That would be a recurring theme, for better or for worse. And he got his way. No wonder it was revived for the Camaro. A sturdy new frame, completely new ball-joint front suspension, better steering and bigger brakes were all on the to-do list, and finally, the torque tube rear end was replaced by a more conventional Hotchkiss axle suspended on leaf springs.
Drag racers will forever thank Ed for that. As well as the thrifty: finally Chevy could offer overdrive , which this Bel Air six sedan has. The result was a decidedly good handling car for the times; even from a global perspective.
It rode comfortably, without being marshmallow soft. The trim size and lack of long overhangs meant it was easy to park as well as hustle down a windy road. Most European cars in the mid-fifties were still quite conventional, especially the larger sedans. Ed Cole had this engine running in his head for several years, just waiting for the green light. Its real breakthrough was the use of new green-sand casting techniques that allowed for a drastically more compact and lighter block and heads.
That alone was revolutionary. But the Chevy engine was also a runner, with much better breathing than anything else in its size and price category. Even though the first year CID 4. That made the Chevy even hotter. Of course, the famous Duntov cam that came along with dual four-barrel carbs in upped the ante to hp.
The was of course just the point of departure for the small block Chevy. And the version had its share of teething issues, including the lack of a standard oil filter.
By , fuel-injected hp were on tap , and the world would never be the same. The Chevy V8 would soon find its way into a number of exotic sports cars like this Iso Grifo as well as racing cars of every kind, because there was simply no way to make more horsepower for the money, even with the very punitive dollar exchange rate at the time.
But the Blue Flame six was reworked a bit too, and would soldier on for the thrifty set through And they really tried hard; I know, because I was in it during some of their more heroic efforts to kill it. It was rightfully called The Tank. Later, I had the pleasure to drive a couple of these cars. One was a cream puff Bel Air sedan owned by an old couple, for whom I worked for a few months doing household chores. This always-garaged V8 and Powerglide car was then almost twenty years old then, but in perfect shape.
It was like stepping back in time, and experiencing a new Tri-Five. In , the two-speed Powerglide was still state of the art. That meant first gear would take you to 60 or 70, depending on the axle ratio. Not so much so, in a much heavier wagon piled full of kids.
There was a reason Chevy scrambled to keep installing ever-larger versions of the small lack in the late 60s and early 70s. I loved tooling around in the Bel Air; it just fit me like a well-cut trim suit.
Nice upright seating position, super visibility, and the side window was right there, with a big flat spot to rest your elbow, not like the heavily curved windows to come.
Guaranteed to cheer me up every time. Just that band of Chevy bow-ties that the Bel Air sported was enough to make me feel like I was sitting in something a bit special on a cold gray Iowa winter day.
We all know how these trim Chevys took the hot-rod world by storm. The engines were yanked out of crashed ones the second they showed up at the junkyard.
And used Tri-Fives with rear shackle extensions and gray primer became the sought after first car for every high school kid with high-octane in his blood. A trim, handsome, tight, lean and solidly built conventional American car; how hard could it be? If GM wants to be like Apple , now the richest corporation in the land; well, good luck. A huge part of it is being at the right time with the right product.
Chevy was there in , with its version of the hot consumer good of the day, and history was made. The Joys of Planetary Overdrive.
I have no idea of what else I could add to this, Professor Paul, this is just brilliant! Yes, Chevy did it right, and for the next, oh, 30 years or so, Ford was too often an also-ran with Chrysler in the foggy distance.
No one else mattered. After the B-body years, the next revolutionary car was, in my opinion, the K-car. Then the Chrysler minivan, then the Taurus. It had power seats, too! I always wanted one of the tri-fives, specifically a — which I attained, but never got on the road and sold it in boxes in !
A dream unfulfilled. Racing grey with extended shackles WTF were we thinking, a lot of really good cars got wrecked by butchering the suspension that way talk about loose cornering I can remember California rake being introduced onto all sorts of unsuitable candidates and the near uncontrolable results of severly altered castor and camber angles luckily cars of this era were bodily strong and when you speared off a corner thanks to the fashionable jacked rear end the survival rates were good just beat the worst dents out some bog and a blat of grey all good again These were good tough well built cars something GM?
US hasnt bothered doing again. Sold it to a friend later on, but it was fun to play with. When I was at high skool there was a wrecking yard opposite with many unwanted tri5 Chevs in it they were just another old American car worth nothing much, how times have changed. Thanks for the fond memories.
Ours had the Stovebolt six and 3-on-the-tree. We kept it for 6 years and a mere 30, miles. At least we went 6 years; it was quite common to trade every 2 years. By the time I was in middle school , I distinctly remember that the tri-fives were already considered classics. Joe Hrudka of Mr. Within five years it was an icon. Society has moved on to new fascinations beyond the automobile, so the chances of any car company generating Apple-like hype are probably zero.
I picked up a 55 convertible, minus engine and front fenders for 50 bucks from a junkyard in I rebuilt the car to somewhat original condition, as far as a college student budget would allow.
Found a four barrel engine and threw on a set of Cragar SS mags. I had four great summers cruising that Chevy. I eventually sold it to a guy who worked in a body shop whose intention was to do a full restoration. When I last saw it, he was well on the way to completing that task.
I have regretted selling the car only once, I started regretting as the new owner drove off in it and still regret selling it today! Both clean, symmetrical, timeless designs. In my opinion, a look of tortured metal, already dated and overwrought.
I was sitting beside a new Hyundai Sonata in traffic yesterday, and I wondered just how long this design would stay fresh. I thought to myself that the Sonata may end up being the Plymouth of …. What a timely article. It is interesting to note that the Rambler was followed the same basic layout — but on with a shorter overall length — as the Chevrolets. But as Ford and Plymouth went to the longer, lower, wider look in , and Chevrolet followed in , Rambler sales skyrocketed.
Brilliant work, bravo! What a wonderful article! SO much to learn and appreciate about these cars. Never having had the pleasure of driving or riding in one, I never noticed the bowtie-perforated dash. How cool is that. Proof these guys knew they were designing a brilliant car and they were having a ball doing it. I remember these as the only s cars that you saw with any frequency at all by the late 60s. Kids drove the ratty ones and there were a lot of nice ones still in the gargaes of older people.
Chevy really hit this one out of the park. Proof that Australia is a parallel universe after all, JP. Not a common sight at all when I was growing up in the sixties, but Customlines were everywhere. Until the recent used imports of more desirable body styles from America we only got four door sedans with the six , Fords were always much more commonly seen. Tri five Chevys were all sixes in Aussie you guys had to wait until to get Ed Coles little wonder, NZ had local assembly Chevy V8s in 56 and were very popular with the farming set, lots of reorders, the 57 didnt sell well at all once the initial orders were filled nobody else wanted one, 58s sold well finally a new model after threes years of same same NZ got real 57 Fords which sold well too.
Truth be told, Chevy had some catching up to do for So whereas the Chevy was all new, the Ford only needed a mid-cycle reskinning. Interesting analogy relating the Chevy to Apple, Paul. Apple got it right with the iPhone 3G and then rested on its laurels too long. I know, because Apple sabotaged my iPhone 3G.
I will never buy an Apple product again. So much like GM. Can we repeat that? My Daddy used to tell me that the human race cannot stand success and GM and Apple are prime examples of this. Apple is still making fits full of dollars but I doubt it will last. I have left the fold because there really is a better, more reliable and open alternative, not to mention cheaper.
I have often thought that Apple was a classic American company, get a good product, add tail fins and chrome, put in a major dollop of planned obsolescence and watch the money roll in while not really improving it. The iPhone 4 was a prime example and the iPhone 4 White totally cynical. The car business is a funny thing as are the buff mags. The huge majority of the car buying public, the ones with the real money to pay cash for cars,wants a comfortable, reliable, roomy car that handles well, gets reasonable economy and looks good, while not costing the farm to buy.
Toyota has that nailed with products like the Carmy and the Corolla which sell in huge volumes. Yet the buff books pan them like crazy. What is even more crazy is the auto makers actually seem to listen to said rag mags and come out with stuff that the vast majority of 40 somethings the people who have real money to buy stuff will never buy.
This is why you never see a Turbo Yaris or a Supercharged Corolla. It seems like making money is secondary to buff mag writers. Want proof? I think it is a handsome car and I would consider buying one. The different models , , Bel Air, regular wagon, Nomad were just variations on the same car.
Yes, they also sold the Corvette, but in miniscule numbers by comparison. The market is too fragmented today, and autos are not a growth market as they were then, to see those kind of sales numbers.
You beat me to it…the market today is just too fragmented to gauge success on one single model. The best illustration to be had…was the Chevy Nomad. Obviously for the swinger with a lot of toys…skis; surfboard; whatever turns ya on, man. It took time, shifting expectations, the foreign assault and other factors…to bring us the Flavors approach.
And it was about that time that quality and inspirational design both suffered…not coincidentally, IMHO. Interesting take on the tri-5s. I am a fan of chrome and fins, but I always thought that the 55 looked better than the 56 Chevy. I still prefer the 57, but the 55 is a close second to me. When I was a kid, one of the first Hot Rod magazines I bought featured a 55 Chevy sedan painted a light orange color. Beautiful examples. Two were in my high-school parking lot. Many more were beat to crap.
With those down-in-the-mouth turn-signal housings, it seemed somehow severe. Good lines; but refinement came with the — never mind those over-the-top fins. One more point: On the and , the dash was set up symmetrically…as if planning for an easy shift, in production, from left-hand to right hand drive. The radio-speaker face occupies the same size hole as the instrument cluster. On the , and ever car thereafter, it was no more. Did Chevrolet plan to import this car to British territories, or want universal tooling or the ability to ship CKD kits there?
My grandparents used to have one, kept it well into the s. Too bad it was sold. The FJ was earlier, The FC Holden looks a lot like a mini 55 Chev except for the lack of wraparound windscreen and roofline more like the previous generation cars Chevs that is. My great-grandmother had one for over 35 years until she stopped driving aged 90, I only ever saw it inside her garage when we visited.
Was there anything more tasteless than having the Cadillac crest, complete with a V as if there was going to be anything other than a V8 in it jammed into the middle of the rear seatback? Or, having Bel Air screwed onto the dash? Just in case you forgot the model name of your car? The floor mats with the Chevrolet crest on them is beyond gauche. How are you going to keep them clean, and not show wear?
After a couple of scrubs, the color starts peeling or fading out…and, gee, is anyone impressed to look down and see that, anyway? I know; those things take us back…me also. But not all change is bad change. Well, the modern equivalent is the almost dinner-plate sized logos that a lot of cars are sporting now.
My Dad, may he rest in peace, bought his first new car in — a red and ivory Bel-Air convertible with a V8. I was 8 at the time, and I was so jazzed. When people are feeling good and want a collector car, many run right for what they know: Chevys.
In the s, values for any Tri-Five convertible went through the roof. And, as we all know, what goes up must come down. Seemingly every salvageable one was dragged out of fields, barns, and garages and restored, which made supply exceed demand. Years of stale values—with a few exceptions. When everybody who wanted their own jukebox on wheels had one, prices slowly slid back down to logical levels.
Sure, a few over-restored convertibles sold for relatively large money at high-profile auctions, and there has always been a small cottage industry of restorers who specialize in these cars and feed a few into the auctions as they get completed.
If you want a nice Tri-Five, one is usually no more than logging onto eBay Motors and a wire transfer away. About a decade ago, many collectors wondered—much as we have about Model T Fords, full classics, and other generations of collector cars—if buyers of s icon cars were dying off.
Would the next generation of collectors carry the torch? At those numbers, one would argue it is hard to go wrong buying one of the most recognizable American icons of all time. Clearly this is a case of a buyer seeing the value in buying a turn-key, nicely restored Bel Air convertible for less than the cost of restoration.
And there is an additional bonus, as the car came without the three-year-wait, headaches, and sleepless nights that can—and often do—come with having a car in some restoration shop hundreds or thousands of miles away. And there are no show wins to its credit. To power these, Chevrolet were now using 12 Volt electrics.
Engine choice was between the new V8 cid and the 6 cylinder cid options. The most basic and lowest priced option in the range.
No side chrome was offered except for the Chevrolet script on the side fender. Overall length of the s was Next in the line was the and was a little more glitzy. Side chrome was more evident in the form of a side spear on the rear fenders. Added luxuries such as cigar lighter, ash tray, glove compartment light, chrome seat moldings and more luxurious seat fabrics.
At the top of the line sat the Bel Air.
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