Part I

1955 Chevy 210

This all started back in 1972, at least I think it did...

Roughly about 38 years ago, I purchased my first 1955 Chevy. It was a pure stock, 4 door model with a 265 cubic inch motor and automatic transmission. The purpose of the car was for my girlfriend to have something to drive back and forth to school. I think we paid $175 for the car from a used car lot, but the car had vacuum windshield wipers on it and she hated driving it whenever it rained so it didn’t stay around too long. I also don't think she thought it was too cool having to wheel that huge car around either. We ended up trading it (and getting $125 for it) on a late model Vega. Ouch!

Next up was a mess of a car that was a combination of sheetmetal and attending paint colors that all combined summed up the next ‘55 Chevy we owned. This one was actually spotted by my wife, not too long after we had seen the Two Lane Blacktop movie and of course I was just positive I could turn it into that car on the screen. This particular car had parts from just about anything and everything that you could imagine. Two by fours were used under the bucket seats that came from something unknown so that you could see out the windshield and the radio was really haunted. Kind of like that Christine movie car thing, it would turn itself on and off, change stations by itself, all very strange indeed. The motivation for this one was a bone stock 350/4 speed Muncie transmission deal. The car was actually pretty quick and we enjoyed driving it around although I am sure the 7 different paint colors on it made other motorist rather nervous. My wife and I still talk about the times that we would take our baby son to the drive-in, put a blanket on the hood and set him between us. We were dead-broke most of the time, but it sure is funny how we still managed to have a good time. I enjoyed that car probably more than any other that I have ever owned, course sometimes those long rear views can have a touch of romantic nonsense that can make it seem better than it really was at the time.

A bit later on I had the notion that I wanted a full time drag car and the ‘55 was the obvious choice. We put a hotter cam in the engine, cut two coils off the front end (no, I don’t know why!), replaced the side glass with plexiglass, an electric fuel pump in back and that was about the extent of the modifications. I would fire up the car on Saturday morning to check it out while every lawnmower in the neighborhood was running, but within about 15 minutes I would have another visit from the local authorities, compliments of a really nice neighbor down the street. We flat towed the car to the dragstrip and normally spent our day there chasing one problem or the other. Most of the time the car ran great in the driveway at home, but by the time we got it to the strip we had used up all of our luck. After about a summer of this, I had tired of the “fun” and we had also decided to sell our place and move. The real estate person suggested that we might have better luck if we ditched the weird looking car in the driveway, so I pulled the engine then towed it to a local junkyard and turned over the title. The house sold just a few weeks later, but I’ll never know if getting rid of the car had anything to do with it or not.

So that brings us up to now and how did I manage to end up with another ‘55 Chevy? Well, about 20 years ago I thought that getting into street rodding would be fun, but I wasn’t quite ready to make the jump into the really old vintage tin stuff. However, the 50’s stuff was looking like fun so I found a ‘49 Ford. The only problem I ever had with it was that I wanted it to be a ‘55 Chevy. That’s just a bit difficult as you might imagine. So recently after having done very little with the ‘49 for over 12-15 years, I decided it was time to sell it and just let the whole street rod type deal go by the wayside. I placed an ad in the local trader paper and to my surprise was contacted almost immediately. During the transaction, I was asked why I was selling the car and I simply said that I really wanted a ‘55 Chevy, but that I also knew that anything decent was completely out of my range. The person that was buying the ‘49 surprised me by telling me that he knew someone that had one and they wanted to sell it too. We worked out a deal at that point and I found myself owning my third and final 1955 Chevy. This one is a 210 model, 2 door post ~ identical to the model used in the Two Lane Blacktop movie (and of course American Graffiti). I cannot believe my luck in finding one of these and while it certainly is in need of work, it’s no worse that the Ford that I let go, besides, it’s a ‘55 Chevy!!

Current plans call for a large motor, automatic, decent performance that can cruise to the ice cream shop yet do some fun duty at the strip on a Friday night. My wife recently accused me of being a teenager that had never grown up - she’s actually right, there’s no arguing the point. But I like to remind her that she’s also the same pretty girlfriend that I bought that first ‘55 for, so I am thinking we’re going to be just fine.

Follow along as the conversion begins.....

Part I: We have motivation