Remember the customized ’94 Chevy Caprice, with its shaved door handles and screaming blue-green and flame paint jobthat we admired a few months ago at a Colorado junkyard? Just a few rows away was that car another one customized Chevrolet, this one with extensive airbrush artwork in honor of Disney animated characters And the fashion house Gucci. That’s what we have today Jewel of a car graveyard.
The Chevrolet Monte Carlo was born as a 1970 modela sporty mid-range coupe that (together with its Pontiac Grand Prix brother) was the impetus for the personal luxury coupe boom of the 1970s. It went through six generations before being discontinued after 2007; the current 2002 SS comes from the latest Monte Carlo generation.
Our reviewer found that the 2002 Monte Carlo was “the car for NASCAR fans,” with a sleek aerodynamic design whose individual elements didn’t quite fit together. Only two trim levels of the 2002 Monte were available: LS and SS.
The SS received a 3.8-liter Buick V6 rated at 200 horsepower and 225 pound-feet. For the 2004-2005 model years, a supercharged version of this engine was available in the SSwith a 5.3-liter LS V8 engine in the 2006-2007 cars (and in their Pontiac Grand Prix GXP brethren). The last year for a manual transmission in the Monte Carlo it was 1979so this car has the obligatory four-speed automatic transmission.
21st century GM W-Body cars are now abundant in American cemeteries, so let’s take a look at what makes this car so special: the special paint! The right half of the car is pink, while the left half is purple.
Gucci logos are all over this car. There have of course been legitimate Gucci branded cars including the AMC Gucci X Hornet Sportabout And Fiat 500 Gucci EditionMore common in the everyday driving world is the unauthorized use of logos of famous fashion houses; I have seen everything from a Louis Vuitton Mercedes-Benz S-Class Unpleasant a Caprice with a Gucci headliner during the day my scrapyard travels.
Maybe the 2011 hit, “Gucci Gucci”, made by a musician who drove a Buick Reatta at the time and went to the same high school as Jim Morrison, Mrs. FieldsAnd yours sincerelywas an inspiration for the Gucci theme of this car.
Most of the airbrush artworks are based on animated Disney characters.
Jessica Rabbit, Mickey Mouse, Pluto, the whole gang is there.
It’s a shame that all this work ends up on the scrap heap.
Want to be like the Earnhardts? Drive the Monte Carlo.