1996 Chevrolet Impala SS Jon Moss Concept Test Drive
The Impala SS concept was the brainchild of Jon Moss, then-manager of Chevrolet Special Vehicles. The B-body Caprice, redesigned in 1991 into the unflatteringly nicknamed “Orca” body style, wasn’t exactly setting the sales charts on fire. In late 1992, Jim Perkins, the general manager of Chevrolet, asked Jon if he could come up with a way to wake up sales. Jon’s goal was to build a concept car that would easily translate to production. He called upon TDM to take a police-spec Caprice 9C1, add an LT1 engine, and lower the suspension by an inch. Vehma, a division of Magna International, did the bodywork, which included the spoiler, the grille, and the badging. The concept was created in only 14 days, just in time for the SEMA Show.
Few people outside of the build team even knew about it before it was unveiled. Throughout the development, the only thing that surprised Jon was the tremendous response it got from the enthusiast public. When Chevrolet took the concept to the National Automobile Dealers Association convention in 1993, they received somewhere in the neighborhood of 3,000 orders, enough to nudge the Impala SS into production for the 1994 model year. But that wasn’t enough for Jon Moss, the father of the Impala SS. Take a look at what his final input would fruit for the 1996 model year.
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