On Thursday, January 18, when the movie American Graffiti was screened as part of Greenbelt Cinema’s Classic Movie series, something striking was outside the theater in Roosevelt Center. Parked just in front of the Cinema was a 1958 Chevy Impala – just like the one used in the 1973 movie, which was set in 1963. It is a “tribute car,” identical to but not the one actually driven in the movie.
Greenbelter Malin Kennedy, who grew up and still lives in Greenbelt just a stone’s throw from Roosevelt Center, is its proud owner. He explains that as a boy in 1973, he watched American Graffiti in what is now the Greenbelt Cinema just after it first came out and “fell in love” with the Chevy Impala owned, in the movie, by Steve Bolander (played by Ron Howard). It was love at first sight.
“A surreal experience,” is how he described seeing his own
doppelganger Impala parked in front of the same movie theater, over 50 years later.
Kennedy bought his ’58 Impala about 20 years ago in Philadelphia, after 30 years of yearning. While the paintwork and interior were in good condition, it was mechanically dilapidated – he’s not even sure how he managed to nurse it home. He had to replace the engine, transmission and brakes. The car – long, lean and finned – is usually housed in a GHI garage, where it only barely fits.
Kennedy’s neighbor, Christina Kavanagh, describes how when the car was parked by the Cinema, Kennedy fielded questions from exiting theatergoers about the car, starting and revving the engine to give them the full experience of its 348-cubic-inch, 8-cylinder engine.
Kennedy takes the car to shows where he helps raise money for charity (rather than competing for trophies) but has yet to drive it in the Greenbelt Labor Day Parade. “Perhaps this year!” he says. He has done several auto shows with Candy Clark, who played Debbie Dunham in the movie, and the interior is autographed by several of the actors who played in the movie: Richard Dreyfuss, Paul Le Mat, Cindy Williams and Bo Hopkins, among others.
The actual car that was used in the movie, of course, is a very expensive collector’s item and, sold privately by its original owner in 2015 to collector and NASCAR legend Ray Evernham, is now in North Carolina.
But Kennedy has his long-awaited first love right here, just where he first met her.
