2025 SEMA BUILD: 1967 Chevy Chevelle 427ci LSX

Update 9/18/25:

Rick from Arjay’s Upholstery has begun installing the carpet kit and finished the suede headliner. As more and more interior pieces come in from Rick, Esparza continues work on wiring and tidying up the engine bay.

Update 7/24/2025

Back in February of 2022, we purchased a 1967 Chevy Chevelle from a private owner in Arizona. The car was just a roller and though it came with a bunch of parts, most of them weren’t usable. Bird droppings were sun baked into the rear quarter panel. The doors were held together by bungee cords. A square piece of plexiglass substituted a steering wheel. To the untrained eye, the car would have no potential for a restomod build. But it had a wonderfully straight, rust free body that seemed to have no real damage at all. It was the candidate we wanted.

The Chevelle would lose its original chassis in favor of a Roadster Shop chassis we acquired from a friend. The second we dropped the body onto the new chassis, it was ready to send it off to paint. But it wouldn’t go to paint for several months due to other priorities in the shop, so it sat and waited. Finally, in late 2024, the car went in for paint to our friends at SV Body and Paint. After much consideration, we chose Lexus Nori Green for the exterior color.

Next up was choosing the engine. We had an LS mockup engine bolted to the chassis for quite awhile, so we knew something LS based would be the general choice of engine. We loved the Blueprint Engines Supercharged 427ci LSX that was in the RM22/26 1969 Chevelle. We decided on something a little more tame: Blueprint Engines 427ci LSX. It’s the same crate engine just without the blower. Even without the Magnuson supercharger, the engine still makes a raucous 600 horsepower on 91 pump gas. We also installed FiTech EFI on the engine.

As of this update, there’s been a lot of progress on the build. See the progress below.