What is a shoebox and why

I know dumb question but what is a shoebox.


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Shoe box usually refers to a 49 to 51 Ford or Meteor.

 

A slang term used on the HAMB

 

Specifically, it applies to '49 thru '51 Fords..........rectangular, slab sides.......shape of a 'shoe box'. As time passed, it has often been loosely applied to '52/'56 Fords, '55 Chevys.......and various other cars of similar shape.

 

X2

I have, however, seen it misused a lot, even including tri-5 Chevys.

 

Ok now it makes since. I thought it was the fords but I have seen people call chevy that too and that was throwing me.


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You know, cardboard container that converse or vans are in when purchased from the store.....why? because they stack easier on the shelves.

 

You could have seen it in old magazines. Chevies of the same years called Stovebolts. That I don't know why. Just read them old mags and accepted the terms.

 

The stovebolt nickname is referencing the hardware that chevy used to hold the sheetmetal on the 6 cyls of that era, they looked like the same bolts used on stoves.

 

That goes back to the 1930's when "Stove bolts" or round head screws were used to hold the water plates on the side of the blocks. Bob

 

To answer your question,----All Ford cars up to 1948 had removable fenders.
Henry decided to streamline a new car design for 1949 & make cars "Slab" sided.
This process would make mfg. faster & easier to produce in greater numbers & more apppealing to the general public.
The idea caught on with GM & Mopar following in Fords footsteps.
With this in mind, those above mentioned years (1949-1951), look so much like a "Shoebox"---Hence the name.

 

That's crap... It was used as a term by a magazine writer who test drove the 49-50 fords, when they came out. He describes them as shoeboxes because they were the first cars with slab sided designs

 

Henry Ford handed over the reins of Ford Motor Company to his grandson in 1945 and, sad to say, died in September of 1947 at the age of 83. I very seriously doubt he had anything to do with the post war Ford that we call the 'shoe box'. Unless, of course, someone knows better? I did run across a story in one of the Studebaker Club periodicals that at least a small part of the design the 1949 Ford was the result of one of the designers, who worked under Raymond Lowey and Virgil Exner, wanting to work for Ford was asked to submit a design for a complete automobile. His friends at Studebaker helped him. The similarity between the bullet in the front of the Starlight Coupe and the resulting Ford is eerily similar. Whether this is fact or fiction, it is certainly an intriguing idea, when you compare them.

 

When Chevy came out with its first six cylinder engine in 29, they used tons of large slothead/flathead bolts like the old wood burning stoves did. There aren't any water plates on the side of a Chevy six at any point in time. The early engines and the 216 engines up until 1953, have a large pressed steel cover over on the passenger side that goes over the valve gallery. That piece has a lot of the "stovebolts" holding it on. There are also stovebolt holding the timing gear cover on the front of the engine. This is a picture of a 216.

 

Sorry but somebody had to do it! HRP

 

HRP for the win...

 

And the 49-51 Mercs were referred to as "bathtub" Mercs, but not too many people use that one any more!

 

IIRC the Hudsons of that era having that nickname as well.

 

BZZZZZZZT.................It was '49 thru '51 NASH that was well known as the "BATHTUB"

 

I've heard the term used for 1st gen Nova also, as they have the boxey look that tended to remind people of the same terminology.

 

Until I first visited the HAMB, I had only heard 55-57 Chevy's and early Nova's called shoeboxes.

I'm assuming the 49-51 Fords started being called shoeboxes because they were the first Fords with flat sides?

--- Steve ---

 

I always thought stovebolts where reserved for 37-38 chebby coupes only

 

NAH 55-57 Chevy or a Chevy 2

 

Traditional revisionists on the HAMB

 

48-50 Packards were also bathtubs.

 

Bingo!!! Hold all calls, we have a winner!!

X2.

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Probably that was Tom McCahill..........the very colorful automotive journalist of Mechanix Illustrated...........his terminology and quips are legendary.........



Ray

 

I guess someone forgot to tell Kaiser-Frazer, as their 1947 cars were slab-sided.

http://www.allpar.com/cars/adopted/kaiser.html

This topic has already been beat to death around here

http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=723213&highlight=term+shoebox&page=2

The term "shoebox" as applied to cars is a slang term, and slang, by its very nature, is fluid, changing over time. Amazing how people "insist" it applies only to '49-'51 Fords, or only to Tri-Five Chevies, or whatever.

For those who say it came from an automotive journalist when the '49 Ford was introduced, can you give me a magazine and issue? Was it Tom McCahill in Mechanix Illustrated? Do you know what issue it was?

Same thing applies to term "Deuce." When I was growing up, a Deuce was a '32 Ford. No other make. I have heard people on here (as well as other forums) refer to other 1932 cars as "deuces." I have also heard it applied to the Chevy II. Who cares?

I suppose someone needs to correct retired drag-racer Tom McEwen on his erroneous use of the term "shoebox" applied to his '57 Chevy funny car.

This is from hotrod.com

"Tom "The Mongoose" McEwen is not only a fan and collector of Tri-Fives, he is also a bona fide legacy. His first car was a brand-new '55 Chevy with a McCulloch supercharger he purchased while he was still a Long Beach high-schooler. Lions Drag Strip's favorite son, he won the last Funny Car round ever run there at The Last Drag Race. With a career dating back to the early '60s, the Mongoose was one of the first successful touring professionals in drag racing, where his battles with Don "The Snake" Prudhomme, his racing rival and business partner, were legendary.

But by 1987, McEwen's pro career was winding down, and late in the season, he was left high and dry when his longtime title sponsor pulled out, stranding him with a shop full of perfectly good equipment. So he got an idea. As the Mongoose explained it to Gray Baskerville in the Jan. '89 issue of Hot Rod, "If I replace the body on my Funny Car with a fiberglass replica of my '57 Bel Air, maybe I can have some fun next year, get in on the nostalgia-shoebox thing, and give something back to the sport that has been so kind to me over the years."

So over McEwen's 125-inch P&P Funny Car chassis and Dale Armstrong-built 500ci Keith Black hemi combination-state of the art hardware at the time -went a '57 Chevy body shell. Modified by Steve Davis and Bill Loper from a Jim Bryant Pro Mod body, what made it work was the spot-on airbrush work by Kenny Youngblood, beautifully duplicating all the Bel Air chrome and trim work. That, and the clean red paint job with minimal signage, created a halfway convincing '57 Chevy. Close enough for fun, anyway, as it thundered through the quarter-mile. McEwen's '57 debuted at the '88 NHRA World Finals, where on its first full pass, it ran an easy 6.05 at 233 mph. Suddenly, the Mongoose had more bookings than he could fill.

"The thing I really liked about the '57 Chevy was that it probably was the last Funny Car with a body that faithfully retained the lines of the car it was supposed to represent," McEwen said. "Other than stretching the hood by 12 inches to accommodate the 125-inch wheelbase and lowering the rocker panels, the body was basically stock. Even the angle of the windshield was the same as the original cars. Despite the aerodynamic challenges, the car ran very fast and was a big hit with the fans." Indeed, the only thing more fun than watching his '57 run down the track: imagining the reaction at Lions in 1957 had the Mongoose shown up with this monster."

I just can't believe McEwen was so totally ignorant as to refer to a Tri-Five Chevrolet as a "shoebox." He probably knows nothing about cars.

 

Here's some more people who are so stupid they don't know "Shoebox" does not refer to Tri-Five Chevrolets, etc

http://www.nostalgiadrags.com/shoebox_dream.html