Hey all. Long time member, partial part time participant. I got thinking a while back, I do like the looks of hi boys, low boys, roadsters, lakesters and all the hot rods of the day. But those are usually FOMOCO products. While nothing wrong with that, I seem to be curious about what the scene looked like for the bow tie crowd in the day. Any pictures posted would be greatly appreciated. If this is a repost of something I couldn’t find please delete.
Phoenix, AZ was my hometown..my two best hot rods were the '37 Chevy yellow sedan in this photo, circa 1965, and my second was the '40 Chevy, which I bought from my brother when he went to Vietnam. Second photo is how it progressed over my teenage years...still hot rodding Chevy's and loving all makes of street rods.
There were a few good shots on my recent post for my 1930 Chevy: Jimmy B posted this beauty: 31APickup with this one: And Six Ball with this one:
Back in the 60's my car was a '40 Chevy coupe done gasser style, but with Mopar 413, torqueflite, and Mopar rear axle. Front axle was a '47 Ford transverse spring because my coupe was a Master Deluxe with knee action front suspension that couldn't handle the weight of the 413. My current old Chevy is my '39 Chev opera coupe in my avatar. I still love the old 30's Chevys, and especially done as gasser style cars.
One of if not the best looking coupes of all time. Original or rodded. Proportions are just perfect. Ben
There have been threads on early Chevy rides. Some guys like Dick Bertolucci were doing them in the ‘40s as customs and Bonneville cars before they became popular for gassers. The pre-‘36 less so due to the wood framed bodies. https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/the-natural-hot-rod-1937-39-chevrolet.1221596/
I had a friend in High School that drove a Chevy that looked like this one with the exception of the whitewalls, it was one of many old cars in the student parking lot.
1932 Chevy coupe. 302 GMC inline 6. A modern-day build but very General Motors traditional. Nice one, too.
Found this one a couple months back thought I had better photos but here’s a few of a friends chevy powered by a 302 gmc
I'd say that one reason you don't see a lot of non Ford earler cars that were rodded even in the 70's is that the pre 35/36 GM bodies were tin nailed to a wood frame. The 34 Olds I had in Texas and gave up on was literally a wood frame with sheet metal tacked to it. No actual metal structure worth writing home about. You walk out to an old GM car sitting in a field and once you got up to it you could see that it was just a tin shell with lots of holes for nails with very little wood left. Could be that on a lot of those cars that by the time the engines got worn he body was shot. In this area at least there are a number of "around 1928" Chevy speedsters many with hop up equipment on them.
my gone but not forgotten 37,....sold to a guy from Denver, Co. a few years ago., has anyone seen it?
This started its race life as a C Gas with a 409 and moved on to a Land Speed car setting many records all with a GMC 6. Now it’s on the street still with a GMC but a little milder…it will be black again someday.
The Jalopy Journal
