Used Car of the Day: 1962 Chevrolet Bel Air

Tim Healey
by Tim Healey

This 1962 Chevrolet Bel Air is considered a survivor and has paint and trim that is in good shape -- at least according to the seller.


There's a 283 cubic-inch V8 under the hood and the car has 69,000 miles on it. The transmission is a column-shift, three-speed with vacuum overdrive.

The suspension is stock, and the tires are 18s and 20s so that the car has stance. The seller says it's show-ready as-is, and he or she wants wagons in trade.

This car is in Fresno, California, and is priced at $26,000.

[Images: Seller]

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Tim Healey
Tim Healey

Tim Healey grew up around the auto-parts business and has always had a love for cars — his parents joke his first word was “‘Vette”. Despite this, he wanted to pursue a career in sports writing but he ended up falling semi-accidentally into the automotive-journalism industry, first at Consumer Guide Automotive and later at Web2Carz.com. He also worked as an industry analyst at Mintel Group and freelanced for About.com, CarFax, Vehix.com, High Gear Media, Torque News, FutureCar.com, Cars.com, among others, and of course Vertical Scope sites such as AutoGuide.com, Off-Road.com, and HybridCars.com. He’s an urbanite and as such, doesn’t need a daily driver, but if he had one, it would be compact, sporty, and have a manual transmission.

More by Tim Healey

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  • Jeff S Jeff S on Jul 06, 2023

    My comment was deleted again for no good reason. Growing up I had a neighbor that had a brand new 62 Chevy Impala SS gold exterior and interior with bucket seats console, automatic with shifter in the console, a 409, air, power steering and power brakes. It was a beauty and it along with another neighbor who had a white 57 Plymouth Fury with gold side trim got me interested in cars at an early age. Both cars were lust worthy. Another neighbor had a fire engine red 2 door 61 Corvair Monza with 4 on the floor, bucket seats, and wheel covers with the spinners. I always liked Chevy Impalas from 61 thru 70 just beautiful cars. This 62 Bel Air is in great shape but I as others who have commented would rather have the original rims and hubcaps. Sweet ride indeed.



  • RHD RHD on Jul 10, 2023

    It's unique because not very many of them are around any more. As far as a driver, it would be pretty mediocre, especially by the standards of today. Poor handling, acceleration, mileage, comfort, braking, clouds of carbon monoxide, no seat belts... it would be like buying a 1962 refrigerator over a nice, quiet new one with all the lights, storage bins and icemaker. It looks cool, gets the job done, but is terribly outdated and was a very ordinary car even back then.

  • TheEndlessEnigma I would mandate the elimination of all autonomous driving tech in automobiles. And specifically for GM....sorry....gm....I would mandate On Star be offered as an option only.Not quite the question you asked but.....you asked.
  • MaintenanceCosts There's not a lot of meat to this (or to an argument in the opposite direction) without some data comparing the respective frequency of "good" activations that prevent a collision and false alarms. The studies I see show between 25% and 40% reduction in rear-end crashes where AEB is installed, so we have one side of that equation, but there doesn't seem to be much if any data out there on the frequency of false activations, especially false activations that cause a collision.
  • Zerocred Automatic emergency braking scared the hell out of me. I was coming up on a line of stopped cars that the Jeep (Grand Cherokee) thought was too fast and it blared out an incredibly loud warbling sound while applying the brakes. I had the car under control and wasn’t in danger of hitting anything. It was one of those ‘wtf just happened’ moments.I like adaptive cruise control, the backup camera and the warning about approaching emergency vehicles. I’m ambivalent  about rear cross traffic alert and all the different tones if it thinks I’m too close to anything. I turned off lane keep assist, auto start-stop, emergency backup stop. The Jeep also has automatic parking (parallel and back in), which I’ve never used.
  • MaintenanceCosts Mandatory speed limiters.Flame away - I'm well aware this is the most unpopular opinion on the internet - but the overwhelming majority of the driving population has not proven itself even close to capable of managing unlimited vehicles, and it's time to start dealing with it.Three important mitigations have to be in place:(1) They give 10 mph grace on non-limited-access roads and 15-20 on limited-access roads. The goal is not exact compliance but stopping extreme speeding.(2) They work entirely locally, except for downloading speed limit data for large map segments (too large to identify with any precision where the driver is). Neither location nor speed data is ever uploaded.(3) They don't enforce on private property, only on public roadways. Race your track cars to your heart's content.
  • GIJOOOE Anyone who thinks that sleazbag used car dealers no longer exist in America has obviously never been in the military. Doesn’t matter what branch nor assigned duty station, just drive within a few miles of a military base and you’ll see more sleazbags selling used cars than you can imagine. So glad I never fell for their scams, but there are literally tens of thousands of soldiers/sailors/Marines/airmen who have been sold a pos car on a 25% interest rate.
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