My 1955 Chevrolet

My 1955 Chevrolet

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My first car was a 1955 Chevrolet hard top. I’ve mentioned this plenty of times before, but I don’t know that I have ever told the whole story. I was around 14 or 15 years old and already heavy into racing in all kinds of forms. As a lot of kids do, I would pick up those free Thrifty Nickel classified books and just dream about owning some of the old cars within. One day, I saw a well worn ’55 chevy race car listed for $3500. After some cajoling, my pops and I hopped in his suburban and went to check it out.

To do this day, I can remember how I felt the first time I saw the car. It was painted a pearl white. In some light it just looked refrigerator white, but squint your eyes and bend your neck just right and it had kind of a piss green hue to it. The stainless on the car was all pretty presentable, but a few pieces here and there had been anodized gold. On top of that, the rear glass featured large block lettering that demanded allegiance – “JESUS”. The car had a decidedly Latin influence and I loved it. Culture…

But this wasn’t a “Latin show and no go” kind of car. The famous front-end sans bumper, home made straight axle, rear slicks, and huge slapper bars made this Chevy a race car. The fairly warmed over small block and Muncie 4-speed backed up the image as well as a kid like me could hope for.

“I’m gonna own a car like this someday,” I thought.

And then my pops did something incredible. He paid the man $3000 and bought his kid a pipe dream. I can remember my hands shaking like a leaf on the steering wheel as I followed my dad home. It was an overwhelming feeling of excitement, gratitude, joy… Unmatched.

I drove the car for about two years making small changes here and there. A guy at my school traded me some old American 5-spokes for the Centerlines and we cleaned up the interior as best we could. For the most part though, I just drove it and learned what it was like to really own an old car.

And then my pops did something else incredible. He had been sneaking me and the ’55 into the local drag strip to get me some seat time. It was during one of those outings that the ’55 developed a bit of a bog off the line. The next week he dropped me off at Skate Sticks (the skate shop that employed me) and took the ’55 to the Mabee’s private runway for some test and tuning… Or so I thought… About six hours later, my boss and I were closing up the shop when the phone rang. He answered it and hung up giggling. This is word for word:

“That was your dad. Him and Mike put nitrous on your ’55 and blew the heads off your motor. I’m gonna need to give you a ride home.”

That’s right fellas… The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree in West Texas. My dad was just getting back from the runway as my boss was dropping me off. He was still smiling as I waited for an explanation.

“Holy shit man. You should have seen it. Hittin’ that button was a kin to kickin’ a race horse square in the ass with a pointy boot. It ran hard as hell the first seven or eight passes we made. I’m guessing 10’s son. It was incredible!”

“So what happened to my hood? And where is the driver’s side head?” I asked.

“I think we might have gotten a little carried away there at the end. That button was awful fun to push.”

Yep, not far from the tree at all. We ended up hanging on to the ’55 a few years after that, but we never got it back on the road again. We started to build a serious race car out of it when a Lee Sheppard chassis became available in Oklahoma City. After some horse trading, the ’55 headed out to Oklahoma City and the Sheppard chassis became the foundation for our next race car.

This story was actually spawned after I found a photo book that my dad put together for me a number of years ago. The lead photo of this story is one I hadn’t seen in a long time and it brought back the memory. Man, I’m a lucky guy to have been brought up by such perfect dad. Soft Knox fellas…

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