Our August feature car belongs to Mike and Deb Reimer. Mike bought this 65 Beaumont and enjoyed driving the car for a while until he decided to do a little body work on it. Well you know what happened next!
Mike has the details:
When I was around 16 or 17 I had a 65 Beaumont. Being a kid I bought a car that looked good but needed too much work for me to afford so I ended up selling it. Twenty-five years later and now married I decided it was time to look for another one (I think my wife was tired of me talking about it). I looked on Kijiji for about a year until I came across this one. I was working in northern Manitoba and flew home for the day to look at and purchase the car.
I drove the car for a year as it was and over Christmas holidays in 2013 I decided to fix the bubbling in the rear quarters. From there it was in the garage for the better part of two years. I worked on it during the eight days a month that I was home.
The bubbling turned into both full rear quarters having to be replaced as well as the inner tubs.
The front of the hood was all rust holes and needed metal bent for it.
The firewall was cleaned up once the motor came out as well.
Once the body was taken apart we decided to build a 396 that I had bought a few years earlier.
The motor was dropped off at Millar motors and they went to work. The block was bored .100 over and then stroked 4.25 to leave me with a 496. Next we sent the motor to SanDale for break-in and a run on the dyno. We ended up with 598.5HP and 670lb ft of torque.
We left the 350 transmission in it for a year before it gave out. We built another 350 transmission for the car that lasted another summer and have since replaced it with a 700R4. This made the car much easier to drive and has lasted for the last three years.
With the motor done we looked at the wiring in the car. It was in rough shape so it was all replaced with and EZ wire kit.
While putting the car back together we changed the factory 10 bolt rear end with a 12 bolt posi as well as new trailing arms thanks to a wonderful Canadian Poncho member. We did a disc brake conversion and installed QA1 rear shocks.
So far the carpet has been replace as have the door panels. The seats still have to be redone or replacede at some point.
My goal was not to build a show car because I would be too scared to drive it. It's also not a race car but car just to have fun with.
I would like to run it down a track this year just to see what it will do, then it will go up for sale and we will start over again!
Great write up and good persistence in following that project through. You have some serious hp and torque there so is nice to see you have an overdrive to idle down the highway. Excellent job and congratulations for being at the top of the page for the month.
'64 Parisienne CS "barn find" - last on the road in '86 ... Owner Protection Plan booklet, original paint, original near-mint aqua interior, original aqua GM floor mats, original 283, factory posi, and original rust.
Fabulous work, and a great back story, too! 700R4s, stock-to-stock, or equivalently beefed up, to a TH350, are reputed to be less long-lived. With what your engine is putting out, and having blown up two TH350s already, it might be wise to lean into it rather than just plant the pedal. My 427 is nowhere near your output, but I'm treading cautiously!
It's great to see your car at the top of the page. We live barely an hour apart and have never met, that needs to change! I want to see your car someday, in person instead of pictures.
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1966 Strato Chief 2 door, 427 4 speed, 45,000 original miles
1966 Grande Parisienne, 396 1 of 23 factory air cars
That is a beauty and that power you have will burn a lot of rubber.
A buddy just built a 454 with that kind of power and a built 700R, in a 66 impala SS with 12 bolt posi, it will just sit and burn tires, Im sure yours will do the same. A built 700R4 can handle the power if done right.
I posted a video of a burnout of the 66 in the Lounge, it made less power than your car, so youll have a lot of fun with this power.
Great job on doing the car.
-- Edited by DonSSDD on Thursday 5th of August 2021 08:09:01 AM
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63 Parisienne sport coupe (The Big GTO), black, maroon interior, 409 4 speed; former owner of a 59 El Camino, 63 Corvette SWC, 62 Chev Bel Air SC. 1963- Pontiac top selling car in Canada
Mahone Bay, NS Still not old enough to need an automatic