hey guys and lady -- i walked into a industrial tool shop yesterday just to look for an inexpensive racket for my truck tool kit. the owner/manager was a guy from NY who proceeded to tell me how much he knew about old Chevy ADs. Now very little of his diatribe corresponded to what i have found in the literature over the yrs. his story was that 1 piece windshields were 1st used in the 53 model and 235s showed up in 52... Anyone heard these data bits before?
Probably opening a can of worms here, but... 235 engines were not available as engines in 1/2 thru 1 ton trucks until 54. They were available for heavy duty trucks and schoolbuses however. As a matter of fact, there were offered as far back as 41 for heavy duty use. As to the one-piece windshield, they came out on the newly redesigned 54 models, which by the way, were available to the public in Dec of 53. So I guess "technically" one could have a "53" with a one piece windshield. Can opened
I will yield to you guys who know better but I think I had a 53 BelAir 3 speed on the column that had a motor that looked like a 216 (valve cover with 2 nuts on top) but was a 235. Is that possible? Gater
That Guy , Like me , he prolly meant well but has forgotten some of the details ~ that's why I remind you to never trust anything I tell you 235 Babbit pounders yes , it was a popular bolt in power upgrade back in the day .
Personally Nate, i trust what you tell me!! You've batted 1000 so far. Every once in a while i misunderstand or have my mine in a mine melt and don't get it. Like the 235 oil pump position ( i thought the pump ran off the cam vice the dizzy). ONce i got that straightened out everything fell into place. The guy at the store acted like he knew it all, and contradicted just about everything. it could be he was thinking cars vice trucks on the engine. But every book i have worked thru has the 54 as the "major transition" model and a one of a kind beast ( use that word lovingly!!!). When my dad came home from Korea he went to Detroit on the way home and picked up a new 53 Chevy and drove it to NC where we were. I went to a huge car show a few weeks back in Panama City FL and there were about 500 vehicles there. Some really rare items! But, no 53 Chevy car. i'd like a good picture of one of those; his was green. Most of the folks were headed to Moultrie the next weekend. i'll try to up load a few pics.
Thanx ! Didja know ? the year models '53 & '54 were real sales battles between Chevrolet and , uh some other brand begins with and " F " (no one likes them much ) anyways , for the 1954 model year The Chevrolet division of GM worked nearly around the clock and out produced brand ' f ' by a significant margin & then used this larger number of cars liberally in thier advertisements ~ of course the dealers couldn't sell this many cars so many of them were sold off wholesale at the end of the year to fleets and rental car agencies very near cost . it took them most of 1955 to dispose of all of them . Also , if you look in the '53 & '54 sales brochures , there is a bewildering number of exterior and interior colors and even fabric choices , if one extropolates the numbers , it was possible to have something like 350 different combinations..... that's a LOT of variety ! When I was coming up in the 60's , these fine ('53 & '54) Cheveys were a serious drag on the used car market as they were not only well designed but were also very well built and lots of them had been people's first car ever and so were well taken care of but way , WAY out of style by 1959 , used cars lots had your choice for under $150.00........
This is the same as the one I had. The light color was Seamist green. Gater http://carnut.com/show/03/ark/ark721.jpg
Ken, Gator, a big THANKS!!! I enjoyed looking at the pics. Have you seen one that is dark green? thanks much, an excellent selection of 53s!!
Great Website I agree, a great website and I looked at pics for an hour today!! Thanks for plugging us into this one. Hope everyone takes the time to look. Steve
Here's another site Click on this link and enjoy going back in time www.1953chevrolet.com Cool stuff!
