Ok, i hear alot about people ditching the front bumpers on their cars in the mid-late fifties and into the sixties. Anybody got any good pix? Especially mid fifties fullsize cars. (gonna be alot of tri5 chevies im guessing) heres mine... -LUKEY-
Oh, and since this pic i have raised the rear back to stock and removed the WWWs. Gonna raise the front a couple inches this winter. -LUKEY-
i think they look neat without bumpers but i think i like them better with bumpers...especially if its going to be a driver neat pics though
Some guys did just like the above picture.....removed the bumper and brackets. The next step after that would be a nice rolled pan in the front and/or rear.
Wore the nails off my puny fingers looking for pics of my 55 without a front bumper, of course. I got a fix-it ticket for the bumper being off one night in the 60's as I was cruising Bob's on Colorado Blvd. All it did is cost me some time to get the ticket fixed, not the bumper. The idea was to get the weight off the front and get better traction.
Around 1961 in Santa Clara (CA) a bud of mine, 'Sneaky', said he was collecting '55 Chevy front bumpers. (in case they ever came back in 'style'...) We were getting cited frequently for that in San Jose around that time. I got a ticket for that and the words "Chevy Eater" in white shoe polish on my quarter window, my '56 Ford ragtop. ('inciting speed contest') Cop was the infamous 'R.D. Miller', he wrote me so many tickets they nearly covered my bedroom door!
Another 55 Chevy bumperless night I was coming back from the Blueberry Cafe on Highway 99, going So. toward Merced when a ditwad in a Jag thought he was Nascar ready. I left him behind until I ran out of rev's about 115. He flew past and suddenly the whole world turned red. The CHP officer told me he had been following the Jag for 30 miles. He said he had clocked the jag at 120, but couldn't catch up. He recognized the name on my license, and asked me if I was Gordo's son. Yep! I got my license back torn in half, and a ticket for mutilated drivers license...... Gordo, a famous CHP sergeant. We p***ed the stopped jag and about 6 CHP cars in A****er. Red lights everywhere.
Yeah, the first thing we did was strip off the heavy front bumpers in the 60s/70s. After removing the bumper from a mid 50s Pontiac, you had to cut the coils to get it back to ride height..
Front of the 55! Looks like the the zip tie that was holding the emergency brake cable bracket broke! I forgot all about this until now. lololololol Something that I need to get around to hooking up over the winter! J
Luckily we now have internet auctions like ebay that can help you find the missing bumpers for those poor cars.
In my area in the 60s, running without a front bumper would get you pulled over in a NY minute. There were a lot of 55 Chevies running Corvair bumpers up front. If I were to build a tilt front end 55 Chevy it would have a Corvair bumper. They would stop the 63-67 Corvettes without the front bumpers. Many tried and many got stopped. I don't know when the police lightened up on enforcing the laws but it was probably in the 80s I'm guessing. It didn't happen in the 60s on the street. Show cars and real race cars maybe but not on the street.
The Jalopy Journal
