Employee Rides: 1970 Chevrolet Monte Carlo - Myles Rasmussen

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been interested in some form of cars. I’ve always been a fan of racing and NASCAR. With two sisters close in age to me, most would assume I had to play with barbies as a kid, but we played more with our Hot Wheels cars than anything else. My biggest influence toward cars is my dad - he had a lifted Squarebody Chevy truck just out of high school, and he still had it after I was born. There are a few pictures of me as a toddler standing next to that towering truck that was tall enough that I could walk underneath. My big first nudge toward muscle cars came when my dad found a 1969 Chevelle as a project car. He sold the idea to my mom as a “High School” car for me when I was about 12 years old, but in reality, it never became my car. I did get to help him when he restored the car as it was a “basket case”, as he puts it. I still remember being in our garage with him pouring fuel down the carb trying to get it started for the first time. The sound of that open header small block as it roared to life is a memory of my dad and I that I will hold forever. From that Chevelle, I learned a lot about cars, and it put the desire in me to own my own muscle car.

Most people ask me “Why a Monte Carlo?” I like the Monte Carlo because it’s just a little different, but still a Chevy, and I’m a Chevy guy through and through. I remember the first time I saw a first-generation Monte Carlo that had really caught my eye in a music video. From that moment, I knew that was the car that I wanted. I mentioned to my dad that the car I wanted was a 1970-72 Monte, and we set our search for one. We had looked at a few and had a few deals fall through until I found the ad. A little back story, I have worked at Speedway Motors at two different times in my career - the first was as a Warehouse Team Member 10 years prior to my current employment. During that first stint, one day during break, I thumbed through the newspaper looking at the classified ads, and on Valentine's Day 2012, I found the ad for a 1970 Chevy Monte Carlo. I called on the ad, it was still available, so my dad and I drove up to look at it. The ad said it had everything but was a project car. When we got there, it indeed had everything for the car, including new wheels and tires. The guy also had a small block chevy that he was selling with the car. The real selling point was that it didn’t have any rust, which is hard to find in Nebraska. The car needed paint and bodywork, the green interior had some issues, the carpeting was destroyed by mice, and the headliner had been ripped out of it. The guy selling the car knocked $500 off before we even started negotiating, and we quickly accepted and loaded everything up.

We got it home and it was definitely a project car, but we had everything to get it back on the road. My dad had a 454 big block engine ready to be put into something, so we put that in the car. The car came with a TH400 transmission that we installed. I had some ideas for the car and my dad helped every step along the way. I have a friend who owns a body shop with his dad, and they were able to quickly get it in to do bodywork and paint. Within a year, we had a freshly painted Monte Carlo that was running and driving.

During the process of putting everything together, we had parts here and there, mostly at my grandpa’s shop, where he and my dad ran our family business. While I was cleaning up and putting parts on the car, I seemed to have misplaced one of the park light brackets. Luckily both front park lights use the same bracket, but one was missing. I am not sure why, but after we had left, my grandpa had taken that other bracket, some sheet metal, and made a new park light bracket. We used that bracket to mount the park lights and continued assembling the car. Later, I actually found the missing bracket, but I didn’t put it on the car as my grandpa had passed away only about 6 months after we assembled the car. So, I still carry a small piece of him everywhere I go.

In the years that followed getting the car on the road, my dad and I continued to replace worn parts and make upgrades. Over the first few years, we refreshed the interior, replaced worn front suspension parts, and installed a new cooling system. After those early projects to restore the car, I turned my attention toward making improvements to the car and going more toward a Restomod build rather than a restoration. In the summer of 2016, I had a slight setback with my car, as I blew the engine and had to park it for about a year. Thankfully, my dad rebuilt the engine over the next winter, and we got the car back running. In 2017, I took my future wife on a 3-day car cruise called the Tour Nebraska held every year in early June. That first trip must have left a warm impression, because, for my birthday, she invested in AC for the car, getting a new Vintage Air kit. Over the years, I continued to upgrade the car, and I swapped the worn TH400 transmission for an electronically controlled 4L60E. My next upgrade was for some interior upgrades which included Dakota Digital RTX gauges and completely rewiring the dash with the Speedway Motors 22-Circuit wiring harness. I also took that time to refresh the dash by cleaning it up and dyeing it black.

This car is going to continue to be the ongoing project that I will share with my family. I hope in the coming years as my son gets older, he can help me with it as well. It has brought me so much joy to learn and build this car, and I continue to enjoy sharing it with my family as they have supported me so much through the process. From my dad’s influence and help to my mom’s support to my grandpa, sharing rides with my brother and sisters, and then to my wife’s support and seeing my son’s joy when he climbs into the front seat and plays with the steering wheel, I will forever cherish the memories that my family has made with me and my car.