Tri-Chevy

Long ago lust of The Keed: a ’55 convertible. (Photo by Jeff Koch.)

—Featuring these cars on the cover of my Hemmings Classic-Car magazine is like putting a Corvette on the cover of Car-and-Driver magazine.
Sell more magazines!
Some pimply teenager peruses the magazine display in my supermarket and snags the new Car-and-Driver magazine.
Some aging geezer, probably a ‘boomer, peruses that same magazine display, sees these Tri-Chevys on the cover of the newest Classic-Car magazine, and deposits it in his wussy-cart.
It was late 1954.
I was 10 years old.
My lifeguard friend at Canandaigua’s YMCA swimming-pool hadn’t been born yet; not until 1955.
She’s now 65 years old, but doesn’t look it.
That means the ’55 Chevy is also 65 years old.
Sorry she’s always on my mind, as are many others.
It’s like my interest in automobiles is waining because of my joy interacting with females. (“GASP!”)
I’m still a railfan, but that’s being overshadowed by my interest in females. (“DOUBLE-GASP!”)
Eons ago I was told no attractive female would ever have anything to do with me.
You all know of my dreadful childhood; no need to repeat.
Yrs Trly was lucky to witness one of the most extraordinarily successful remarketings of all time — changing stodgy Chevrolet from basic transportation to an attractive performance car.
We won World War II, so now we could go bonkers.
The ’55 Chevy was all new. “Longer, lower, and wider;” the siren-song of ‘50s auto-junkies.
Prior to 1955, Chevrolets were turkeys; bloated wimp-machines with boat-anchor six-cylinder engines.
Ford had a better handle on it. Its Flat-Head V8 was 1932, but at least it was a V8.
Marketing mavens at General Motors decided even Chevrolet needed a V8 to succeed postwar.
First attempts were to design a V8 as stodgy as the StoveBolt six. Slightly more modern, but still conservative.
Enter Ed Cole.
He convinced GM to market a revolutionary V8: a single thin-wall block casting, with a light-weight valve-train using ball-stud rockers instead of rocker-shafts.
Incredible pressure was applied: design an all-new motor at the drop of a hat. Apparently engineers were motivated.
It was the kind of incredible engineering leap America could be proud of. They produced a prolific revver, the V8 that put Old Henry’s Flat-Head out to pasture.
The ’55-’57 Chevys are not styling triumphs.
I used to lust after a ’55, but I look at ‘em now and the back-end is weak.
The only thing attractive about a ’55 Chevy was that egg-crate grille, inspired by Ferrari.
Remove the trim and the car looks stupid. That wraparound windshield is even more stupid.
Okay, it’s overblown GM styling of the middle ‘50s. Remove the trim, and you have an ersatz Buick.
But underneath was that fantastic high revving motor.
Suddenly Chevrolet was no longer a bloated douche-bag. Hot-rodders everywhere were attracted to that motor.
Lever it into anything and suddenly you had a hot-rod. Even the wonkily-styled Tri-Chevys were attractive.
Harrison Ford drives a hot-rodded ’55 in American Graffiti.
“You ain’t gettin’ no ’57 Chevy!” the father of a bus-driver friend told me once. “You’d beat that thing to death; you’d blow the motor!”
Another retired bus-driver friend tells me his favorite all-time ride was his ’57 Chevy.
My wife-to-be dated the guy her mother wanted her to marry, but he scared her to death demonstrating the 100-mph potential of his ’57 Chevy. (Never again for that dude.)

A step back; a ’56. (A Google-image, photographer unknown.)

—For 1956 Chevrolet decided that beautiful Ferrari-inspired egg-crate grille was toast.
It was still the same basic car, but had a full-width grille that might look better on a truck.
But it’s the same motor; which later became known as the “SmallBlock,” since Chevrolet begin marketing bigger V8s.
The SmallBlock also responded very well to backyard hot-rodding.
Enter Zora Arkus-Duntov, a hot-rodder enamored of Chevrolet’s SmallBlock.
He already had marketed an after-market hemispherical cylinder-head for Old Henry’s Flat-Head, so now he wanted to mate the SmallBlock to Chevrolet’s new Corvette wannabee sportscar.
He succeeded. I think the first V8 ‘Vettes were 1955, although I’m not expert on ‘Vette history.
I’ve seen one, but it was experimental. It may have been the first — it resides in Penn Yan (NY) I think.
Arkus-Duntov became heavily involved in Corvette engineering, and is said to be “the father of the Corvette.”
After 1955 the Corvette body was heavily restyled, but the chassis was pretty much the same as it had been = little more than a modified Chevrolet sedan chassis.
It wasn’t much of a sports car; it handled poorly.
But I still had that fabulous motor.
Chevy’s SmallBlock in a Model-T chassis with a solid rear axle.
About all you could do was drag-race it.
For 1963 Chevrolet and Arkus-Duntov got serious.
The ‘Vette was completely reengineered with an independent-rear-suspension (IRS), the siren-song of sports car junkies at that time.
That IRS was rather crude, but Corvette used it for years.
Corvette also became too civilized, sort of a two seater Caprice.
But it still had that fabulous Ed Cole motor.
Arkus-Duntov began installing Chevy’s Big-Block motor, in order to succeed in the horsepower race.
That Big-Block is heavy. That’s putting a lotta additional weight on the front end.
The ‘Vette is better with the lighter SmallBlock.

The Cadillac wannabee, a ’57. (Photo by Jeff Koch.)

—And now the icon of icons; the most desired classic car of all time.
A ’57 Chevy convertible. These things are selling for well over 100,000 buckaroos for a well-restored example.
The styling is terrible: fins, the dreaded GM bump, that silly wraparound windshield. That front end is a feeble attempt to market a mini-Cadillac. Making it look like a Caddy supposedly made it desirable.
It didn’t work; Ford out-sold Chevrolet in the 1957 model year, first time in eons.
What makes these things desirable, is that fabulous Ed Cole motor; perhaps the most incredible engineering leap this country ever made.
And it was made by stodgy old General Motors.
Cole went on to become president of GM, many V8 motors followed the lead of his SmallBlock, and even Ford developed what could be called a “small-block.”
All through high-school and college Yr Fthfl Srvnt lusted after a Tri-Chevy, although what I wanted was a ’55 210 hardtop; four-on-the-floor, 283 SmallBlock, then 327 during college.
While in college my father purchased a 1957 Belair stationwagon; 283 Power-Pak V8 with four-barrel carburetor and dual exhausts.
The first non-turkey car my father ever bought; also our first V8.
Even the V8 motor in the new Corvette is essentially based on that 65 year old SmallBlock — same bore-centers anyway.
Years ago my brother and I were driving back from chasing trains on Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor. His little boy, a railfan like me, was with us.
“Hey dad,” he said; “look at the antique car.”
“If that thing is an antique,” I shouted; “then so am I!” (’57 Belair two-door hardtop.)
65 years ago Chevy’s image was changed from stodgy to pedal-to-the-metal.
77 years old, and my lust for motoring performance has wained. Here I am on an interstate good for 100 mph stopped in a traffic-jam. All I can do is fiddle the radio knobs.
Look out for self-driving automobiles launching into adjacent cornfields, or some busty divorcee fingering Facebook on her iPhone.

Mitchell’s ’55 210 hardtop, 283, four-on-the-floor. (Long ago photo by BobbaLew.)

• A “wussy-cart” is one of those new small grocery carts that came into use maybe 20 years ago. A regular shopping cart is as big as a Buick. So named by my brother in Delaware.
• “Old Henry” is Henry Ford.
• Chevrolet’s overhead-valve inline “Stovebolt-six” was introduced in the 1929 model-year at 194+ cubic inches. It continued production for years, upgraded to four main bearings (from three) for the 1937 model-year. In 1950 the Stovebolt was upsized to 235.5 cubic inches (from 216), and later upgrades included full-pressure lubrication and hydraulic (as opposed to mechanical) valve-tappets. The Stovebolt was produced clear through the 1963 model-year, but replaced with a new seven main-bearing inline-six engine in the 1964 model-year. The Stovebolt was also known as “the cast-iron wonder;” called the “Stovebolt” because various bolts could be replaced by stuff from the corner hardware.
• The “GM bump” is a styling fillip used by General Motors during the mid-‘50s. It was a small dip in the side-window bottom, which imitated the beginning of a rear fender.
• Mitchell’s ’55 210 was probably a six in-line three-on-the-tree at first. He converted it to 283, four-on-the-floor. He traded it for a 1958 Corvette; a dreadful mistake. He was the son of the owner of Mitchell’s Department store in Fairfax shopping center, just south/west (whatever my all-knowing brother loudly insists) of where our family lived in northern DE.