1971 Chevrolet Chevelle Heavy Chevy ( 13437 Vin ) Pro Touring 502 Gm Performance Engine 5spd 12 Bolt Posi Rear Power Brakes/Steering Headers Serpentine Pully System Custom Dash / Autometer Gauges Factory 1971 Heavy Chevy. Less then 800 miles on the new drivetrain installed by the previous owner. Gm Performance Aluminum Head 502 V8, 850cfm Holly, Headers and a 5spd manual trans make this car a screamer! The owner who built the car has since passed away but we where told the car was finished about 10yrs ago. The car looks great and drives even better. The paint is in good condition with only minor flaws which is to except for being done 10yrs ago. Overall a awesome car ready to enjoy. Heavy Chevy History The Chevelle SS was Chevrolet's bread and butter muscle car during the golden era. It was a car that just about any high school graduate who found a full-time job could afford. A few hundred dollars down, and an easily obtainable loan from the bank, a brand new sporty Chevelle SS was then in the hands of a youthful male adult. This was the basic story from the mid to late-1960s. Unfortunately, easy street was a very short run. By the time the 1970 model year rolled along, insurance companies had figured out that a youthful with a fairly light car, powered by a high horsepower V8 engine made for a bad insurance risk. So these companies raised their rates accordingly. Unfortunately these rates per month for some young buyers were as high as the monthly car payment. So by 1970, muscle car sales were way down. Automakers were scrambling to find a way to deliver a muscle car to the young buyers which wouldn't garner a large insurance premium. Some automakers found the perfect workaround - offer all the muscle car performance goodies found in a given muscle car into a more understated package. In other words, produce a sleeper the young would easily recognize as a performance car but the insurance companies would easily overlook, thereby keeping insurance premiums to a minimum. Another problem facing potential muscle car buyers at the time was the once spartan muscle cars had become laden with standard features and options which had made muscle cars on the average more expensive. Chevrolet realized the problem and decided to release a more understated and budget conscious performance oriented Chevelle. Chevrolet's top muscle car, the Chevelle SS was based on the more upscale Chevrolet A-body model - the Malibu, since it had the Malibu's more upscale trim. The new budget conscious performance model would be based on Chevrolet's base level A-body, the Chevelle. What was ironic was Chevrolet used the "Chevelle SS" name on what was a performance Malibu, and the performance model that was based on the Chevelle, Chevrolet called the "Heavy Chevy". Nowhere on the outside body panels or inside the interior would the name "Chevelle" name be shown. To most living now in the 21th Century, they would think "Heavy" would mean this must have been a behemoth of a car. Actually it was lighter in lbs than the Chevelle SS and only had a curb weight of around 3,300 lbs. The name "Heavy" was a product of the times. Since the Heavy Chevy was aimed right at the youth market, one of the favorite slang terms of the time was "heavy" which meant something was good, excellent, brilliant, and in some cases unbelievable. It was indeed the perfect name for this base-level performance car. Chevrolet had also released for 1971 a base-level performance offering of the Nova called the "Rally Nova", it was marketed to the buyers who couldn't afford the insurance and/or the purchase price of the Nova SS. Chevrolet with the Heavy Chevy and Rally Nova, sent out talking points to dealership sales staff with four main areas to stress when trying to sell these cars to customers - low initial cost, low operating costs, low insurance rates, and high resale value. On all these four items the Heavy Chevy hit its mark with exact precision. The Heavy Chevy may have been budget conscious, but it still had the "muscle car" look on the outside to attract the young buyers. To order a Heavy Chevy, one needed to check off the YF3 package on the base 2-door Sport Coupe Chevelle order sheet. It was the best performance deal at the time for Chevrolet buyers, for a mere $142.20, it included a healthy dose of items. First was the standard SS hood with a raised hood scoop and racing style hood pins. Unfortunately if a buyer wanted the SS hood with Cowl Induction this buyer had to have move up to a Chevelle SS. Second was a blacked-out front grill and headlight bezels. Third was an attractive decal package which included a set of large "Heavy Chevy" decals on the hood, rear, and front quarter panels and also full body length stripes on each side of the car. All these decals could be had in a choice of black or white color scheme. What was interesting was when a black or white painted roof or any color vinyl top was ordered the side stripes were deleted - however there are rumors of some vinyl top equipped Heavy Chevys that also came with factory stripes. Last but not least there was a set of stylish 14 x 6 inch Rally wheels, sans trim rings, as the part of the YF3 package. With the YF3 there was no doubt the Heavy Chevy wasn't just your ordinary base-level car, it was a more understated sibling to the Chevelle SS. And the great thing was Chevrolet had setup the Heavy Chevy as its own model, it had the unique "13437" indicator on the VIN number which it didn't share with any other Chevrolet model (the 1972 Heavy Chevy used the unique "1C37" in its VIN). South Jersey Classics 52 Harding Hwy Upper Pittsgrove Twp NJ 08344 Office 856-521-0832 Cell 856-625-2226 Financing Available SJClassics.net
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