Don Rohweder, one of seven original members of the Gopher State Chevys Car Club, owns a 1963 Chevrolet Impala SS two-door hardtop. He's driven it for years, including treks to car shows around the country. Asked why he likes the car, equipped with the original 327 cubic inch engine, dual exhausts and four-barrel carburetor, he says: "It's comfortable, it's reliable, it gets 18 and a half miles per gallon on the highway, it's good looking and it's red. What more could you want?" He says it also doesn't hurt that it isn't under-powered.
The club Rohweder helped found in 1981, originally limited to 1958-64 Chevrolets, has seen that range expanded to its present 1955-72 Chevs. The club has about 40 family memberships and has put on its own car shows, often more than one a year, since the early 1980s. As one of the "12 disciples" that make up the General Motors Car Clubs Association, the club actively participates in GMCCA's All-GM Car Show at the State Fairgrounds every June (this year's show is June 7). Gopher State Chevys' members also help club vice president Harley Hanson with an annual show he puts on in East Bethel.
The club holds monthly meetings, publishes a newsletter and makes a yearly donation to a charity. In nice weather, monthly meetings are replaced by cruises. The need to cruise, in fact, trumps any desire to mount a club- sponsored show this year. "We need a hiatus," Rohweder says. "We need time to enjoy our cars."
Rohweder got into Chevys indirectly. Trying to "relive," as he says, his youthful experience with a Pontiac Bonneville, which didn't work out, he bought an Impala after a friend did. "There were a lot more Chevys," he notes. That led to the club and his current status as its historian.
Hanson joined the club later because his 1960 Impala running gear had to outlast two vehicles first. The owner of a 1957 Bel Air as a youth, he received a lesson in the power of a big-block Chevy V-8 and became an Impala fan. He still has the original bill of sale for his 1960 two-door with a 348 cubic-inch V-8 and three two-barrel carbs, a car he raced at now-gone area drag tracks. The engine and transmission outlasted that car plus a pickup Hanson put them in, as well as years in storage before winding up back in a 1960 Impala body Hanson restored himself. That's when he learned of and joined Gopher State Chevys.
For more on the club, call 763-434-6629 or visit www.gopherstatechevys.com.