Projects 2 door vs 4 door

I saw a 55 Chevy at NSRA Kalamazoo some years back that was a 4 dr. on the right side and a 2 dr. on the left side, something for everyone.

 

All the time
Guys are building crew cabs all over the place

 

My buddies 4 door shop truck. We are all getting older and I have to admit, when I have to ride in the back, I'm glad I don't have to climb around a seat.

 

how much do you want for it? I know someone looking.

 

Right up until the time it needs to be sold then what others think matters.

 

58 Nomad

 

Can we just compromise?

 

Although sought after now, the Nomad was not a big sales success. The four door wagons far outsold them. The market spoke and the upscale two door wagon was dropped for ‘58, although there was a “Nomad” four door wagon. Another example would be the 1955-57 Thunderbird. No doubt the collector favorite now, but was a far bigger market success in ‘58 with the four seat model.

 

Modern era, how many two door cars are available? The manufacturers looked at their sales figures and cut ninety percent of the full size two door cars out, if not more. Full size = family car = 4 doors. Then they looked at the truck line and figured four doors were better. Today, if it has two doors it's either a Mustang or a Challenger or a bottom feeder economy car. Which explains why modern era enthusiasts don't "get" the draw of a two door hardtop or a business coupe. What year did Detroit last issue a full size two door sedan? Mid eighties? Thirty years ago. (And I don't include the various Cadillac models, Cadillac went insane in the nineties and hasn't recovered yet)

 

Which is why, my entire quote started off with "there are exceptions"..certainly not the norm.

 

Sorry, quoted the wrong person. I don't see the post I wanted to quote now.

 

Unless money is no object I'd say find the cleanest, cheapest 4 door Chevy or Ford of your favorite year and enjoy it as you get into and find out if the hobby is really something you enjoy.

 

Of the tri-five cars the 56 has attracted me the least, not saying I don't like them, just some models more than others, but I can say the same about 55's and 57's.
Having said that, this black 56 with the black wheels and dog dish hubcaps really works.
Could make a great "sleeper" street brawler.
Not that I condone that sort of thing!

 

I have a confession. I don’t like a 57 belair.
The 150s look cool though.
56 is my favorite
Odd how that works.

 

This one kicks ass. (My Avatar Fleet' is a MorDor.)

 

My second car in high school was a hot rodded 57 BelAir 2 dr ht and for a long time I thought there was nothing cooler. I think where the tide turned was when I tired of seeing all the wide white and fuzzy dice hardtops displayed at car shows with the drive-in tray hooked on the window.
The 57 one-fifty sedan and wagon really won me over but anymore I'm equally "infatuated" with the 55 two-ten 2 dr sedans.

 

My old man bought a brand spanking new '55 Bel Air 4 door with a Power Pack package. He was in the Navy and 24 years old. Not married.
I asked him , many years later, " Why the hell did you buy a 4 four?". His reply was, " Back then the 4 door cost more, and I wanted to get the best thing I could."
Now they, (him and my Uncle), raced that car. On the street, and the strip too. Funny thing was , in those days, Ware Shoals was dirt. They put "Mud and Snow Grips" on to race the drags. Won several times.The street races werent like we are used to now, the little 1/4 mile shit. They raced from here to there. As in Duncan to Moore, or Greer to Sugar Tit. Several miles. I didnt just hear these tall tales from Pop, several of the guys around said that old 4 door '55 was the fastest thing in this part of the country at that point in time.
He kind of got bumped down to second though, when Dewey Lamb bought a '57 with the 2 four barrel option. He could beat him two car lengths in three miles.

 

Went to high school in the early 90's and my first car was my mothers 62 Cadillac sedan which we still own. I would alternate between the Caddy and the 58 Ford Custom sedan my dad had at the time. Back then the old stuff in the high school lot consisted mainly of trucks and a few muscle cars but all of us that drove older stuff had an unspoken bond in a way. After high school my daily driver became a customized 58 Ford Fairlane sedan. Shaved everything, slammed it, put a 390\auto in it, and drove the piss out of it. Nobody cared that it was a 4dr. and from 20ft away you couldn't tell it either way. My buddies loved the fact that you could pile into it without having to climb through the front and around the seat. One of my friends' dad would pick at me for being a 4dr "lover." He would tell me that if he had known he was ever going to meet someone like me he would have saved me all the 4drs he had cut up over the years. He loved to see us young guys just having fun with the older stuff though. Most 4drs are just not as aesthetically pleasing as their 2dr counterparts. Funky rooflines are probably the main thing that kills their appeal, especially on sedans. If you're just wanting a cruiser or even a stocker I say go for it if it's what's available and you like it well enough. Currently my garage holds a couple of pickups, a couple of ragtops, a couple of 2dr sedans, a station wagon, and the Caddy sedan. I guess you can say I've diversified my portfolio over the years but you can't put a price tag on fun and some of the most fun cars I've ever owned were 4drs. We have a young guy that has been showing interest lately about joining our car club and he ahs a pretty nice early 50s Chevy pickup he's just finished up. He's wanting to do an early 50s Chevy car next and he told me he didn't care either way if it was 2dr or 4dr. I asked him why, just out of curiosity, that he had no preference and his answer was bc he sees so many overpriced 2drs that the cost difference has basically made it "ok" for him if its a 4dr.

 

I once owned and drove for a short time a 63 ford galaxie Xl. Factory bucket seats . automatic in the floor console. had all the Xl trim. But it was a 4 door HTP. So I junked it.

 

When my buddy was a sophomore in highschool in 62 he was offered a 54 belair 2 door or his folks 58 belair 348 4door he chose the 54 there was that much of a stigma in having a 4 door. People tend to want what they wanted when they were young.

 

Today I had a student show me a 57 ford 300 he found for sale on FB marketplace.
He thought it was super cool
He has no concept of it being less cool because it has 4 doors.
In high school during the 80s I preferred a 2 door for newer cars but had a ball riding to school in a couple of old 4 doors my cousin had. Those “old” cars were a 71 galaxy and a 63 nova. New and old are terms relative to when you grew up. I would guess most folks here wouldn’t consider the 71 galaxy old and maybe not the 63 nova.
All my students were born after 2000. To them a fox body mustang is a vintage ride.

I would like to add that the we thought the galaxy was cool because of the movie “Gator”. We thought we were Burt Reynolds on the way to school and sometime did our best to prove it.

 

Gator's car had a 4 speed!

 

Yep. We just manually shifted the column.

 

At least in the case of the 55-57 Chevy, the VIN will not tell you if it was a 2 or 4 door, but it will tell you if it was a 6 cylinder or a V8 (as well as the year, assembly plant location, series Belair/210/150/Corvette/Sedan Delivery and a sequence number) but no one seems to mind a V8 swapped in place of a 6 cylinder, or Belair moldings swapped onto a 210. Not sure why a 2 door conversion is so much different.

 

In the case of my converted 56 i just went to the BMV with my title and told them it said 4 door but the car was now a 2 door, they couldn't have cared any less. In a couple weeks I had an amended 2 door title. The body code on the trim tag says 4 door still.

 

This is a great thread, I have been totally enjoying reading it.

I as a 66 year old, newly retired geezer, am not alone in the mindset of the old school, that a two door car will always be more desirable than a 4 door car.
Looks wise, value wise, resale wise, etc, etc, etc .
At least that was how it was for me back in the 60's and 70's.

But I also speak from experience. My first car was a 57 Plymouth 4 door, and I had a string of different 4 doors and station wagons and suburbans and travel all's over the years.
All of them were great in a variety of different ways.

Even the 65 Checker marathon that was my dads car, I drove it for years, and guess what, as recent as 20 years ago, when there was a group of us that would not fit into our buddy's 2 door coupes, to go to lunch or what ever, we could always fill up the checker ( it would hold 9 people easily and comfortably because of the way it was built ).
And make no mistake, there have been a million parties and great times in a million 4 door cars, they have a big back seat, and I am sure of that particular fact, its how a lot of us baby boomers got started, I think that is very cool.

As we all progress through the coming years, even though while dwindling, there are still a lot of cool classic 4 door cars from the 30's, 40's, 50's,and 60's, they are out there, and the kids of the future, if the car culture bites them deep, are going to discover how cool it is to have something like a Kaiser Dragon, or a Dodge Coronet or New Yorker or Windsor.

And as stated earlier in this thread, they are a lot cheaper to buy than a 2 door car.

On another thread just yesterday, the father and son team that are restoring the 4 door Oldsmobile, it really made me feel good to see the smiles on the father and the son's face, that they have this project to enjoy together, and you know that the kid could care less that the Old's is a 4 door, he digs it because its a cool car from the 50's and his dad is into it with him.

The element of that there are more 4 door cars available for lower prices than the 2 door cars is an undeniable fact, but the 4 door cars, I am confident, will find a new generation of younger people, and hopefully the cars will continue to live longer because the younger generation may potentially, be able to afford them.

Even though I have a 47 Dodge 3 window business coupe ( my avatar ), I can still appreciate the practicality of the cool classic 4 door cars from those decades I mentioned above.

The first time I rode in a 4 door, 52 Hudson Hornet, I was blown away by how big the car was and how much room it had in the back seat, In my opinion, the 4 door cars are cool and should be considered by all, to be saved and enjoyed and appreciated, because guess what, that's all that's left, if a person has a low budget and wants a cool ride from the past decades whether its a project car to be restored, or a survivor that has been taken good care of.

There are still treasures in locked buildings and garages under tarps or car covers that haven't been discovered yet!

Speaking purely for myself, because the wife and I don't have any kids. When I get too old to drive the Dodge or cant remember my name, rather than just park the car and keep it for ever, I will find a younger person ( male or female ) that is financially challenged, but are seriously interested in the older cars, and if they that can appreciate it, I will give it to them so that the car can be appreciated by future generations.

We'll see how that goes, subject to change no doubt!

 

Gm made very nice 4-door fastbacks in the late forties and early fifties. Here's my -49 Olds Futuramic.

 

I'm not a New Zealander, but we have '57 Ford forum friends from there that stop by whenever they're up here doing the rt 66 thing. I have a few copies of a NZ hot rod magazine somewhere. When Alan gave them to me, he made a blanket statement about what I'd see. Car shows there look like they could have been in the US somewhere, but he said any time you see a 2dr, you know it's been imported from the US because they never produced 2 drs. down there. The factories there only produced 4 drs., so that's what they grew up with, and correspondingly, don't have an issue with 4 drs.

 

Well, if there were 2 cars, pretty much identical except one's a 2 door and the other a 4 door and they're priced the same.............................I'd take the 2 door every time.

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I have owned both... 4 doors, 2 doors also... 2 dr cars command more money... Just how it is.. 4 door cars are generally half the price of a 2 dr sometimes even less. 4 doors used to be cut up all the time for parts, now they are being built more. There is some good things when you and 4 other folks want to go somewhere, the 4 door thing is nice... 4 doors looked almost exactly like 2 doors through the late 40s to mid 60s. If you do some searching for a 4 dr hardtop its nice not having that pillar to deal with.

So with the 4 door price rising some more lately, Find what you can afford to build and own it like a rockstar... I finally found a 1953 bel air 2 door that kinda found its way home for a steal of a price, its been a ton of work but is nearing the point of being on the road. Was a failed lowrider project but I saved it and turned it around.


Build what makes you happy, what you can afford, and own it man... best words I can tell you!