Info Sought On Crashed “Heavy Chevy,” Litchfield Owners Plan Restoration

LITCHFIELD, CT – It had been parked in a salvage yard in Torrington for more than five decades, its front end smashed in, when Ed Fischer bought the 1972 Heavy Chevy. That was a year ago; just a week after Thanksgiving. His plan is to restore the cranberry red model to original condition. 

“That’s kind of my goal right now,” Fischer said Wednesday. He explained that the process will probably take two years as he also has a Beaumont station wagon in the process of being brought back to life. It needs to be finished ahead of the Heavy Chevy.

Fischer and his wife Kim are Beaumont and Chevrolet Chevelle enthusiasts. Beaumont was a General Motors brand once sold in Canada. Its cars basically resembled a Chevelle but with elements of other G.M. brands. For instance, the badge combines Pontiac’s spear emblem with maple leaves.  

RIDE-CT did a story about the Fischers and their cars, which includes a 1969 Beaumont Custom convertible and a 1972 Chevelle convertible, in February 2023. What prompts this revisit is a Facebook post made this week by Kim seeking info on the Heavy Chevy’s background.

What was a Heavy Chevy?. It was a two-year-only Chevelle model (1971 and 1972) that was designed to be a performance model with an economy car price tag. 

Whereas Chevy built some 80,000 of the better known Chevelle SS muscle cars during the 1971 model year, only 6,727 of the Heavy Chevy versions were produced during an abbreviated production run. That number rose to 9,508 for 1972, according to hemmings.com.

The Heavy Chevy model had large V8 engines and bold exterior graphics, but otherwise exhibit base model features. Fischer’s has a 402-cubic-inch engine with four-speed manual transmission, but it also had a bench seat up front – no bucket seats and console.

Fischer had long wanted to buy the Heavy Chevy from Ike’s Body Shop where it had been parked following an accident when nearly new – the odometer shows 8,279 miles – but wasn’t able to until the owner passed away on Thanksgiving 2023.

Just who previously owned it and how it happened to crash are information that Ed and Kim are hoping to learn. “We’re hoping to get the previous owner, the original owner, his name; see if he or she is still around,” Fischer said, adding that Kim has already received a couple of tips as a result of her Facebook post. The Heavy Chevy was apparently crashed on East Main Street in Torrington.

—

Fischer said he plans to register and pull the engine from the Heavy Chevy and will likely begin restoration work in springtime. 

“There are certain Heavy Chevy-only interior parts that are hard find. They don’t reproduce them,” he said. “Most people put the Mailbu trim inside just to make the car nice, and it’s incorrect.”

The Fischers took the Heavy Chevy to the Muscle Car and Corvette Nationals car show in Chicago last weekend to show it off in “before” condition. Fischer said he hopes to bring it back to the show in “after” shape in 2026. 

(Photos courtesy of Ed and Kim Fischer unless otherwise noted)