1955 Chevrolet: The Moonshot.

I warned you I would be waxing poetic about some of the new cars for 1955, and the one manufacturer that made the biggest leap forward from the ’54 model would have to be the all-new Chevrolet. Completely reengineered from the ground up, the humble Chevy now featured 12 volt electrics, ball joint front suspension, updated brake system, updated steering box, wrap around windshield, Hotchkiss/ open driveline, and of course the biggest mechanical news was a thoroughly modern 265 c.i. V8 motor. On the outside the car was sleeker, with semi-unitized construction and many new body styles to choose from. Chevy had made a moonshot that bolted them past their older brothers Buick, Olds and Pontiac on many points of modernization. I’ve scanned in the 1955 Chevrolet Prestige brochure below, just to show all the updates this car really had- It’s mind-blowing.

For Customizers in the 1950’s, it was hard to radically improve or update the factory design very much, short of shoving in four headlights or adding tacky fins. The best ’55 Chevy customs were always the mild ones, in my mind: Watson seaweed flames, wheel covers and side pipes were enough to make the Al Lazarus ’55 look the part…