1962 Chevrolet Impala SS: The 409 Gets Its Song, and the Super Sport Gets Its Buyers

Hayden Proffitt won Stock Eliminator at the 1961 NHRA U.S. Nationals in Mickey Thompson's Pontiac, the only 12-second car in the class. A year later, NHRA's history of the 409 records, he won Stock Eliminator at the 1962 U.S. Nationals in a 409 Chevrolet. The same driver changing brands between one Nationals and the next is as neat a summary of 1962 as any. In between, the 409 went from a late, rare option to a regular sight, and the Impala Super Sport that carried it went from a few hundred cars to nearly a hundred thousand.^1,2,3

The engine now came two ways. NHRA's history lists a four-barrel 409 rated at 380 hp and a dual-quad version rated at 409 hp, the latter with larger 2.19-inch intake valves; both are advertised SAE gross figures. Wikipedia's account of the third-generation Impala notes that the 409 was available only with a manual transmission, so a Super Sport buyer who wanted an automatic had to choose a smaller engine. The engine also got a record of its own: NHRA calls the 409 the engine that inspired a song, the Beach Boys' '409' of 1962, and a legion of drag racers; its history names Dave Strickler, in a car prepared for Bill Jenkins, and Don Nicholson among them.^2,4

The Super Sport changed character to match. Where the 1961 kit had been a handling-and-appearance package tied to the 348 and 409, the 1962 SS became, in Wikipedia's words, an appearance package limited to the hardtop coupe and the convertible. The Impala SS Registry lists what that meant inside: bucket seats and all-vinyl upholstery, with separate trim codes for each color on the sport coupe and the convertible. Any engine could be ordered, six or V-8. The 327 and 409 engines came with a tachometer as standard, other V-8 buyers could add one as RPO 331, and the SS wheel cover was unique, without the emblem hole of the regular cover.^4,5,5

The rest of the car was refreshed around it. Wikipedia notes new C-pillar styling for 1962 on every model except the four-door hardtop, and a new small-block: the 283 was enlarged to 327 cubic inches, offered in the full-size line at 250 and 300 hp. That gave a Super Sport buyer a middle ground between a six and a 409. The 1962 price of the SS package has not been documented in the sources found, and the 1961 kit price is not a substitute for it.^4,6

The numbers show what happened when the package became easy to buy. The Classic Industries chart counts 99,311 Super Sports for 1962, against 453 the year before. Measured against the chart's 704,900 Impalas, about one Impala in seven was an SS. The chart counts 15,019 409 engines across the whole full-size line, against the registry's 142 for 1961. The 409 row is not an SS-only count, and the chart warns that its figures have not been verified by the factory, so the two numbers cannot be combined into an SS 409 total. Across all full-size Chevrolets the chart lists 323,427 sport coupes and 75,719 convertibles, the two bodies the Super Sport could now wear.^3,5

The racing 409s went further than any showroom car. RM Sotheby's catalogue for a 2014 sale describes a 1962 program in which the steel hood, fenders, inner wheelwells, bumpers, brackets and related pieces were replaced with aluminum, trimming 120 pounds from a 3,500-pound car. The catalogue says only 18 Impala SSs received the aluminum components in 1962 and names racers who ran lightweight Impalas, among them Don Nicholson, Dave Strickler, Buddy Martin, Dick Harrell and John Zintsmaster. That count comes from an auction house, not from a Chevrolet record, and it stands as the catalogue's figure.⁷

Nicholson was the man to beat. NHRA describes him as the 1962 Winternationals champion, and when Chrysler's Ramchargers took their new 413 Max Wedge Dodge Dart sedan to Detroit Dragway for its first public test, a best-of-five match race, the opponent was Nicholson's 409 Chevrolet. NHRA says Dodge did not win. The account gives no date, elapsed times or round scores. It is enough that the new Chrysler engine's first public measuring stick was a Chevrolet with a 409 under the hood.⁸

Pontiac had not gone away. For 1962 it catalogued the 421 Super Duty as a $2,250 option for Catalina two-doors and the Grand Prix, rated at 405 hp. Motor Trend's May 1962 test of a 421 Catalina hardtop with a four-speed and 4.30 gears ran the quarter mile in 13.9 seconds at 107 mph. On the NASCAR side, the NASCAR Hall of Fame records 22 Pontiac wins in 1962 and the make's only manufacturers' championship. The 409 was fighting on two fronts against a division of its own corporation, while Chrysler's new 413 pressed from outside.^9,10,11,8

The scale of the two programs was very different, and the numbers say so. Chevrolet's 409 was a regular option, and the Classic Industries chart counts 15,019 of them in 1962 full-size cars. Pontiac's Super Duty was a racer's engine at racer's prices, and its production is disputed: Over-Drive's fact sheet says 1,514 cars were built with the 421 Super Duty, while Pontiac historian Rocky Rotella gives documented production of 155 Catalinas and 16 Grand Prix. Either way, Chevrolet sold its big engine in the thousands to ordinary buyers, and Pontiac's, by either count, went to far fewer.^3,9,12,2

The 1962 Impala SS set the pattern for the rest of the decade. The package that had been a $53.80 dealer kit on 453 cars became a trim level buyers chose by the tens of thousands, and the 409 became an engine people sang about. For 1963 the chart counts 153,271 Super Sports, now RPO Z03, and Chevrolet took the 409 idea to its limit with the Z11, a 427-cubic-inch version for the drag strip. Pontiac's side of the fight changed abruptly: a divisional bulletin of January 24, 1963 cancelled new orders for Super Duty engines. The Super Sport's first full-scale year was 1962, and its 99,311 buyers turned a rarity into a fixture of the Impala line.^13,3,5,2,14