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SALT LAKE CITY — The year 1965 can be remembered for many things, but Mike Ricks remembers the year differently than most.
Ricks' parents bought one of Chevy’s best-selling Impalas that year, not long after it rolled off the showroom floor. And the journey of the car would never venture outside their family.
He became the proud owner of the car when he turned 16, and while the car is very special to him now, his thoughts about it then were slightly different.
“When I first got the car from my parents, I treated it like most teenagers,” Ricks said. “I was always beating on it, and it just kept going.”
The car would stay with him for decades to come, and even when it started to show its age, he and his wife kept driving it until it became a little scary.
“When the brakes started to fail, I remember my wife running the car into snow banks because it just couldn’t stop,” Ricks said.
The car sat for many years, from 1985 until 2010 to be exact. But after sitting for so many years, Ricks knew it was time to fix it up and get it back on the road.
He started off with a whole new interior that included new seat covers, headliner, a deck cover and door panels. The original red panels on the inside showed many years of wear and tear, but after Ricks installed the new parts, the inside of the car looked like it had just been purchased from the dealer.
Next on the list of updates was a new engine. Ricks still has the original 327 cubic-inch small block V8, but he wanted something with a little extra kick. He opted to install a bigger 402 cubic-inch big block V8 to give the car a few extra ponies under the hood.
A little more TLC and a new paint job with the help of one of his friends finished the car by the end of 2012.
The Impala still maintains all of the other factory parts, from the stock automatic transmission all the way down to the hubcaps that were installed on the wheels in 1965. Even the drum brakes on all four corners are stock.
Some parts are worn and could use an update, but the car’s owner is just happy to have it together again.
“The car is so popular,” Ricks said. “I get stopped by people all the time who say their grandma or their brother or their dad owned a '65 Impala, and it’s one of my favorite things about the car.”
