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Part 1 of 3
I wonder what it was like fifty years ago. I mean being a teenage boy during the great years following WWII. Oh, wait a minute, I do remember and it was great. It seems my best friend (Richard Haber) and I lived on our bikes. We lived in Jersey City, New Jersey and would ride our bikes everywhere. Each September we would ride about two miles to the Chevrolet dealer in town and sneak a look at the new models a week or so before the formal release date. I literally remember looking at the printing embossed in the taillight lens to verify the model year of the car, 1956, it read.
Now, of course, I have a different perspective about the battles between the car companies. Car companies then really meant the American car companies, G.M., Ford, Chrysler and the others like Nash, Studebaker & Willies. I have written a few posts about Chrysler’s moves during the second half of 1950s. Chrysler skipped an entire year and brought out the 1958 cars in 1957 just to get an edge. The funny thing that I do not remember is what G.M. was doing with the Chevrolet line during the same time frame. G.M. was also moving quickly. In fact, G.M. had three significantly different designs in 1957, 1958 and 1959.
Let’s start when the fun begins, the 1955 Chevy Bel Air. This was a real breakaway design in more than one way. First, the body style and dimensions were much changed compared with the 1954. Secondly, the V8 engine also introduced in the 1955 model added numerous options to the Chevy line. Also, Air Conditioning was added as an option.
Click Here To See The 1955 Brochure
The 1956 model just built on the 1955 models, but somehow they look much bigger. The two cars (1955,1956) had the same exact wheelbase but the 1956 model was about two inches longer. The ’55 front grill was also replaced with a full width grill and the back end started the move towards the “fins craze”.
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The next part of this post will explore the 1957 and 1958 models. Things change a lot and very, very quickly too.