1-562-594-1000
1-800-243-8355
The story behind Shannon Foster’s immaculate 1965 Chevelle SS might be titled “A Tale of Two Family Projects,” but that would be inaccurate, as only one Foster family project (the car) was ever really completed and the other project (kitchen remodel) is still ongoing. As Shannon tells the story, he once had a different ’65 Chevelle Malibu SS back in 1979 when he and his future wife were first dating in his high school days. “Life happened” and Shannon’s original SS car was sold, he got married, started a family and the years rolled by.
However distracting family life might have been, Shannon never forgot his old SS car and after the kids got older he wanted to build another Chevelle as a family project. His wife had plans of her own for a kitchen remodeling family project, but in 2006 Shannon beat her to the punch and trailered home a beat-up 1965 Chevelle Malibu SS he had found in northern California. Shannon says the car was “a basket case, but with mostly everything there.” He assured his wife that both intended projects would get done, and then started work on both the car and the kitchen at his home in Huntington Beach (HB), California.
Before he purchased the basket case Chevelle, Shannon said the seller had taken the body off the frame and had started some minor restoration work, but the bucket seats were missing, the front end was rough, and the entire drivetrain was in buckets and pieces. However, the good news was that the VIN numbers and date codes all matched up and the car had the 327 RPO L79 engine option along with an M20 4-speed transmission and a 12-bolt rear end. The L79 engine option was the rarest engine package available second to the RPO Z16 option in 1965, and there were only about 6,021 L79 cars produced out of the 234,675 Malibu SS cars sold that year.
Shannon said some of the L79 parts were missing, like the air cleaner and the one-year-only coil bracket unique to the L79 engine. The radio was also missing but the kick panel speakers were there. The dash still had the 5600 rpm red line tach and the separate dash top clock was found in one of the buckets of parts. Shannon notes that the ’65 AM/FM 3 knob Multiplex radio is super rare and hard to find because it was a one-year-only model for the Chevelle. Most radios found in other Chevys of the same year won’t fit the Chevelle dash, so he ended up using a ’65 4 knob Multiplex unit which uses both front kick panel and rear speakers like the Z16 optioned Chevelles were fitted with. Shannon added that “Otherwise everything else is stock and restored or replated back to original colors and condition. The headlight, trunk and quarter window vertical trim are all OPGI pieces and the interior and exterior kits are from OPGI as well.” Restoration of the factory trim was done by Sihilling Metal polish in Santa Ana, CA.
Although Shannon is currently an engineer at an aerospace company in Huntington Beach, he used to be a mechanic in a previous occupation, so he and his family performed most of the assembly work at home, like putting the body back on the frame, and installing all of the exterior and interior pieces along with all of the glass. The Chevelle body was stripped down, dip cleaned and sent to GTA in Santa Ana (CA) for final paint and body work. While the body was out for paint, Shannon stripped the frame down, had it powered coated by Primo Powder Coating in HB, and then started building it back up at home with help from the family.
By the time the Chevelle had been apart for several years, the kitchen remodel project had stalled and wasn’t getting much attention, but the car project was moving forward and Shannon started working on the interior. He purchased an interior kit from OPGI and rebuilt the seats, installed the headliner and carpet, and got it all back together by himself. Moving to the drivetrain, the M20 transmission received new gears, new syncro assembles and bearings at J&S Gear in HB, and the engine was rebuilt back to factory L79 specs (along with some porting work on the heads and intake) at RC Performance, also in HB. Shannon sent the original Holley carb out for restoration and located an original L79 air cleaner along the way. After assembly, the engine dyno run showed 360 horsepower at 5600 RPM and peak torque of 367 ft. lbs. at 4400 RPM, all on pump gas.
Although Shannon’s “new” ’65 Chevelle SS was eventually completed as clearly shown in the photos here, the family’s kitchen remodel project did not fare quite as well. Today, Shannon says “We have a beautiful ‘65 Chevelle Malibu SS that we enjoy cruising down to the beach and going to local car shows with. Oh and the kitchen, well it’s still a work in progress, but when we take the Chevelle for a cruise down to the beach, all is forgiven.”
Shannon Foster
Huntington Beach, California
1965 Chevelle Malibu SS
Chevrolet L79 327
M20 4-speed transmission
Madeira Maroon paint
OPGI parts inside & out
