Safe to say I've caught the bug from the HAMB and working on/driving my '55 Bel Air. The plans for this are more traditional and a lot nicer. No patina or LED head lights for this build. (I caught a lot of hell for both, rightfully so) My grandparents owned a 1955 2 door post 210 in India Ivory. That's what this is, and will be. (albeit a gasser) First stop is my buddy's body shop for prep and paint.
Man, the things I would do with that! A two-ten with BelAir hubcaps, as much as I shy away from wide whitewalls that combination really looks good. Post that beauty Here: https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/the-55-chevy-210-two-door-sedan.1218091/
Grandpa sprung for wide whites & full hubcaps! Love the peep mirror, too. Looking forward to your build.
Fenders are glass. I think the hood is original, as its in rough shape. Passenger door is new, trunk lid is new, front fenders are new, and the quarters are so straight they must be new. Can't find any bondo in them, so I guess we will see. Only bondo I can find are the rockers, and I'm told they are solid but had been dented, hence the filler. They look clean and new from the underside.
Let’s see, build plan, check, engine, pending, transmission, pending, rear axle, pending, interior ( what interior? ), pending, front axle, check, wheels, check, approval from Da Boss ( your wife) , double check, padded room in case it all goes south, check, paint, it’ll buff out ( hehe) .
Sub'd. That photo of your grandparents is classic. Back when blue collar ppl had real class. Brand new suit, brand new chebby. He makes me look like a bum.
I've done some research and digging on this car and I've come up empty handed thus far. It's missing it's cowl tag, and to compound the problem it was assigned a new VIN at some point by the State of Michigan. (C55N02T768, the T in there makes no sense whatsoever) I suppose it really doesn't matter, as I am not looking to restore it to factory condition. But I was hoping to gain some insight as to it's factory color and trim level, as well as to any racing history it may have. I will have to search the body some more before I paint it. I suppose it will be a clean slate for me to work with.
Some questions for you guys to help me stay traditional: I did some digging on here, I don't see much about traditional gasser interiors. I assume they were pretty stripped for weight savings. Which, is good news for me because adding a full interior would really stretch my budget. What seats should I be looking for? I'd like to be able to cruise this and for it to be half way comfortable, so aluminum racing seats don't sound too appealing.
I'm by no means an authority on the subject, but, the term 'Gasser' is not easily defined as there were many classes and it's evolution over time was great. I would recommend doing some interweb research and deciding on a specific class and era for your project then begin your parts gathering. Good luck, and I love me some tri-five, Tim
Early mustang buckets work great. Just don't stick any high back seats in it lol... I'm running a bench seat in mine, but no back seat, so I need somewhere for passengers if I ever get friends
You'll strike nerves here with the word gasser. The stance of the car has nothing to do with the gas class, that just means fuel type. But lifting the front was done to assist in weight transfer=traction. But most of us call it a gasser stance. Once they started raising the front end, rules were put in place on how high it could be. I do it for fun, but i also drive mine, most critics don't own one, let alone drive them, they just need something to complain about lol
It really depends on the year the car would run in the Gas Class. Early on the rules required full interior, but by the mid 60's the rules changed to just front seats, bench or two buckets. By the late 60's the rules got so loose that you could run a fiberglass racing seat and not even need two front seats. Interior door panels went the same route when changes were loosened up. From stock panels, to aluminum panels, to no inner panels. So really depends on the era you want to say yours is built to.
At some periods everything run at NHRA tracks had to run on gasoline, but that certainly didn't make them all "gassers". The term gasser was always associated with cars that had to be street legal in early years, and had full street equipment, which ruled out many cars running gasoline. Those cars also had to be American made early on, but NHRA eventually gave in and opened the class to import bodied cars. The original classification by NHRA was "Gas Coupe" class. They had Fuel Dragster, Fuel Altered, Fuel Coupe, plus gas classes for the same. The Gas Coupe class included sedans also, so was really Gas Coupe/Sedan class. And within the Gas Class were many classes. In 1955 it was A/G, B/G, C/G, D/G, A/SR, B/SR, C/SR, A/SP, and B/SP. SR was Street Roadster, and SP was Sports Cars. Later on by 1968 the classes within the Gas Coupe/Sedan class went from 9 individual classes to 24 classes!
If you want to follow a certain era, if it means much to your choice, I'd try to find a copy of Larry Davis's great book titled Gasser Wars! Larry did the best job of anyone documenting the Gassers from the beginning to the death knoll when NHRA loosened the rules so much it killed the class.
I cant recall the channel on youtube but there is a series of a missing Tri 5 Gasser, if I recall correctly in San Francisco Ca somewhere. Lots of food for thought. This one is for sale in the classifieds. If I was to own a Tri 5 Gasser it would look like this. https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/1955-chevrolet-1960’s-gasser-living-survivor.1321774/
If you plan on racing at a sanctioned track you'll need head support, either a seat with a headrest or a headrest coming off the roll bar. If not then a short, small, lightweight bucket seat would fit the narrative, personally I like 64 impala buckets in tri-fives, not the lightest but it fills out the interior.
I had mine done up in a manner where I was mostly sticking to one of the old NHRA rulebooks (1965 I think it was), and doing what was achievable with the money I wanted to spend. All steel, inner fenders intact, lifted on taller springs with ball joint extensions, as many lower class gas cars ran back in the day. Think the daily drivers that guys took to the track on the weekends. It looked the part and I got a lot of good feedback and comments about it on here. It was fun for a time, but it was not enjoyable to drive. It rode like hell and wore the front tires out very quickly due to not being able to align the front end properly anymore due to the lift. It was also very darty over bumps and squirrely in a turn, due to the alignment sacrifices. Basically I sacrificed driveability for looks. That doesn't have to be the case on a gasser style car, but it was in mine. A lot of what you see called a gasser today is much closer to a street freak that would not have been allowed on a track back in the day, but you can't deny they look cool. Decide what you want to do before you start building. Do you want to stay true to the traditional form and function, or do you want to do a modern interpretation? Neither is "wrong", but don't be surprised by some of the opinions you'll receive here either way. For seats, I used Procar 90s and the custom trifive mount they make. They look the part and they're still in the car. Not as light as some of the seats mentioned here, but a hell of a lot more comfortable in something you intend to drive.
The issues many have with what they call a "gasser" is because they don't commit to going the extra steps to make it more of a gasser, and instead they make compromises. The other problem is people who think just tossing a straight axle under the car, and raising the rear makes it like the gassers they saw in the late 50's and 60's. They might not know how to set up the straight axle, or the rear suspension, and when it handles poorly, or doesn't ride the way they hoped, they give up, or just sour on the idea. I've had almost nothing but gassers since my first in 1968, and built many for myself and others. I've driven them all over, and on some very long trips, and other than my first '57 Chev that I made every mistake on also, the rest have been fun to drive, and drove just like any truck or car with a solid front axle. That first '57 Chevy gasser I built was a real learning process, and took some changes and learning to figure out what I'd done wrong, then fix it. But it eventually was a fun ride too. I traded it for a '67 Chevelle before I got drafted, then when I got back home I immediately built my '55 Chev gasser without making the same mistakes as I did before.
Maybe for some the gasser look has become a fad, and whenever something becomes a fad there will always be those who want to push the limits and build something as radical as possible. Fortunately if they do we have the HAMB and it wont get past scrutiny here if they show pictures of their radical barely gasser builds. Patina gassers are like patina builds everywhere. Some love the patina look, but if you look at thousands of images of true gassers back in the 50's and 60's you'll rarely see any in patina, and you'll see a lot more that were show quality with nice paint, and lots of chrome. You'll also see about half of them with a solid front axle, and half with stock front suspension, but even some of the stock suspension cars had solid front axles. By the middle 60's slicks became much better, and when that happened front end stance came down a lot as they didn't need a high stance for weight transfer. But before the tire improvements a lot more had a higher front stance. Both of my gassers have a higher front stance, but only about 1.5" higher measured to the rockers. And neither are nose bleed stances. I actually lowered the rear stance on my '39 probably 7" to get the back down. Then I tore the A arm suspension off the front and went to a dropped I beam axle to lift the front up a bit. My Austin sits higher all around, but it was really low when I bought the stock vehicle to start my build.
The Jalopy Journal
