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Crybabies?


Geeto67

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Another WTF Craigslist moment:

 

http://zanesville.craigslist.org/cto/4963270559.html

Emphasis mine:

Have owned this for 11 years and am 3rd owner. Was originally Copper or (Burnt orange )with black stripes. 350 ,automatic. miles exempt. Engine, trans rebuilt .Needs carpet . .Has an aluminum intake and edelbrock carb. Heddars . Painted in 1989 and is a 10 to 20 footer. Gets lots of looks cruising. But can,t drive it because our town has a lot of have nots(crybabies) who were jealous and got the local law to harass people with historical tags and threaten to tow our cars.

 

http://images.craigslist.org/00b0b_fIABxu76h3J_600x450.jpg

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$18k?! Holy night

 

Yeah Chevelle prices are a little out of control lately. "Heavy Chevy" chevelles were just an appearance package on base model stripper chevelles. No carpeting, no frills, just a dressed up cheap car. People think they are some high performance package but you could have had one with anything from an inline six to the 402ci big block (formerly the 396ci) but not the 454 as that was exclusive to the SS models and wagons only. I don't think heavy chevies got any of the SS suspension equipment either. It's literaly just a stripe package.

 

But that is not the interesting part, the crybabies thing is way more bizarre than just an overpriced likely small block chebbie.

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To be fair to the guy, Hedman exhaust has always spelled it "hedders", even in their logo

 

 

It is a branding thing, so Hedmen Hedders is a brand name, not the name of the item.

 

http://www.dragzine.com/history/a-look-into-the-history-of-hedman-hedders/

 

In 1954 Bob Hedman purchased the other half of Equaflow exhaust from Sandy Belond, and Hedman changed the name to Hedman Muffler and Manufacturing. With a startup crew of somewhere between eight and ten men, most of whom were skilled welders, Hedman’s shop was bustling and soon running two shifts.

 

Demand for headers was skyrocketing. Hedman had cleverly, and intentionally misspelled “hedders” to associate the product with himself.

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I know this. I'm just saying it might be why the guy is confused on how to spell it

 

except he spelled it Heddars and not Hedders.

 

Plus it was a pretty cool piece about Hedman and it seemed like a shame not to post it.

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I love that there are no pictures of the interior or the engine but four pictures of the legend, "Heavy Chevy," in what is apparently every place it appears on the car.

 

Also, at risk of sounding like a "crybaby," why the hell would you want to advertise that your car is heavy. Weight is bad in pretty much every driving scenario. Unless they mean heavy like, "Woah man. This is heavy." Or, "Heavy metal, bro." In which case, I think I've decided it is even worse advertising.

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I love that there are no pictures of the interior or the engine but four pictures of the legend, "Heavy Chevy," in what is apparently every place it appears on the car.

 

Also, at risk of sounding like a "crybaby," why the hell would you want to advertise that your car is heavy. Weight is bad in pretty much every driving scenario. Unless they mean heavy like, "Woah man. This is heavy." Or, "Heavy metal, bro." In which case, I think I've decided it is even worse advertising.

 

It's "heavy" as in Marty Mcfly "that's heavy,doc" kind of way. I think Chevy's intent was to make the car seem like a "serious contender" using pop culture slang to make it seem fun. Considering the car did not have the 454, or carpet, or sound deadening, or pesky comfort options it was probably quite light in weight when compared to an SS Chevelle. If you think about the time in the context of the Plymouth roadrunner or the GTO Judge it kind of makes sense. I'm not saying it's a good name either, but I get why they did it.

 

The heavy chevy was part of a quartet of "budget" muscle cars GM was selling at the time. By 1971 the insurance companies had figured out that intermediate cars with big engines should be charged higher premiums and came down hard on cars like SS454 chevelles and GTOs. In response GM built some sporty stripe package cars on base models so that the cars looked like muscle cars but were really just cheapo base models and thus easier to insure. The heavy Chevy got stripes and the SS cowl induction hood, the Oldsmobile rallye 350 got body color bumpers, a 442 hood, a w-30 wing, and special wheels, the pontiac t-37 got stripes, a GTO hood, and rally wheels, and the buick GS 350 got all the same exterior trim as the GS455. It was a smart move by GM to stay relevant in the market place, and a practice they still do today, but unfortunately they weren't big sellers. Only about 6k Heavy Chevy's were sold in 1971.

 

Interestingly enough pontiac and buick were the only two companies to actually see this coming and had been selling sporty versions of their down market cars since 1966 and 1967 respectively. Pontiac had the Sprint OHC six in 1966-1968 and then the lemans sport from 1969 on, buick started with the GS340 in 1967 and continued with the GS350 into the collonnade body style in the mid 70's.

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