1961 Impala Bubbletop For Sale With 16,956 Miles Shown Promises Twin-Turbo 509 Big Block Mayhem

There are very few wrong ways to preserve and enjoy a bona fide classic car. There's always the loving, almost obsessive purist route, complete with a nut-and-bolt restoration. You could tackle a project car that desperately needs the restomod treatment. Heck, you could also embrace the automotive ravages of time and drive your patina machine unapologetically. Then there's the high-horsepower, fat-tire pro-touring route. Big tires, upgraded brakes, an aggressive suspension setup, big power, and an even bigger attitude — just like this 1961 Chevrolet Impala "Bubbletop" build.

Instead of a sedate-by-today's-standards engine like you might find in a classic Impala, this one hides serious grunt under its pinned hood. Two turbos, 509 cubic inches, and electronic fuel injection, to boot. This is no tame Impala. You might expect a car old enough to claim Social Security benefits to have a pretty steep odometer reading, too. Not in this case. This example shows less than 17,000 miles beneath its old-school horizontal speedometer. Better yet, the superpowered 65-year-old Chevy is coming up for sale for some lucky, albeit loaded, collector, courtesy of Past & Present Motor Cars in Ocoee, Florida.

When you raise the hood of a 1961 Chevrolet Impala, you might expect to find a healthy V8 powering the B-body car. Something like a 348-cubic-inch V8 or a 409-cubic-inch mill in the spicier Super Sport model. Not this one. In place of a stock mill, the Florida-based two-door Impala has a 509-cubic-inch V8 built on a Dart Big M big block. The huge eight-cylinder also features an adjustable Fast XFI 2.0 engine management system and Edelbrock Pro-Flo XT fuel injection instead of a carburetor. If that wasn't enough, the V8 gulps air through a pair of 67-mm Precision turbos. In a street tune with 13 pounds of boost and on pump gasoline, the seller says the 509-cubic-inch V8 produces 746 horsepower at the rear wheels.

Out back, a Ford 9-inch-style axle and 3.73 gears make sure the power hits the pavement. Or, you know, the power destroys the rear tires. Dial things up, and the seller claims the built twin-turbo V8 has the potential for 2,200 outrageous horsepower at the crankshaft on race fuel. Definitely the sort of thing that begs the question of whether a car can have way too much power. This Impala says no to that question. No manual, though; the big block marries up to a built 4L80E four-speed automatic gearbox.

On the outside, the classic bubbliness remains, complete with its big ol' curvaceous rear window. The exterior is finished in a Metallic Blue with matte black rear inserts and hood stripes. The whole thing rides on a staggered set of Schott wheels with 345-mm Mickey Thompson rear tires. Inside, things skew restomod, complete with custom touches like its black leather front seats, minimalist center console, and an eight-point roll cage.

This 1961 Chevy Impala rolled off the line just as the Berlin Wall went up. That's a whole lot of time the old Bubbletop could have spent on the blacktop. If the odometer is to be believed, it hasn't spent much of its 65 years out on the open road. Its clock shows just 16,956 miles, or around 261 miles per year. True reading or not, this thing needs some road time.

Want this muscle-bound Chevrolet? As of this writing, Past & Present Motor Cars has it advertised in Ocoee, Florida, for $124,961. That's a far cry from the $75,900 average sale price of a 1961 Impala based on recent auctions (via Old Cars Data). Then again, not many Bubbletops are quite this unhinged. Nor do many of them become four-year, six-figure builds. Unless you're just after the name, in which case something like this $15,000 1996 Chevy Impala SS might be the more sensible buy.