Our 1972 Chevelle Malibu, which earned the name Boom Boom after backfiring twice the first time Jacki started her, was purchased in March of 1998 from the original owner, an 89 year old lady. The car had been sitting in her garage and the tag on the license plate showed the car had last been registered in 1994!

Being a Michigan car all it's life, parked in a garage with a dirt floor and being this lady's primary mode of transportation, the body is really rough. On two seperate occassions, someone backed into the quarter panels of the car. Each of the rear quarters had been repaired after the accidents and were not very well done. They're full of plastic filler, mesh screen, sheet metal, pop rivits, etc. One of the front fenders has a dent and there is a lot of surface rust around the door trim and emblems.

On the upside, the car has the original 350 2 barrel engine and runs like a watch. It has a TH350 automatic trans and I haven't even bothered to find out what rear end is in it. It is a very low optioned car with power assist drum brakes all the way around and aftermarket air conditioning installed by Sears the day she bought the car. The car is dark brown metallic with a black top, tinted glass, black bench seat interior, power steering and an AM radio.

Since we've had the car, we've put brand new springs and shocks on all four corners, which really improved the ride and handling, not to mention improved the overall stance of the car. We've put new brakes on all four corners, new master cylinder and wheel cylinders and replaced a couple of suspicious looking brake lines.

Shortly after we got the car, we filled it up and realized that the gas tank had a leak. Apparently the seam around the tank had rusted. We replaced the tank with a brand new one and replaced a couple of fuel lines while we were at it.

We also got rid of the factory 14" ralley wheels (ugly!) and put on a set of 15" Olds Cutlass ralley wheels with some bigger tires, which also helped to improve the handling. We gave the car a complete tune up, which included yanking the old points and condensor unit and putting in a late model HEI distributor. We also added new dual exhaust and turbo mufflers to help the car breathe better.