIVE'
Overpowered classic plows through nasty winter conditions
The Rust Brothers Mike Hall and Avery Shoaf are known all over the world as the guys who bumble through dozens of restoration projects at Hall's junkyard in British Columbia. Through the History Canada and Motor Trend channels along with Netflix, they are seen in 190 countries. Season 5 episodes are now ready for release.
When they were invited to display cars at the ninth annual Motorama Custom Car and Motorsports Expo at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, they decided to drive the completely rebuilt 1968 Chevelle SS396 that Hall bought 40 years ago.
“This is no trailer queen. It's meant to be driven,” Hall said from a gas station in Sicamous on the first day of the epic journey.
The Rust Bros. had completely rebuilt the car with a big-block 502-cubic-inch engine linked to a Tremec five-speed transmission along with installing digital gauges and four-wheel disc brakes. The car was finished the day before they embarked on their trip from Tappen outside Salmon Arm.
“We did a 4,000-kilometre test drive,” Hall said.
“It ran great with everything working but the gas gauge,” he added, noting the car will pass anything but a gas station. He didn't seem concerned about driving an overpowered 66-yearold car through the worst Canadian winter weather they could imagine.
“I grew up in Fort St. John in northern B.C.,” Shoaf said. “Even by my standards, the winter weather was terrible. It was the perfect storm and we drove right into it. We hit the worst prairie winter storm of the year.”
It was so cold in the car that Shoaf was close to doing the northern belly tarp trick where a tarp is fixed to the undercarriage to retain some heat by preventing cold air from entering the engine compartment. Shoaf prevented -24 C prairie air from going through the radiator with cardboard from a box and blocked off his defroster vent to clear a small area of the windshield in front of Hall so he could see when driving.
Shoaf gives Hall credit for plowing through. “Traffic piled up in a complete whiteout and Mike stopped just 18 inches short of the tractor trailer in front of us,” Shoaf said. “We drove through some hairy s--t with me not being able to see anything out of my side of the windshield. The dash pad has claw marks in it.”
“The welcome we got driving across Canada was overwhelming. Everywhere we stopped, people were wonderful. Drivers in Toronto's rush-hour traffic recognized us and were taking pictures and videos. We jokingly told them to keep their eyes on the road,” Shoaf added.
They didn't put a mark on the car busting through foot-high drifts in blowing prairie snow and nearly spinning out in front a tractor trailer they had just passed … until they arrived in Toronto. The salt- and dirt-coated Chevelle was detailed top to bottom for the show in Toronto and, because the car looked so good, Hall decided to trailer the Chevelle the last few kilometres to the convention centre. If you know these guys through the four seasons of restoring cars on Rust Valley Restorers, you know things often don't go well. This didn't.
“There was so much glare on the windshield, I couldn't see. I thought Blair said `go' when he really said `whoa,'” Hall said, referring to Blair Smith, who painted the car. The Chevelle hit the side of the trailer, denting and scratching the front fender and door.
Repairing and repainting the damaged areas wasn't going to happen as the car had to go in the Motorama show alongside a 1967 Chevelle owned by Hall's son Connor. Connor's Chevelle had been safely trailered across Canada. But no one saw the damage at the Motorama. Photo signboards illustrating the hellish cross-Canada trip were leaned against the car to cover up the damaged area. So, would they drive through the Canadian winter again in an old car? “It was high on Mike's bucket list to drive his Chevelle across Canada. We would do it again, but only in better weather,” Shoaf says.
After the Motorama show, Hall and Shoaf took off again, driving the 1968 Chevelle to Las Vegas for Muscle Cars on the Strip.
“We still have to go over the Loveland Pass in Colorado and that's 12,000 feet in elevation,” Hall said. “We're looking to put a snow blade on the Chevelle to make that trip.”
The Chevelle saga is being filmed for an upcoming episode of the Rust Bros. (Official) and Wildman Garage YouTube channels.