Among the show cars and racing machines that changed hands at the Icons of Speed & Style sale in Los Angeles, the most convoluted trip to the auction block may have been the one taken by a 1970 Chevrolet Chevelle SS454 convertible that began its career in New Jersey.
From the early 1960s until well into the ‘70s, quarter-mile dragstrips were a main battlefront in the horsepower war waged by Detroit automakers. The skirmishes of the muscle car era were most intensely fought in the Super Stock classes, where the factories could enter limited-production cars that looked like assembly-line models but were built with lightweight components and stuffed with the most powerful engines on the order form. For years, Dodge and Plymouth dominated with their 426-cubic-inch wedge and Hemi engines.
But in 1970 an innovative team of East Coast racers put Chevrolet on top. Ralph Truppi and Tommy Kling, with backing from Briggs Chevrolet of South Amboy, N.J., took delivery of a Chevelle convertible with the potent 454-cubic-inch LS6 option and an automatic transmission. They chose a convertible, heavier than a hardtop, to put the car in a more desirable class of competition.
In 2006, the Chevelle went on the block at a Barrett-Jackson auction in Scottsdale, Ariz., and after frenzied bidding it sold for $1.2 million. At RM’s Los Angeles auction the Super Stock flyer fell back to earth with a thud, selling for $264,000.
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