(PNS reporting from NEW MEXICO) The United States Department of Transportation (USDOT) has offically declared the 1964 Chevrolet Impala “extinct on the streets of the nation” according to USDOT spokesperson Pablo Boone, who said yesterday the last remaining unmodified Impala was “poached earlier this month in Northern New Mexico.”
The 64 Chevy Impala SS Sports Coupe with a 327-cubic-inch 5.4 L engine with matching serial numbers that went missing was owned by Bob Gallegos of Costilla, NM who inherited it from his Abuelo Eulogio. Grandpa traded 15 sheep for the vehicle in 1965 (photo from 2009, above.)
An anonymous tip lead led to a USDOT raid on Maestas’s Custom Shop in Cibola County where the Impala was found with newly-installed hydraulics and a blue metal-flake paint job.
“Y no, bro!” Gallegos yelled after seeing his vehicle with triple-dipped chrome, a removable chain-link steering wheel, under-car LED lighting and Cherry Bomb glasspack mufflers.
According to the agency’s Boone, due to severe pressure by vehicle poachers who add “gold-plated rims, hydraulics, and Virgen de Guadalupe airbrushing on the hoods” for the nation’s lowrider car clubs, who view them as aphrodisiacs, the nation’s once vast population of unmodified 64 Chevy Impalas has dwindled to a “few unmodified remaining in automotive museums.” Gallegos’s vehicle, he said, was the “last one still driven on the roads of America.”
In response, the agency has proposed an “endangered and threatened vehicle list” to inform the public about the vehicles that “are of esthetic, ecological, educational, historical, recreational, and scientific value to the Nation and its people.”
The regulations would ban the trafficking of parts from vehicles placed on the list.
The list of endangered vehicles also includes the
- 1982 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme
- 1992 Honda Accord and
- 1978 Lincoln Continental Mark V.
Boon then issued a threat — or a promise:
We will crack down on vehicle poaching and ensure that these vehicles not not suffer the fate of being shown in car shows doing cruel, inhumane tricks.