Technical Question for the Chevy II guy's?

This past Saturday I went to Central, South Carolina for a small town car show, the weather was absolutely raw and not 65 miles away in Silva, N.C. they experienced 6 inches of snow, the thermometer on the back read 38 degrees and the wind was constant.

We made a short day of it but I saw a neat little 64 Chevy II and stopped and ask him some questions, he told me he had just recently purchased it from out of state.

What got my attention as I walked around the car is it was a sedan delivery, it appeared as though it was stock and it was in primer, the rear had a tailgate and roll up rear glass and with no interior and where the rear doors would have been on a station wagon the area appeared to have inner structure for doors but no indication of any welding being done in that area, the owner allowed me to sit in the front seat and look closely in the rear area, if this is a one off custom piece the man that did the work is amazing.

The owner said the reason he bought the car is that he had never seen one, so my question, Did Chevrolet ever make a Chevy II sedan delivery or was I looking at a well executed custom build? HRP

 

Yes, they made them

 

Were the doors as long as this example ^^^^^?

 

I thought there were no 2 door Chevy II wagons so this is a custom

 

someone built it....Chevy didn't have any such thing in their catalog.

But Ford made a Falcon sedan delivery in 64.

 

https://novaresource.org/production.htm

 

There had to be coach built models as I have seen them for ages. Gov't?

 

Jim, Ford built the Falcon sedan delivery as early as 1960, when I worked at Sears Roebuck & Company they had 4 of them. HRP

 

A friend of mine built a 63 Pontiac Acadian (a Canadian incarnation of a Chevy II) 2 door wagon from a 4 door wagon. As far as I know GM didn't make a 2 door wagon. He used 2 door sedan doors and altered the B pillar and had custom glass made for the rear. He did a real good job and it's certainly not obvious that it once was a 4 door. If GM built a sedan delivery maybe the also built a 2 door wagon ??

 

I wouldn't be surprised if there were some coach built, but it seems kind of a silly thing to do when you could buy a Ford version so cheap.

 

Maybe purchasing agent was a die hard Chevy person?

 

That or the dealer/zone office was cutting a deal if you were ordering fleet of them.

The GM Heritage center has alot of the engineering records/vehicle date on dimensions on what was offered and there is no listing from the factory for a sedan delivery. Only a 4 door wagon.

 

Yep, A rodder here in Denver did a super nice 2dr wagon out of a Chevy II about 5yrs ago. You would have never
guessed that it wasn't factory built. Pretty cool.. Bob

 

To be totally honest i didn't pay any attention to the doors, I was just primarily looking at the body lines and how straight the whole car was. HRP

 

The key to making production sense is being able to spread the $ out. Falcon Ranchero and 2-door wagon shared a lot of pieces. Chevy II had neither model. Chevelle had El Camino and 2-door wagon.

 

Vans killed the sedan delivery. Introduction of both the Ford Econoline and Corvair vans in '61 caused sedan delivery sales to plummet. GMs last one was the '60, still based on the full-size Chevy. The Corvair didn't prove to be all that popular, it was more or less replaced by the more conventional 'Van' in '64, the same year Dodge joined the van party. Ford continued the Falcon-based version, but sales dropped every year, with less than 500 sold in its final year ('65). I suspect they kept it simply because they had the tooling and it took little effort to build them. When the Falcon adopted a shortened version of the new-for-'66 Fairlane platform, sedan deliveries disappeared for good except for a brief re-appearance with the Vega.

'65 was also the last year for a factory 2-door wagon until the Pinto and Vega appeared.

 

i recall reading on steves nova site , that there were a limited number of 2 door wagons built for the military . not sure if it was true .

 

I saw that car and I walked past it twice before Bruce poked me and said look at that sedan delivery, if it's a homemade car it sure looks good.

 

Danny
I joined the National Nostalgic Nova Association (now Steves Nova Site) in 1983, the year we bought our 67, (we still have it), even went to the Nationals in Louisville in the late 80's. Over the years there have been so many Nova first and second generation conversions done both as wagons and sedan deliverys that I can't count to memory.
I only recall seeing one wagon (on the internet), it was "purported" to be a factory "1 of 1".
Will have to look for it.

 

I remember a lot of rods running those ugly Vega taillights!

 

No factory 2 door wagons to the general public. There may have been something special for government, but I have never seen one. Also, if they did do a factory 2 door, I don't think they would have used the longer 2 door sedan doors. They would have left the factory front doors. Doesn't make sense dollar wise for an entry level car. I just finished a 66 Nova 2 door conversion. Turned out great.

 

The interior was unfinished but you could tell the area where a door would have been was clarly defined butI couldn't see any indication of it having one been a functioning door. HRP

 

I wonder how many of these are out there. HRP

 

Only a handfull, one of our fellow HAMBers just bought one as a project

 

That's cool, I hope he starts a thread, this is the only one I have ever seen up close. HRP

 

From:
https://www.stevesnovasite.com/threads/old-old-photos.340953/page-3
I can't vouch for the accuracy...........it is the internet you know.

The 1963 Fastback Novas
In 1963, Chevrolet created three fastback Novas for road race competition. The Novas were all convertibles pulled from the regular production line. They were then shipped to the Corvette plant for the addition of fiberglass parts. The doors, inner panels, front fenders, hood and both front and rear bumpers were all 'glass. The new roof and fastback was also made of fiberglass and bonded to the metal. The fastback covered what would have been the trunk lid and blocked all access to the trunk area from the outside.

After a 1963 Corvette independent rear suspension was also added, the cars were shipped to Bill Thomas in California. Chevrolet also shipped the "Mystery Motors", that later ended up with Smokey Yunick, to Bill to be installed in the Novas. Bills job was to install the engines and setup the suspension for road racing. Before the Novas could be completed, GM put a ban on all factory racing.

GM ordered the cars crushed but Bill worked out a deal to keep the cars as payment for his work. The engines were sent back to Chevrolet and then to Smokey Yunick in Florida. He then sold one Nova to Fritz Callier, a Chevrolet dealer in Dallas,to be drag raced. Another one was sold to a Los Angeles Chevrolet dealer who drag raced it for less than two months before crashing it and totally destroying it. The third was sold to Alan Green Chevrolet in Seattle.

Alan Green also drag raced the Nova with driver **** Milner and crew chief Tom Foster. Green, Milner and Foster raced the Nova at drag strips throughout the northwest United States and western Canada from 1963 until 1967. During one race the fastback roof blew off at 155 mph. The team then ventilated the rear section to keep the car from wanting to fly above 150 mph.

These fastback Novas sport a roofline similar to, but predating, that of the Plymouth Barracuda, AMC Marlin, 1966 Dodge Charger and about half of the late-1960's-era Fords. Fastbacks were popular with buyers in the later 60's, but aerodynamic efficiency on the race track was the main concern of Chevrolet engineers. Ironically, even though they were built to be road raced, all three of the fastback Novas spent almost their entire racing lives on the drag strip.

 

I may have had that wrong, I think it is a "fastback" Falcon with a Cammer! Can't find the pics now!

 

I saw a Nova delivery , many years ago in greater Cindy area . It was a 4 door converted with 2 door sedan doors . It looked fantastic , interior was finished as the complete car was . I remember hearing talk about it that it was a really easy task to complete , if you had both cars .

I had a buddy in HS , had a 63 Falcon Delivery , 170 cubic in , 4 speed , bone stone stock and fun factor was off the chart .

I’m amazed at the fab work that be completed , if you gave me the task to do a delivery from a 4 door Wagon , I could not complete it with the blessing from a Priest .

 

That would be a car built by Holman Moody called a Challenger. HRP



Scatback Falcon

During the spring of 1963 the Falcon got its own fastback roofline, as the Falcon Futura became available as a two-door “hardtop-fastback” (actually called a “scatback”), making the 19’63 1/2 Futura the most desired Falcon ever. And finally, Ford added the 260ci two-barrel V-8 with 164 hp to the option list. The lightweight small-block V-8, introduced a year earlier in the Fairlane, was a logical upgrade for Falcon buyers seeking real power. With the V-8 came a new, downsized, removable-carrier 3.25:1 conventional rear end with an 8-inch ring gear. Brake size was also increased to 10 inches, which improved stopping considerably.

Challenger

Another terrific midyear addition was the Falcon Sprint package for fastback-hardtops and convertibles, the result of research and development conducted by Holman-Moody on a ’1962 Falcon two-door sedan test mule, known as the Challenger. The Falcon Challenger was going to be built by Holman-Moody and marketed through Ford dealers, similar to the Shelby Mustang two years later. The Challenger had a stock 164-horse 260ci V-8, four-speed, 3.50:1 gears, handling package, larger tires and–would you believe–four-wheel Airheart disc brakes.

The Holman-Moody Falcon Challenger never saw production, but Ford decided to produce the in-house Falcon Sprint instead. Although it was a watered-down version of the Challenger, the Falcon Sprint turned out to be the sporty Falcon Ford’s product planners envisioned for the company’’s corporate image. Think of the Sprint as a Falcon Futura on steroids, with chassis stiffening, a firmer suspension, a sport steering wheel, a tachometer, a Borg-Warner T10 four-speed, wire-style wheel covers, and a glass-pack muffler to enhance the pulse from the 260 V-8.

The above found March 29, 2006 here: http://www.mustangandfords.com/thehistoryof/25798/index4.html

A notch back version of the Ford Falcon Challenger raced at the Sebring 12 hour race in 1962. The car was built in three weeks and driven by Marvin Panch and Jocko Maggiacomo. Finished 2nd in class and 36th overall. In your wildest dreams, could you ever imagine a Falcon leading a Ferrari GTO at Sebring? The Challenger I surprised many. It was proposed for entry in the 1962 Le Mans 24 hours but the entry was not accepted.

 

I’ve had a 62 and a 63 deluxe Falcon sedan delivery’s the 63 deluxe had a dash pad and a power tailgate window
Wish I still had em, they were really cool and unique