Representative image: a 1959 Chevrolet Impala convertible set up as a lowrider. Not Travis Barker's car. Photo: Accord14 via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Jay Leno looked under the hood of Travis Barker’s 1959 Chevrolet Impala convertible and guessed the LS3 in there made “about 300 horsepower, something like that.” Barker’s answer: “I think it’s 495.”
The exchange is in the latest episode of Jay Leno’s Garage, posted to the show’s YouTube channel on October 12. The Blink-182 drummer brought the black-on-black convertible, Leno drove it with Barker in the passenger seat, and the two spent 25 minutes on the car, Barker’s collection and his Hulu documentary.
The 495 number
“I think” is the only hedge in the conversation, and it sits on the horsepower figure. Chevrolet Performance’s LS crate engine lineup lists the base LS3 at 430 hp and 425 lb-ft. Barker’s number matches a different entry on the same page, the LS376/480, which Chevrolet rates at 495 hp and 473 lb-ft despite the “480” in its name.
The episode doesn’t name a part number, show a dyno sheet or mention the transmission, so the engine’s identity rests on Barker’s recollection and a catalog match. Either way it’s a big step over what the car left the factory with. Chevrolet offered the 348 in 1959 at ratings from 250 to 335 hp, and Barker confirmed on camera that this car originally had one. Which version, nobody says.
What changed and what didn’t
Barker says the car came out of Texas completely stock and still wears the paint from the owner he bought it from. “I didn’t touch the paint,” he told Leno. It drove well as delivered. He changed it anyway because he wanted to cruise without worrying about an engine “however many years old,” and because he wanted it lower.
Leno, who remembers the car new, pointed out that Chevrolet built this body for 1959 only and sold the flat rear wings as a high-speed stabilizer. “All this phony stuff,” he said. “It was just a styling exercise.” It’s the same body as the 1959 Impala Sport Coupe from a Nipsey Hussle video that went to auction in Monterey.
The build list, as described in the episode:
- LS3 V8 with blacked-out valve covers, replacing the original 348
- Magnaflow exhaust
- Wilwood brakes
- Vintage Air air conditioning, with controls that keep the stock dash sliders
- Power steering, power brakes and an adjustable steering column
- Smaller replacement steering wheel in the factory style
- Adjustable-height suspension, raised front and rear from a switch panel
- 14-inch Dayton wire wheels
- Aftermarket interior kit that follows the original pattern
- Continental kit, with a spare inside
Leno calls the suspension a lift kit. The video doesn’t say whether it’s hydraulic or air. Barker doesn’t drive the car laid out; he raises it to drive and drops it to park.
The steering wheel came out because of his wife. When they first got the car, she couldn’t turn the wheels with the original rim, which Barker says sat “literally in my lap.” Leno’s explanation: plenty of 1959 buyers skipped power steering, and the big wheel gave them leverage. Barker says the goal across his cars is that his wife can drive every one of them.
Two things went unresolved. Leno didn’t know a Continental kit was offered for the 1959, and Barker guessed it was an accessory rather than factory equipment; the video leaves it there. And the car still has no radio. “The only thing I haven’t done is put sounds in it yet,” Barker said.
One exchange applies to anyone with a ragtop. Barker keeps the top down all the time. Leno told him to store a convertible with the top up and park it in the sun so the heat pulls the creases out, which keeps the top tight and the rear window from cracking. Barker admitted he’d already fought a top that was hard to raise and fasten after sitting folded too long. Leno’s fix for stiff joints: a little WD-40.
The rest of the garage
Barker told Leno he has about 12 cars, kept in a garage set aside for his “old schools.” About 15 years ago he sold the whole collection, much of it custom builds, and started over with the rule this Impala follows: stock on the outside, an LS “or whatever else” underneath.
He named nine: this Impala, a 1960 Cadillac, a 1962 Impala wagon, the 1963 Impala convertible we saw him take out in Calabasas, a Buick GNX, a 1971 and a 1972 K5 Blazer, a 1972 K10 and a Mazda Cosmo. The Cadillac came without seat belts, which he noticed after picking up his wife in it. He has since fitted belts that look stock.
Leno, Barker and the documentary
Leno said he first had Barker on The Tonight Show about 28 years ago. Barker remembered a later visit, around 2001 or 2002, when he drove his 1966 Cadillac to the taping with carburetor trouble and Leno had someone fix it while Blink-182 performed.
Leno opened the episode by praising Travis Barker: Louder Than Fear, the documentary now on Hulu. Barker said filming started in 2017 with no ending in sight because he still wasn’t flying, nine years after surviving the September 2008 Learjet 60 crash in Columbia, South Carolina, that killed four people. He flies again now, and that became the film’s ending.
The car he wants next is one he used to own: the 1982 Chevrolet square-body pickup that was his first truck. “That’s all I think about lately,” he said. Leno’s suggestion was to hire one of the detectives who track down specific old cars for a living.
Original paint, a one-year-only body and a crate LS3 where the 348 used to be: did Barker build this ’59 the right way, or should the factory V8 have stayed?
Sources: Jay Leno’s Garage, “Travis Barker’s 1959 Impala Looks Stock Until You Floor It,” YouTube, Oct. 12, 2026; Chevrolet Performance LS crate engine specifications; 1959 Chevrolet engine data compiled by 348-409.com; NTSB investigation DCA08MA098.
About the Author
