396. Say it aloud. It’s an easy number to like, an easy number to sell; its intonation suggests malignity. John Milton eulogized William Shakespeare in 1630 by lauding the way his “easy numbers” flowed, how his natural ear for scansion became his monument. The number 396 sounded so right to so many ears that even when Chevrolet upsized it several years later, they kept the badge all the same; after all, there’s something about a 402 that doesn’t quite make it. In combination with the sensual swells of the new-for-’65 Impala, Chevrolet “hath built…a live-long monument.”
Why does “396” sound so right? While it may not have the mid-century jukebox cachet of its 409 predecessor, Paul Revere and the Raiders attempted to immortalize it in their aptly titled “SS 396,” a song that never really caught on with disc jockeys in the way that the Beach Boys’ “409” did. The smaller engine had the last laugh, however, as the Big-Block Chevy remains a staple in the internal combustion fueled world of hot rodding, 56 years hence.
The ’65 Impala actually started out the year with the old 409 before giving way to the Mark IV. By 1966, the 396 gave way to another mellifluous numeric combination – “427.” Both Ford and Chevrolet took advantage of that number’s cadence, even though the Ford was mathematically a 425.98, a number that is somewhat less likely to light a superspeedway or an imagination afire.
Our featured Impala combines the beautiful styling of the Chevrolet B-Body with the “Turbo-Jet” engine that eventually became so famous. The General Motors color palette of 1965 included this Willow Green, one of several attractive colors that would make a customer’s order so difficult: Mist Blue, Crocus Yellow, Evening Orchid, Rally Red, Madeira AND Milano Maroon, and many others.
The legend of the 396 was founded on the 425-horsepower L78 (rated at 375 horsepower beginning in 1966), but vastly more Chevrolets were propelled by the far less exciting 325-horsepower variant. It’s unclear which version powers our feature car, but the four-on-the-floor hints at a sporting first owner, although a solid-lifter ’65 Impala SS with a four-speed is almost too much to contemplate, an Atlantis on wheels.
This picture was taken at the 2020 Pure Stock Muscle Car Drags in Stanton, MI, an event that provides me with a significant amount of content. While this Impala didn’t make a quarter-mile run on the day I attended, it didn’t really have to. The 396 had a reputation that it didn’t need to back up. Sure, most versions were designed for workaday station wagons, but this “great heir of fame” and the sound of its name alone elicits reverence. And it didn’t need Paul Revere to make it happen.
You’re right about that L78 396. It’s been proven to make 425 real brake horsepower, in stock condition.
A particular pair of heads and cam makes about the same HP no matter how many cubes underneath them… just the torque and RPMs range varies with cubes… Of course, automakers always preached more cubes/more $$$$$$$/more HP…
The Ford ‘400’ V8 has always been actually 402″… just like the upsized BBC ‘396’…
Pontiac ‘350’ is 354″… their ‘326’ started out as 336″…
The Chrysler ‘Road Runner’ 383″ with heads/cam from 375 HP Magnum 440″ made more than its rated 335 HP as soon as you advanced the ignition timing from the factory specified ‘granny’ settings…
In this road test video at 2:20 and 3:00 & beyond, they ridicule the BBC 396:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqdooaxzNyM
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Yeah, but that Impala had the 396 2-barrel, a one-year only offering. You can’t judge the 396 based on that one version.
Europeans mock Americans for sticking with the English measurements, but in fact we have an advantage by speaking BOTH languages. We’re bilingual or bimetral. We use metric when it’s better, English when it’s better. CI is better for engine displacement. CC is too small, liters are too big. You can’t sing about 6.48 liters.
I never did know why CC’s were replaced by liters (or litres usually, even on American cars). So many European and Japanese cars in the ’60s and ’70s had badges like “1600” or “2000”; can’t think of anything that does now.
Cool set of wheels! Thanks for the history.
You’re welcome!
I’m a little confused here… I was only 5 years old when it came out, but remember the “396”, agreeing it is one of the coolest numbers ever and it stuck in my young brain.
My Dad of course wasn’t going there though… His ’66 Impala had a 283, and his ’68 Impala had the 307. (Heavy sigh on the latter… If only he’d gone with a mere 20 more cubic inches, but I digress…)
Back to the 396. While I knew that the ’65 Impala could be had with this engine, I thought that the “Real Fine” 409 was for older Impalas, like a ’62 or ’63… That ad says otherwise. Was the 396 a mid-season replacement for MY 1965?
Oh, and thanks Aaron… now I have that Foreigner song stuck in my head. ;o)
Was the 396 a mid-season replacement for MY 1965?
Yes.
I remember well the 396 superceding the 409, and the big splash it made in the car mags. Ever willing to push the latest and newest from a big advertiser, they trumpeted the virtues of the new mill while letting the 409 have the reputation of being a bored and stroked truck engine, which was at least partly true.
The 409 wasn’t “a bored and stroked truck engine”. The trucks had 409s too. It was no different than just about every American Big Three engine since almost forever: they were used in trucks as well as cars.
You’re right… Both cars and trucks first got the 348, only later being enlarged to the 409; possibly the predominance of the small block was where the “truck engine” reputation came from.
One of our school buses had a Chevrolet big block. Being a 1959, it would have been a 348. It was the quickest in the fleet and was a real stump-puller, assigned to the San Francisco route where it’s route included the seversk-blocks long Divisadero Street Hill. Its backup was a GMC V6…much less of an engine in that application.
Chevy advertised the 425 hp solid lifter 396 in ’65, the debut year of the Mark II motor. In ’66 the L72 427 carried that hp rating, so the 396 was downgraded to 375 hp. Ratings have always been more marketing than actual dyno pulls. Early on they elevated the ratings, later they downgraded them, first to sand bag drag racing classification, later to avoid insurance surcharges. Or sometimes it was slight of hand, the Mopar 426 Hemi was rated at 425 hp @ 5000 rpm, but it actually pulled up to 6000 rpm and around 500 hp.
According to Chrysler’s own dyno tests as well as recreations of such tests, a 426 hemi makes 470 hp, without exhausts or other accessories.
The most powerful of the big V8s of the era was the Chevy 427 L88, which made between 510-557 hp, depending on just how it was dressed for the dyno runs. It was rated at 430 hp @5200 rpm, which actually was true, for that engine speed, but its power peak didn’t come until 6500 rpm. So Chevy wasn’t really lying, just using a lower engine speed. This was a common trick.
although a solid-lifter ’65 Impala SS with a four-speed is almost too much to contemplate, an Atlantis on wheels.
Exactly 1,838 ’65 full size Chevys were built with the L-78 396. Not quite Atlantis, especially since a fair number have survived.
Come on, Paul…give a guy some room for exaggeration. 🙂
I’d like to know how many L78s were actually in Impalas; I would think that the Biscayne would be a more natural home considering how most of them were probably used.
I’m afraid that information is not readily available. But if you google “1965 full size Chevrolet with 425hp 396” a fair number of Impala/SS cars come up, including this fine convertible.
https://www.barrett-jackson.com/Events/Event/Details/1965-CHEVROLET-IMPALA-SS-396-CONVERTIBLE-198439
There were always folks who bought the top performance engine.
My search for a ’65 Caprice with that engine has so far not yielded any results: https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/and-just-how-many-1965-chevrolet-caprices-were-built-with-the-425-hp-396-v8/
Bruce Springsteen famously wrote about a “69 Chevy with a 396”, though it may have actually been a bored and/or stroked small block, as he also claimed it had “fuellie heads”, which AFAIK is a small block term.
I think it’s more likely that the Boss didn’t know his way around the engine bay. 🙂
The first version of that song had a 32 Ford with a 318, maybe someone told Bruce a 69 Chevy with a 396 would make a better race car than an old Ford with a Valiant engine.
Standing here in 2021 – it is impressive how big engines had to get to make impressive horsepower numbers back then. Love those big engines.
Also thankful that in 2021, 300+HP can be had from naturally aspirated V6s for daily driving – and can deliver ~30 MPG on the highway.
My brother had a ’69 Camaro with the L-78 396, with Turbo 400 trans around 1974-75, during that time you couldn’t give a muscle car away.
And yes, 1969 was the last year for the L-78
You could still get an L78 Chevelle for the first part of 1970, until the LS6 was released, and you could still get Camaros and Novas with that engine in 1970 as well.
It is true – some cubic inch numbers sound great, and 396 is one of them. I am also partial to 383, 390, 392, 413, 429 and some others.
Some, however, do not. 348, 400, 401, 406, 430 are of this group. And why did the big Chevrolet 454 always sound so much cooler than 455 offered by the BOP Divisions?
I also like 289, 327, and 389…and any number of others. 🙂
Best ever was 304.5!
Here’s an R4 in a ’64 Studebaker.
Adding 426 to this list of cool names. 440 sounds great too.
Did Chevrolet commission the Paul Revere & the Raiders song? Record label says “Created especially for Chevrolet Dealers – Complimentary Copy”.
B-side of that record was “Corvair Baby”:
The early albums of Paul Revere and the Raiders were produced by Terry Melcher, son of singer Doris Day. Lead singer Mark Lindsay even briefly lived with Melcher and his girlfriend, Candice Bergen, at 10050 Cielo Drive. Melcher had earlier been part of the group, The Rip Chords, which recorded the top-ten hit, “Hey Little Cobra.”
Also in the Rip Chords was Bruce Johnston, before he became a Beach Boy in 1965. For me, the height of Melcher’s career was being record producer on the first two Byrds albums. Talk about an amazing, influential sound…
Ironically, Melcher is now most often mentioned regarding the would-be musician whose career he chose not to promote – Charles Manson.
Just when did Doris lose her virginity?
I had no idea she had an adult son in the 60’s.
Terry Melcher was born in February 1942.
My oldest brother, who was in the Air Force at the time, bought a new 1965 Super Sport with 396 and 4-speed stick. When he was transferred to England, he had the Super Sport shipped there. While he was there, he became part of a racing team, and the 396 engine became part of a racing car. Unfortunately, the engine blew at some point in racing. The Super Sport got a 283 that may have been goosed a bit; at least, that’s what it looked like when I got to see it when John came back to the States, along with the Impala and the body and chassis of the race car. John was being transferred to his last Air Force base, in Nevada. I got to drive the Impala just a tiny bit before it and the race car, on its trailer, sat in my parents’ backyard for years. At some point my folks got rid of the cars on behalf of my brother. It just really seemed sad to have that beautiful car just sitting, baking in the Arizona sun.
So, the Impala only had a double set of twin taillights I see. I imagine the Caprice would have received the triple sets on each side.
I don’t think there was ever a single taillamp on each side for the ’65 Chevy.
These cars had sufficient attitude with their forward grille stance, the 396 emblem with the racing flags only added to it.
Where do you see that?
The Impala always had triple taillights since the very first one in ’58. That was its claim to fame. The Caprice originally was just a trim package on the Impala, and then used the same triple lights as it. Quad taillights would have been a bit over the top.
Bel Air and Biscayne both had twin taillights on each side.
Third photo, with the trunk lid raised.
The third taillight is outboard on the rear quarter.
Yes that makes sense. Thanks
> The Impala always had triple taillights since the very first one in ’58.
except in 1959
and ’66 and ’67 and ’71 and ’72 ….
’66’s have 2 lights on each side. Belairs divided into 2 segments. Impalas divided into 3 segments with the outer segment wrapping around the quarter panel. ’71 Belairs and Impalas the original 4/6 pattern but you’re correct on the ’72’s and ’67’s.
Sorry I should have been more precise. When I think Impala I think of distinct ROUND tail lights with 6 being the total. They were segmented in ’59, ’66, ’67 and ’71 and beyond. Yes I realize the ’68 was round but flattened on top and the ’69s were rectangular, but they still IMO kept to the original theme. I found the ’66 to be especially disappointing and plain. The ’71s and beyond were actually not that bad. For that period Chevy and Ford each pretty much had their own tail light theme and they were both quite attractive
That’s okay. The sad part was that I remember seeing these cars back in the day because they were everywhere! Now it’s been so long I had to confirm my memory with Google images!
I always thought the ’67’s were weird that year. The Biscayne had 2 trapezoidal tail lights each in 2 segments, with the backup lights in the inside halves. Belairs and Impalas shared the same shape, in 3 segments each with the backup lights in the middle of each trapezoid. My dad had a ’67 Belair company car. The Caprice, not nearly as common where we lived, also had 3 segment lights. But they were all tail lights and the backup lights were located separately on the back bumper.
Recall that in late 1965 the neighbor across the street went shopping for a new Chevrolet to replace their 1960 Biscayne. As the ‘66 models just came out, they thought a good deal would be available on a leftover ‘65. Might not be the exact color or options they wanted, but the savings would make up for it.
I don’t know if they got a good deal, but the Chevy they bought off the lot was an odd duck. It was a yellow Impala with a black painted roof. I don’t think I ever saw one in this combo before, and they made over a million ‘65 Impalas. Oddly optioned with dog dishes, black walls, and, the 396 with Turbo Hydramatic. They really had no idea what they had. When I was checking it out I said something like wow, you got the 396! The man said something like yeah, it’s an 8 cylinder, oblivious to what he had.
neihbors the Greer’s bought new 65 yellow/black vinyl roof /int, 396/TH, kept foryeasrs.
The black vinyl roof roof was popular, but this one was painted. Very strange.
Gorgeous car in an equally gorgeous color. Icing on the cake provided by the 396 and 4-on-the-floor!
Still the coolest car ad I ever saw.
At least ten years ago, I either saw this car, or it’s twin for sale, in Melvin Village, NH. It was on rte. 109, near Lake Winnipesaukee. Same color, with a 396, a 4 speed, and in mint condition. As I remember, everything about it looks the same. I believe the asking price was 25K.
I noticed at the end of this ad the owner showed the Protect-O-Plate, as he was the original owner. How many of you remember that?
As if to signify the times, there is a face mask in the passenger floorboard in the interior photo. Uncle Roy got a new ’65 Caprice in its first year. Traded in his beautiful Midnight Blue ’64 Impala Super Sport. I was 8 and I don’t remember the engine in either one, but I do remember him terrifying me a couple of times with acceleration in both.