Long-time area native still drives same car, 33 years later
Any classic muscle car spotted around town has a story of its own, but too often those stories are forgotten as one owner passes it to the next. That’s not the case for a Gas man whose relationship with his 1967 Chevelle Super Sport dates back more than three decades.
In 1978, 15-year-old Danny McKarnin had saved $200 from a dishwashing job and other odd jobs and was determined to get a hot set of wheels with the cash burning a hole in his pocket. When a white Chevy, in what he says was “fair” condition, equipped with a 327-inch motor surfaced in town for $300, the Iola High School sophomore asked his parents for a loan to cover the difference.
“It probably wasn’t the fastest car in town but … it could hold its own,” McKarnin reminisced of the car’s speed. “It’s probably a good thing it didn’t a have the big block in it when I got it.”
After he repainted the car and made a few other aesthetic upgrades following his high school graduation, McKarnin did a bad thing.
“I wrinkled up the right front fender and scratched the paint all up,” he said. “When that happened I was just so disgusted, I put the car up and I parked it in 1982.”
And parked it stayed for a quarter century. McKarnin, now a 48-year-old father of two, needed something to do to occupy his time when the kids left for college.
“I got to thinking, ‘what am I going to do with this spare time?’ There must be a reason I kept that old Chevelle out there all these years,” he said pointing to a tin shed south of his Iola home that the car called home for so long.
If busy was the goal, he succeeded.
With the help from a few long-time buddies and some area professionals like Todd Stevenson of SS Automotive and Miller’s Gas Body Shop, McKarnin, an Iola city employee for the past 21 years, spent the next 52 months methodically, sometimes painstakingly, rebuilding his long-time friend to cherry condition. North of $30,000 into the restoration project, the car was ready for the road in April 2010.
Equipped with a big-block motor, the car is now a genuine 1967 Chevrolet Chevelle 396. When the car was built in an Atlanta, Ga. factory back in 1966, it had a big-block 396 cubic inch motor but when a previous owner blew it, a 327-inch block was used as a replacement.
“It’s a true vintage … original muscle car, now,” McKarnin said.
Connie Wolken of Iola and her husband sold the car to McKarnin in 1978. Having seen the restored and refurbished vehicle, Wolken said it’s hard to believe it’s the same car and that McKarnin kept it all this time.
“Don’t remind me,” she said when asked if she still thought the $300 asking price was fair.
McKarnin said when he’s out and about talking to people about cars, there’s one reoccurring theme — regret.
“Guys always get to talking about cars they had or their buddies had and they always say, ‘I wish I would of kept that,’” he said. “Well hell, I kept mine.”
To commemorate the rare feat of keeping the same car through its transition from common to classic, McKarnin got a vanity plate – IKPTMYN.
Even though his life-long friend is valued between $40,000 and $50,000, McKarnin says he’s not afraid to drive the car, having put about 5,000 miles on it in 16 months.
“It’s not a trailer queen,” he said with a tone of stern conviction.
McKarnin also takes the Chevelle to area car shows and show tours where he’s won more than a half-dozen trophies, including earning a gold rating at the Midwest Chevelle Regional Car Show in Springfield, Mo.
“It’s got a lot of sentimental value,” he said. “It’s been with me pretty much my whole life.”
