DC Car Care

National Champion Show Cars

For many years I specialized in collecting and showing ultra low-mile unrestored cars. These two were the ultimate 70's cars and both were national champions. The 1971 Z-28 had just 9600 miles on it when I owned it and the 1972 GS Stage 1 had just 10,500 miles on the odometer. Both were completely unrestored from the tires to the paint to the engine compartments. Both were feature cars in MuscleCar Review.

This 1971 Z-28 was purchased new by a military man in Texas. He drove it one year and then built a climate controlled garage for it and stored the car with just 7000 miles on the odometer. He kept the car for about 12 years and then had to sell it to build a new home. I purchased the car two owners later with 9600 miles on the odometer. I took it to the Camaro Nationals where it won first in the unrestored class and was featured in MuscleCar Review the next year. It featured the Turbo 400 tranny behind the LT1 engine, the tall spoiler and still had its original Wide-Oval tires. The only thing on the car not factory original was the battery. At Chevy-Vette Fest in Chicago the car scored 960 points out of 1000 in judging and won the "Golden Spinner" award. The underside of this car was as nice as the top.

Cars like this one and the GS Buick I owned at the same time are objects that you can only take care of for a while, they own you more than the other way around.

This 1972 Buick GS Stage 1 will be familiar to people that have the book "Buicks Illustrated". It is the cover car. This car was ordered as the personal toy of a Buick dealer in Ohio in 1971. It sat on his showroom floor for about 6 years before being sold the first time. It accumulated just 10,200 miles before I purchased it at about the same time as the Z-28 above. This car was National Champion at the GS Nationals in Bowling Green KY TWICE! It won Best GS popular vote under a previous owner and I showed it to Best GS Concours in 1991. This was against RESTORED competition! This car, like the Z-28 is completely factory original. In this case, the shocks and battery were the only two items changed on the car. It was featured in MuscleCar Review also.

This car features the rare N-24 through the bumper exhaust tips, the Stage 1 package (only 728 made in 1972), Turbo 400 transmission on the column, bench seat with optional fold-down armrest, sport wheel and dash gauges, ultra rare factory FM Stereo and under dash factory 8-track tape player, speed minder speedometer, power steering and power brakes.

Here is proof positive that National Champion show cars don't all have to be "trailer queens". This 1958 Impala was a real find just 8 blocks from my current home! A friend of mine heard that I was looking for a 58 Pontiac and asked if I was interested in a 58 Impala. Not being brain dead, I said YES! This beauty was stored at another friends house and I never knew it. It had just 45,000 miles at the time and while a little rough from being stored improperly, I knew it had promise. It, like the two cars above was almost totally FACTORY. No new paint anywhere on the car. When I got it, it had straight pipes, glass packs, narrow whitewalls and spinner hubcaps. Luckily the correct hubcaps were in the trunk along with a brand new NOS set of fender skirts with factory primer still on them.

With the correct tires and hubcaps and a new stainless steel exhaust system the car looked much better, and sounded right. I had the skirts painted and cleaned up the engine compartment. Options on this car included the 250 hp 348 cu in engine, Turboglide transmission, AM pushbutton radio with factory rear speaker in the rear seat, power steering and power brakes. The doors were so perfectly aligned on this car that on a level surface, I could hold the drivers door exactly 6 inches open, let go of it and it would slowly close all the way with a neat "click." The 348 idled so smooth it would make you cry. It's funny, but listening to this 348 next to the Z-28's 350 made it clear why the 348 is called a "big block" and the 350 is a small block. The 348 has that long-stroke lope that makes it perfectly clear which one is the senior member of the two!

The above picture was taken when I drove the car from Washington Illinois to Spearfish South Dakota for the Impala Nationals. The cars odometer turned over to indicate 50,000 miles during the trip and was it a dream to drive, even in the hills around Mt. Rushmore. At that convention this car won the Unrestored Concours class to make it National Champion #3 for me!

OK, This car was never a National Champion, but it sure put a smile on my face every time I drove it.

This 1962 Catalina was another unrestored original car, but it had been tapped a couple of times and had three different colors of green paint if you looked close. Being from California it had zero rust like all the others, but it wasn't in show condition. The interior was very nice, but I decided to make a drag car out of it. I never cut on it, but I put in a "throw-away" 389 motor with the top end from the original 425A motor (rated at 348 hp and 430 lb ft of torque) with the original close-ratio four-speed transmission and a Hayes street/strip clutch. A set of custom headers and 4.88 gears with Pontiac positraction, and the car was running 13.90's at 102 mph!. Right on the D/S national record for these cars in 1966! The car weighed 4200# with driver and still would do 1.70 60 foot times.

This car was featured in High Performance Pontiac, Pontiac Enthusiast and Old Cars Weekly. As far as I know, I was the only person campaigning a 389 full-size nostalgia Pontiac in the nation! I looked for 390 fords, 383 Mopars to match race against.

My best race was beating a 12 second Firebird with a 455 in it at Gateway Drag Strip in the early 90's. The guy had sneered at me when I tried to make small talk before the "heads up" eliminations at a nostalgia event. I got an almost perfect .501 light and with my slicks versus his street tires, I was showing this guy the rather substantial rear end of my Cat before the 60' mark. He blew his run and went up in smoke in the first three gears. He almost took the paint off my car when he went by (too late) at the big end. He was going almost 120 to my 98 at that time. I found him later in the pits and shook his hand reminding him he gave my "389" a good run. The look on his face was priceless!

I hope you enjoyed looking at a few of the cars I have owned (or maybe the other way around) through the years. I do not own the cars above anymore. They have all found good homes with different people that love them and will probably never sell them. I get bored and tend to want to move on. (NOTE: maybe I am not as fickle as that last sentence makes me sound. My 1966 Grand Prix has been in my garage for going on 15 years, and my 1989 SHO has been lovingly kept in great shape for going on 11 years.)

The reason I wanted to show you these cars and others on this web site, was to make the point that I have experience at making old and new cars look good enough to be national champions. I am passing the products and information along to you through my business and this web site....enjoy.

Don't hesitate to ask me questions about your own car. Send me e-mail and together we can work to meet your show/race goals!

Donald C. Mallinson