WHEN CHEVY’S SUPERPOWER WAS ITS SS MODELS

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SS letters on the side of a Chevy Impala was a badge of honor with the power to strike fear in the hearts of other car owners back in the day.

The SS label was an abbreviation of Super Sport, a term closely associated with performance in the hearts and minds of Chevy owners.

Jim Sutherland

GM played with the SS handle during the back nine of the 1950s when the automotive giant used the name on a Corvette concept car developed to explore the racing angle for the famous Chevy sports car.

However, the SS idea never gained liftoff with the Corvette experiment and was place on the back-burner until 1961 when Chevy introduced the SS performance package on its Impala model.

Consequently, the SS legend was officially born in 1961 when Chevy introduced the name on its factory hot rods. There were two engine options available for the 1961 Impala SS: the big-block 348 and the monstrous 409 made famous in song by the Beach Boys in 1962.

Both engines were initially designed for heavy duty use in trucks where their formidable power would serve them well in hard work. Thus the nickname “truck motor” was applied to both engines by car guys who knew about their designed use by GM.

GM changed the game when the 1961 Impala SS models were only sold with the large truck motors and offered tire-melting performance in a passenger car.

1962 marked a directional change for Chevy because it added the 283 and 327 small blocks to its Impala SS power options, while retaining its big block 409 choice for buyers.

1963 Impala SS models were given the same engine options-along with a monstrous other choice, namely the 427 Z-11 big block that delivered 430 horses to the corral under the hood of a ’63 Impala SS.

Important note: Chevy also offered the Chevy II Nova SS in 1963, but the little compact was not given the performance V-8s found in Impala SS models, so they were basically a sheep in wolf’s clothing. For the record, future Nova SS models would be given a variety of beastly engine choices-but not in 1963.

The 1964 Impala SS models dumped the Z-11 power option and replaced it with the famous 409 big-block, an engine destined to become a legend in Bowtie circles.

The 1965 Impala SS got a larger size and more contemporary face-lift that marked a fork in the road for Chevy. The Impala SS models no longer included the venerable 283, instead it beefed-up its 396 with a Vette L78 engine that produced an astounding 425 horsepower. The full-sized ‘65 Impala SS would never catch up to its smaller ’64 predecessor in the eyes of car guys at the time. 

Arguably Chevy’s biggest transfer of muscle car power occurred in 1966 when its newly designed intermediate-sized Chevelle SS models stole the limelight from the full-sized Impala SS models. The Impala migrated toward land yacht status, even though it had a 427 beast-mode option.

The Impala SS models never fully recovered as a legitimate muscle car option after this transitional year and yielded the floor to its Chevelle SS and Nova SS siblings. The reintroduction of the Impala SS in 1994 did not reignite the car’s legendary status from the early to mid-Sixties.

But the pioneer Impala SS models left a long strip of rubber to mark their heyday.

Jim Sutherland

BY: Jim Sutherland

Jim Sutherland is a veteran automotive writer whose work has been published by many major print and online publications. The list includes Calgary Herald, The Truth About Cars, Red Deer Advocate, RPM Magazine, Edmonton Journal, Montreal Gazette, Windsor Star, Vancouver Province, and Post Media Wheels Section. 

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