So 69 SD were all bench seat cars?

Im the very very fortunate owner of Brad Trasks restored car ( it was a feature car here ) , almost the same car , except Brads was a 4 speed , but at $18,000 needing a full restoration .just cant be done and end up even.

WOW! Chambered Exhaust.

Chambered Exhaust was standard on the L34, optional on the base L35.
On U.S. Chevelles it had been standard initially on 350 & 375-horse SS396s but got moved to the option list when the noise level violated some local ordinances.

Of note, for '69 the SD-396 came with 3.55:1 ratio except the car in question. Being the base L35 with the TH400 it came standard with a 3.31:1 ratio. That sounds ideal to me. The L35 uses a Quadrajet, a great flexible 4-barrel. I'd run it, maybe with the hotter L34 cam.


Certainly a cool car that deserves a proper restoration, but you'd have to be able to do a lot of the work yourself and have other resources. To pay for a restoration on an $18,000 hulk would be astronomical, and I am not sure what the market would do for a rare car like this. Fred who used to be on this site as "68sd" and owned the Limelight Green SD-396 hardtop had a bit of a time finding a buyer. It was really nice, really needing nothing. Well o.k, they are never fully done.

It's not like it is a Hemi, but the production numbers are low enough that it may as well be. I mean only 48 L35s & 43 L34s between the Deluxe sport coupe & postie.

Competing with the Road Runner & Super Bee, the '69 Beaumont SD-396 had rubber flooring & basic bench seating. If you wanted fancy you would have been ushered over to the GTO, which for 1969 became standard fare in Canadian showrooms after being considered an outsider and a fancy imported American Pontiac.