While some may think of us as simple folk, gearheads often have the best stories. Among the many genres, which include “Run-ins with the 5-0” and “Tall Tales from the Drag Strip,” my favorite might be “The One That Got Away.” Anybody who’s bought and sold a car or five in their lifetime has felt remorse after letting a good one go, though if they’re fortunate, they also have a story about how they got it back. I’ve heard some great examples, but I’m not sure any can match this one. It involves Dan Gurney‘s bubble-top 1961 Chevy Impala that traveled the world and just made it back to his son Justin in California more than six decades later.
“It was built here in Van Nuys in ’61,” Justin Gurney told me over the phone. “My dad took delivery of it, and a guy that he knew took it, of all things, on his honeymoon and drove it from L.A. to New York.”
Dan Gurney was a busy guy, especially at the time. The American racing hero had yet to enter his first race at Daytona or Indianapolis—those would come in 1962—but he was already part of the Formula 1 circus. He also drove a Porsche RS61 coupe in that year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans, meaning his schedule was packed. Still, he made time for a saloon car race at Silverstone in May. Once his buddy finished his honeymoon road trip, Gurney sent it to Southampton, England, on a boat.
The 409-powered car was mostly stock when Gurney entered it in the 12-lap race. It was factory-rated at 360 horsepower and roughly 410 lb-ft of torque, which was plenty to take on the Jaguars of the grid. A Corvette sway bar was added along with some brake cooling to help the heavy beast’s stoppers survive track duty. Those minor tweaks were enough to help Gurney lead the race’s first 10 laps against some names you might have heard before: Bruce McLaren, Mike Parkes, and eventual winner Graham Hill.
Unfortunately for Gurney, the Impala lost a wheel with just two laps to go. He was forced to retire it with no hardware to show for his efforts. And despite installing wider NASCAR wheels and tires for the next race, Gurney was banned by organizers from competing. In a letter published by Autocar and later recovered from the Impala, he blamed Jaguar team boss Lofty England for lobbying against him. “Great name,” Justin quipped. “It’s so awesome.”
Gurney was left with a car he couldn’t race, so rather than shipping it back stateside, he sold it to his friend Laurie O’Neill. An Australian in England, O’Neill sent it to his homeland and promptly turned the Impala into a tow car. That’s right—he took a Gurney-raced Chevy with a 409 and swapped in a humble straight-six for workhorse duty. He discarded the engine, splitting the car and its numbers-matching powerplant thousands of miles away from Van Nuys where this story started.
O’Neill later sold the Impala, which changed hands in Australia a few times over the years.
After some time had passed, a guy in Australia wanted to sell the car. “He contacted someone from New Jersey named Vern France, who was, I believe, an Impala expert,” Justin told me. The car then went to France, who authenticated the Chevy and promptly listed it again. “I heard about it then. This is probably, let’s say, 12 years ago or something like that. I talked to the guy and, at the time, I didn’t have the means. The guy wanted a lot for it, and it wasn’t restored. It was in a sad state.”
Rather than coming home to California at that point, it actually went back to England. A freelance motorsport journalist named Ed Foster purchased it with hopes of running it in a few historic races. That would have meant installing a roll cage, which the car definitely didn’t have back then. “It had a bench seat, it had a radio in it, everything,” Justin explained to me. As such, Foster restored it to its factory form with a different 409-cubic-inch V8 since the original was long gone.
Foster got great use out of the car, driving it across the UK and even completing the final two laps at Silverstone that Gurney wasn’t able to in ’61 due to the wheel failure. It famously ran as a pace car at the 2018 Goodwood Revival with Dario Franchitti in the driver’s seat, who was keen on the car’s history given his adoration for Dan. It was like a fairytale ending for the blue saloon racer—though as it turns out, the story wasn’t over.
“I said to Ed, ‘In the future, if you ever decide to sell this thing, please call me first. And if I have the means, then I would certainly be interested,’” Justin recounted. “And just a month ago, [Ed] called me. He had moved to Scotland and he said, ‘You know what? It rains so much that I don’t really get to drive it as much as I would like. If you’re interested, I’ll sell it to you.’ So I said, ‘Hell yeah.’”
And if that wasn’t cool enough, it gets better:
“He even found the numbers-matching motor,” Justin explained. “It was in a boat.”
A boat! The engine that powered Dan Gurney’s ill-fated Impala race car was swapped into a boat. That’s crazy.
So Foster sold the bubble-top and its original V8 back to the Gurney family with Justin taking delivery of it a couple of weeks ago. In fact, its tires just hit American soil for the first time in more than 63 years. Truly a full-circle moment.
When I asked Justin what his plans are for the Impala, he told me, “I’m probably going to have to put a muffler on it. And maybe I’ll do a cutout switch so I can still run it the way it sounds. It’s just too darn loud to drive around, but I want to just drive it around, y’know?”
Justin told me it’s likely to find its home at a “man-cave-slash-museum” they’re building in Irvine. It’ll live there alongside the rest of his dad’s cars that he’s been able to get hold of. And while he’s considering trotting it around a few California events, one thing is for sure: It’s not going anywhere this time.
“I’m not going to sell it,” Justin smiled. “I’m going to hold onto it as long as I can.”
Got a story you want to tell? Let me hear it: caleb@thedrive.com
