Not what I expected!

[downtime!]

That Chevelle looks like that for a very specific reason. In the animal world, we'd call it camouflage. If you were a kid in a bad ass Mustang/Camaro/Challenger/whatever, would you think, just by looking at it, that the Chevelle would run like that? Neither would most normal people. And that's when he separated you from your hard earned money. Mission accomplished.