Estate sales and country auctions typically offer bargains for anybody willing to step away from the limelights of headline-grabbing auctions dedicated to collector cars. Then again, Mopar’s wing cars seem like they’ll sell for noteworthy prices regardless of the venue, as we saw when an unrestored 1970 Plymouth Superbird sold for more than $200,000 over the weekend.
According to Terence N Teeter’s obituary, the NASCAR and Mopar fan who lived in West Alexandria, Ohio, “could and would work on just about anything,” but with a CNC business to run, he always had “a lot of incomplete projects around the old homestead.” Many of those projects were vintage Hemi V-8s – he had at least eight Red Rams, 331s, and other first-generation Hemis in various states of assembly – though he also had a disassembled 383-powered 1966 Dodge Charger undergoing restoration as well as the Superbird.
According to its fender tag and its broadcast sheet, the B5 Blue Superbird came from the factory with a 390hp 440 Six-Barrel engine, Pistol Grip-shifted four-speed manual transmission, 3.54-geared Dana 60, heavy-duty suspension, bucket seats, white vinyl interior, and black vinyl top. Of the 1,935 Superbirds built, 308 came with the Six Barrel/four-speed combination. At some point it had lost its fender scoops and had its nosecone molded to the front fenders, but little seems known about the car prior to when Teeter, then 22 years old, bought it in 1981 with 27,000 miles on it. He got to put another 9,000 or so miles on the odometer before parking it to take the intake and heads off the 440.
Photos of the Superbird show much of the car intact but in need of some work. Aside from the disassembled engine, the front bucket seats have significant rips at the seams while the hood is missing much of its paint. “We believe we have everything,” the auction listing claimed.
Teeter, his wife Susan, and their son Ben all died within two weeks of each other from COVID complications in December 2021, leading to this weekend’s estate sale conducted by Kirby Lyons Auctioneers in Greenville, Ohio. While chatter among the wing car community made it seem like the Superbird could sell for well below market value, hope for a bargain seemed to vanish once bidders filled the Kirby Lyons facility. Bidding opened at $50,000 and quickly ramped up to $170,000. Disbelief among the crowd seemed to start around the $185,000 mark, with the car ultimately selling for $203,000.
This trait may be the only thing a Sixties Scout has in common with a new Cadillac CT5
By its very nature, the automobile has identity issues. Rarely can automakers afford to conceive, develop, and market a vehicle with just one customer set in mind, so they either find an acceptable compromise or offer a slate of options to reach a broad range of customers. That can then lead to some strange bedfellows on the showroom floor, including dozens of instances of cars, trucks, and vans that offer four-, six-, and eight-cylinder engine options all at once.
While praising the remarkably long-lasting Chevrolet Express and GMC Savana full-size vans, I noted that the vans had, late in their run, joined a small list of vehicles available with factory-available fours, sixes, and eights all in the same model year. Predictably, several commenters noted other vehicles on that list, which of course warranted an afternoon spent further researching all the vehicles I could think of that might qualify for that list.
Not saying I exhausted every single instance of a vehicle offering such a wide variety of powerplants, thus covering the spectrum from economy to power, but I came up with enough to offer some broad generalized insights about postwar American history and to justify that afternoon. (If you can think of any more, keep your suggestions coming in the comments.)
By its very nature, the automobile has identity issues. Rarely can automakers afford to conceive, develop, and market a vehicle with just one customer set in mind, so they either find an acceptable compromise or offer a slate of options to reach a broad range of customers. That can then lead to some strange bedfellows on the showroom floor, including dozens of instances of cars, trucks, and vans that offer four-, six-, and eight-cylinder engine options all at once.
While praising the remarkably long-lasting Chevrolet Express and GMC Savana full-size vans, I noted that the vans had, late in their run, joined a small list of vehicles available with factory-available fours, sixes, and eights all in the same model year. Predictably, several commenters noted other vehicles on that list, which of course warranted an afternoon spent further researching all the vehicles I could think of that might qualify for that list.
Not saying I exhausted every single instance of a vehicle offering such a wide variety of powerplants, thus covering the spectrum from economy to power, but I came up with enough to offer some broad generalized insights about postwar American history and to justify that afternoon. (If you can think of any more, keep your suggestions coming in the comments.)
4/6/8 Criteria
First, some ground rules for my search. I didn’t care about the type of fuel or the cylinder configuration, only the actual cylinder count. I also didn’t consider the recent (and not-so-recent) multi-displacement systems that electronically shut off certain cylinders; I wanted actual effort on the part of the automakers to build a vehicle small or light enough for a four-cylinder to push around but also with enough room in the engine bay for a V-8. And I’m not counting versions built with an additional engine choice by a company other than the original carmaker (sorry, Ford Capri Mk1). Some British models did offer fours, sixes, and eights at various times in their model runs, but not at the same time, so I’m not counting them. I am counting vehicles that used engines in a hybrid configuration as well as vehicles that offered fours, sixes, and eights at the same time but not in the same market.
Based on those criteria, this appears to be a phenomenon that generally occurred in three different time periods in postwar history: the mid- to late Sixties, when American carmakers engaged in a horsepower war at the same time that the American car-buying public started to demand greater thrift in their cars; the mid-Seventies into the Eighties, when American carmakers and car buyers, shocked by the oil crises and the need for greater pollution controls, nevertheless still wanted power, still wanted size, and still hadn’t processed the geopolitical implications of the price of oil; and the mid-2010s to the present, when the carmakers’ addiction to ratcheting vehicle size (and ratcheting profits) put them at odds with equally more stringent CAFE figures, leading them to implement technological solutions like turbocharged and hybridized four-cylinders to try to maximize power from minimal engine sizes.
That said, not every vehicle that I or our readers identified fits neatly into those eras, and other than a few gaps here and there, 4/6/8 vehicles have been with us pretty consistently since the Sixties.
Many thanks to those of you who chimed in on the original version of this article with your suggestions for further models to investigate. I’ve tried to include all of those below.
1964 to 1970 Chevrolet Chevy II
The earliest instance of a postwar American 4/6/8 vehicle we’ve found dates back to 1964 when Chevrolet dropped a 283-cu.in. V-8 into the Chevy II. The compact already had the Super-Thrift 153 four-cylinder and the Hi-Thrift 194 six-cylinder, and both engines used the small-block V-8’s bellhousing bolt pattern, so it didn’t take much engineering to add the V-8. In 1966, Chevrolet relegated the 153 to the basest of base-model Chevy IIs, but the division still kept the engine on the books through the 1970 model year.
1966 to 1969 Checker
If thrifty Sixties cars make perfect candidates for the 4/6/8 trifecta, then of course we have to include Checker (we considered Rambler and Studebaker, but both of those carmakers used six-cylinders as base engines), which, as it turns out, qualified for the list sometime in the mid- to late Sixties when it offered Perkins four-cylinder diesels alongside the Chevrolet-sourced 230-cu.in. straight-six and 327-cu.in. V-8. According to the Internet Checker Taxi Archives, the Perkins option lasted from 1967 to 1969 here in the States, while Israel-bound Checkers received the diesels starting in 1966. The ICTA also notes that Studebaker offered a Perkins diesel in 1963, which would put that car on the list as well.
1967 to 1971 International Harvester Scout800
International Harvester, like Pontiac, took a unique approach to crafting a four-cylinder by essentially lobbing off half of a V-8’s cylinders, so the IH Scout 800, with a base 152-cu.in. slant-four, easily accommodated International’s V-8 starting in 1967. To fill the gap between the two, International used AMC’s 232-cu.in. straight-six for a brief period in the late Sixties, though as we can see from the brochure pages above, the company didn’t seem to publicize that option well.
Among the Bugattis, the Bentley, the Chenard-Walckers, the Excelsiors, and many other continental Europe racing standbys of the interwar era that had lined up for the inaugural 24 Hours of Le Mans sat a lone Ford Model T. It wasn’t described as such on the entry list and it sported a number of modifications that almost made it unrecognizable as a Model T, but a Ford it was nevertheless, making it the first one to race at Le Mans, long before the GT40s that ran in the Sixties and the Mustang that Ford wants to enter there next year. So how did a Model T get there?
Charles Montier is hardly a household name these days, particularly here in the United States, but in a way, the Frenchman was an analogue to Carroll Shelby, Colin Chapman, or Sydney Allard, all of them adept at transforming common cars or their components into sports cars that could compete on the marketplace as well as on the racetrack. While Henri Depasse had staked a claim as the first Ford agent in France and leveraged his success to build a factory for assembling Fords at Bordeaux, Montier took on Ford’s second French franchise around 1911 not necessarily to sell to the masses but to sell to the sporting set.
Who Was Charles Montier?
As Chris Martin wrote in his book chronicling Montier’s exploits, Montier was a gifted mechanic who built a steam car with his father before the turn of the century and who “acquired the nickname of ‘Le Sorcier’ (‘The Sorcerer’) long before that name was revived later for the better known Amedee Gordini, for his similar ability to extract performance from equally ordinary Renaults.”
First based in Tours then later in Paris, Montier appeared to take great inspiration from the catalogs full of American speed parts for the Model T, Martin suggested. “The Fordia magazine circulated to all Ford agents published a list of accessories that APCO Manufacturing Company located in Kansas could supply: Ruckstell axles, Ricardo or Diablo pistons, special camshafts, high compression Milwaukee cylinder heads, and above all modifications to lower the chassis and front axle,” Martin wrote.
Rather than buy the parts from APCO, however, Montier decided to engineer and manufacture his own, starting with a complete system for lowering the front and rear of a Model T by six to seven inches. The system, which consisted of a spring-behind-axle conversion in front and Z’d frame rails in rear, even earned him a patent in 1921, about a decade and a half before Ford did something similar by moving the axle behind the spring rather than underneath it. Another modification he made – a taller radiator for increased cooling capacity – also made its way into production Model Ts not long after he introduced it.
Around the same time he decided to prove his modifications by entering cars equipped with them in hillclimbs and other competition events. He won the first race he entered, at Boulogne-sur-Mer, in June of 1921, with an average speed of about 80 MPH. By the next year, he’d developed a model specifically for conforming to the Touring Car class and its requirement for four seats which he called the Gaillon. Not just lower, it also produced more power thanks to an overhead-valve head similar to Louis Chevrolet’s Frontenac heads, larger valves, aluminum pistons, a sidedraft carburetor, and a tubular exhaust manifold. Montier even swapped out the Ford planetary transmission and Ford axle for a Sinpar three-speed gearbox and Ruckstell. He upgraded the brakes first with larger rear drums then later with drums at all four corners
For 20 years, a veritable pandemonium of Hemis powered everything from modern muscle cars to trucks and SUVs
While many cars and trucks of the Eighties and Nineties dispelled the notion that American performance died off with the original muscle cars, it took an entirely new engine—one more powerful and less expensive to produce than its predecessor—to reignite the horsepower wars and usher in a new golden age. The Hemi V-8 has since become a standard-bearer for Chrysler, Dodge, Ram, and Jeep vehicles, and its basic engine architecture has spawned more than a dozen configurations, some of them difficult to discern from others. For that reason, we’ve put together this spotters guide to the third-generation (or gen 3) Hemi family of engines
What Sets the Hemi Apart
Teased in the 2000 Chrysler 300 Hemi C and the 2001 Dodge Super8 Hemi, the new 5.7-liter Hemi (Chrysler stylizes it as HEMI, but for expediency’s sake, we will not) debuted in the 2003 Dodge Ram pickups, featuring a deep-skirt cross-bolted iron block, aluminum heads, overhead valves, 4.46-inch bore spacing, the same bellhousing bolt pattern as the Chrysler LA-series V-8s, coil-on-plug ignition, composite intake manifolds, multipoint fuel injection, and that controversial head design.
Like the second-generation 426 Hemi, the 5.7L Hemi heads featured a camshaft in the block, opposed valves for a true crossflow design, twin spark plugs, and rocker shafts. The third-generation Hemi did not, however, feature a full hemispherical combustion chamber. Instead, Chrysler’s engineers decided to flatten either side of the combustion chamber to improve combustion efficiency and emissions. Some might argue that doesn’t make the engines true Hemis, but then again, the Hemi V-8s of yore were massive, heavy engines that cost a lot to machine and that wouldn’t meet modern-day fuel-efficiency or emissions requirements
Even though prevailing internal combustion engine design called for multiple valves operated by overhead camshafts (indeed, one of the engines the Hemi replaced, the 4.7L PowerTech V-8, used single overhead camshafts), the Hemi stuck with a two-valve, pushrod design. As they did with GM’s LS-series V-8s, critics scorned that layout as antiquated and unable to meet power, mileage, and emissions demands. However, Chrysler’s engineers made the most of it by taking Tom Hoover’s advice to relocate the camshaft upward in the block, thus shortening the pushrod length and improving valve train geometry.
What’s more, as Allpar reported, the Hemi proved less expensive to manufacture than previous hemispherical-head designs, which meant the engines could turn a profit just as easily as they could turn into ad copy gold.
5.7-Liter Hemis
After debuting in the Ram truck line, by 2005 the Hemi migrated to the LX-chassis cars (Dodge Charger R/T, Dodge Magnum R/T, Chrysler 300C) with the same 5.7-liter (345-cu.in.) displacement but a few changes. Truck engines—rated at 345 horsepower in the Ram, 335 horsepower in the Grand Cherokee, Durango, and Aspen—continued to use their own intake manifolds that mounted the throttle body atop the manifold. Meanwhile, car engines—rated at 350 hp in the Charger Daytona R/T and 340 hp in the other cars—moved the throttle body to the front of the intake. The 2005 car engine revisions also saw the introduction of the Multi-Displacement System, which deactivates four of the eight cylinders at cruising speed to improve mileage.
The most significant revisions to the entry-level Hemi came in 2009, with the so-called Eagle 5.7L Hemi. The 3.917-inch bore and 3.58-inch stroke remained the same, but Chrysler engineers added new heads, which reduced the combustion chamber volume from 85-cc to 65-cc and which flowed better with square intake ports and D-shape exhaust ports; Variable Camshaft Timing, which advances or retards timing by up to 37 degrees; larger intake valves; beefier connecting rods; a 58-tooth crankshaft sensor wheel; and a 10.5:1 compression ratio. The Eagle Hemi also features an active intake manifold with a flapper door that switches from long intake runners to short runners at higher rpms. The end result: anywhere from 360 to 375 horsepower in cars and SUVs and anywhere from 383 to 395 horsepower in Ram trucks.
Note that Chrysler engineers also built a version of the Eagle 5.7L specifically for the 2009 Durango and Aspen hybrids. These used a special camshaft and still used EGR valves after Chrysler had eliminated EGR from all other Hemis. Poorly received when new, the likelihood of coming across one of these in the wild nowadays is slim.
To identify one, look for a “5.7L” cast into the side of the block just above the oil pan mounting surface.
SRT Hemis
Along with the 2005 changes to the 5.7L, DaimlerChrysler also introduced the first SRT-8 engine that year, the 6.1-liter (370-cu.in.) Hemi. More than just a bump in displacement thanks to a larger 4.055-inch bore, the 6.1L featured an aluminum intake manifold (the only third-gen Hemi that didn’t have a composite intake manifold), forged crankshaft, D-port cylinder heads with 74-cc combustion chambers and 2.08-inch intake valves and 1.60-inch sodium-filled exhaust valves, aluminum exhaust manifolds, bigger fuel injectors, oil squirters aimed at the underside of the pistons, and a more aggressive camshaft. Combined, these modifications make for a nice heritage-inspired horsepower figure of 425 (in the SRT-8 versions of the 300C, Magnum, Charger, and Challenger; 420 in the Grand Cherokee SRT-8). Look for a “6.1L” cast into the side of the block just above the oil pan mounting surface.
Rather than upgrade the 6.1L as with the Eagle 5.7L, in 2011 Chrysler engineers replaced the 6.1L altogether with the 6.4-liter Hemi, also sometimes referred to as the 392 or the Apache, an engine that technically debuted in 2010 on the Challenger Drag Pack cars. Along with the displacement increase (the result of a larger 4.090-inch bore and a longer 3.72-inch stroke), the 6.4L benefited from a 10.9:1 compression ratio, 2.14-inch intake and 1.65-inch exhaust valves, the 6.1L’s oil squirters, an even more aggressive camshaft, and an active intake manifold like that found in the Eagle 5.7L. Initially rated at 470 horsepower, the 6.4L bumped to 485 horsepower in 2015 with the introduction of the Scat Pack cars (Grand Cherokee and Durango SRT versions of the 6.4L bumped too, but just to 475 horsepower; the 6.4L in the Wrangler Rubicon 392 produces 470 horsepower). All 6.4L car and SUV engine intake manifolds have a front-mounted throttle body angled toward the driver’s side of the vehicle. Look for a “6.4L” cast in the side of the block.
At roughly the same time that FCA bumped the output of the 6.4L, it also made the larger Hemi available in the Ram 2500 and heavier trucks. Essentially similar to the 6.4L used in the cars and SUVs, the truck version used a BGE (Big Gas Engine) block with improved casting processes, higher nickel content, and a slightly more rigid design. Horsepower figures varied from 366 to 410, depending on the application. Look for a “BGE” cast into the side or back of the block and an intake manifold that angles the throttle body toward the passenger’s side of the vehicle.
The 2011 auction of Lee Roy Hartung’s collection included a number of items that attracted a good deal of attention, like the four matching sets of Tucker manufacturer license plates, a rare Edwards roadster and a bizarre Spohn-bodied 1950 Veritas. The sheer size of the collection, however, meant that plenty of curiosities went under the radar, including a unique 1937 Lincoln Zephyr modified with twin grilles that will cross the block again next month with a pre-auction estimate as high as four to five times what it previously sold for.
If the highly acclaimed first-generation Lincoln Zephyr had a weak point, it was the V-12 engine that went under its hood. Sharing many design elements with the Ford flathead V-8, the 75-degree H-series V-12 had a narrow design that kept its displacement down and its water passages small as well as the flathead’s exhaust passages that ran through the block and water jackets, which often led to overheating. Illinois-based inventor Willard L. Morrison couldn’t do much about the engine design, but he nevertheless believed he could improve the Zephyr’s cooling by adding a second grille to the car’s front end.
Morrison claimed in his design patent for the twin-grille Lincoln (D111840) that the modification helped to streamline the car, aided driver visibility, and gave the car a more powerful appearance, but given his background in air-conditioning systems and in designing accessory Winterfront grilles, it’s plain to see his primary intent behind adding the second grille was to add cooling capacity. Indeed, behind the grilles he mounted a split radiator and overflow tank setup designed to take advantage of the additional forward ventilation.
(We’ll note here that a second grille is not an unprecedented modification, but to the best of our knowledge, it had only been implemented when adding a second parallel drivetrain, as was the case with the Konings-modified Ford Model AAs that Netherlands-based Smeets ordered. Morrison likely was not aware of the Konings twin-grille AAs when he built his twin-grille Zephyr.)
Morrison took out another couple of patents on the idea: one for a twin-grille Packard and another that explicitly states the twin-grille design was for admitting more air to the radiator. He also had an idea car built a few years prior out of a 1933 Ford to test out some of his other patents, but the Zephyr appears to be just one of two twin-grille cars he built (another, based on a 1940 Ford convertible and built for a friend’s daughter, appeared to have headlamps mounted at the top of each grille). It was rather well-finished, too, with custom trim that extended back along either side of the twin-grille unit, “Custom Twin” hubcaps, a “Custom Twin” filler panel between the grilles, and a single hood for both grilles.
The so-called tri-fives don’t seem to be waning in popularity at all
It’s easy to pick on the 1955 to 1957 Chevrolet passenger cars – known to many as tri-five Chevrolets – as ubiquitous and basic collector cars. They sold in such vast quantities that, it seemed, everybody at one point owned one, knew somebody who owned one, or wanted to own one. As a result, they’ve almost lost their mystique over the years. But it’s also worth remembering two things: There was a reason the cars became popular and remained so in the first place, to the point where they’re now considered pop culture icons, and there’s always a younger generation coming along intrigued by the cars and all they represent, but not yet studied in their ways. So what should anybody new to tri-fives consider when looking to buy one?
What Makes Tri-Fives Iconic?
Even mid-Fifties Ford fans will admit that – despite the fact that Ford’s passenger cars handily outsold Chevrolet’s in 1957 – the latter has gone on to become the darling of the collector-car world and the poster child for post-war American optimism and culture.
Did Chevrolet somehow capture the chrome-and-glitz zeitgeist better than Ford? Was it the new Chevrolet small-block V-8 that captured hot-rodders’ attention and made bold horsepower claims? Or was it the fact that Chevrolet found a formula for a modern car that set the tone for its output for the next few decades?
After all, here was a thoroughly redesigned car that ditched its predecessors’ torque tube and vestiges of pre-envelope styling. It introduced to the Chevrolet lineup ball-joint independent front suspension, suspended brake and clutch pedals, 12-volt electrical systems, and tubeless tires. What’s more, it brought jet-age futuristic styling in the form of tailfins, wraparound windshields, and trim packages that evoked high-speed travel.
Ford may have presented itself as the more affordable of the two, but did that really matter in terms of legacy when America’s middle class had gobs of purchasing power at the time and a desire for futuristic, auto show-inspired cars in its driveways?
So while mid-Fifties Fords have their fan base, the tri-five Chevrolet appeals across wide swaths of the collector-car hobby. As a result, it’s a car that’s readily available no matter where you are in pretty much every configuration one can imagine, from project car to stock restored to extensively modified.
It’s easy to pick on the 1955 to 1957 Chevrolet passenger cars – known to many as tri-five Chevrolets – as ubiquitous and basic collector cars. They sold in such vast quantities that, it seemed, everybody at one point owned one, knew somebody who owned one, or wanted to own one. As a result, they’ve almost lost their mystique over the years. But it’s also worth remembering two things: There was a reason the cars became popular and remained so in the first place, to the point where they’re now considered pop culture icons, and there’s always a younger generation coming along intrigued by the cars and all they represent, but not yet studied in their ways. So what should anybody new to tri-fives consider when looking to buy one?
What Makes Tri-Fives Iconic?
Even mid-Fifties Ford fans will admit that – despite the fact that Ford’s passenger cars handily outsold Chevrolet’s in 1957 – the latter has gone on to become the darling of the collector-car world and the poster child for post-war American optimism and culture.
Did Chevrolet somehow capture the chrome-and-glitz zeitgeist better than Ford? Was it the new Chevrolet small-block V-8 that captured hot-rodders’ attention and made bold horsepower claims? Or was it the fact that Chevrolet found a formula for a modern car that set the tone for its output for the next few decades?
After all, here was a thoroughly redesigned car that ditched its predecessors’ torque tube and vestiges of pre-envelope styling. It introduced to the Chevrolet lineup ball-joint independent front suspension, suspended brake and clutch pedals, 12-volt electrical systems, and tubeless tires. What’s more, it brought jet-age futuristic styling in the form of tailfins, wraparound windshields, and trim packages that evoked high-speed travel.
Ford may have presented itself as the more affordable of the two, but did that really matter in terms of legacy when America’s middle class had gobs of purchasing power at the time and a desire for futuristic, auto show-inspired cars in its driveways?
So while mid-Fifties Fords have their fan base, the tri-five Chevrolet appeals across wide swaths of the collector-car hobby. As a result, it’s a car that’s readily available no matter where you are in pretty much every configuration one can imagine, from project car to stock restored to extensively modified.
1955 Chevrolet 150
How to Identify a Tri-Five Chevrolet
Over its three-year run, the tri-five Chevrolet was offered in three basic trim levels, at least eight different nameplates, and at least 21 different body styles, with significant styling changes from year to year. Telling them all apart, however, isn’t too difficult.
Let’s begin with model years. The 1955 Chevrolets all had fairly square egg crate grilles flanked by semi-oval front marker lamps with triangular taillamps mounted to the tops of the rear quarter panels. The ’55s are also the only tri-fives to feature a fuel filler door mounted on the quarter panels. The following year, Chevrolet hid the fuel filler behind the left taillamp, widened the grille to encompass rectangular front marker lamps, and shrank the taillamps to small round lenses in a larger chrome decorative bezel in roughly the same location. Then for 1957, the grilles became more sculptured, with the front bumpers wrapping up at the ends to nearly encapsulate them. The hood ornament of the prior two years gave way to bombsights set into the leading edge of the hood, the headlamp bezels were opened up and fitted with mesh to permit fresh air intake, and the leading section of the fenders was scored with hashmarks. Around back, the ’57s featured pointer fins, the fuel filler door behind a piece of chrome trim on the fin, and taillamps mounted at the base of the fin.
To distinguish the three trim levels, look primarily to the chrome spears mounted to the sides of the cars. The base 150 came with no side trim in its first year, a single spear extending from just behind the headlamps to a piece dropping down from the post-B-pillar notch in 1956, and a single spear extending rearward from the same notch in 1957. The mid-level 210 had a side spear similar to the 1957 150’s, though mounted a little lower, followed by a full-length spear that swooped downward at the rear in 1956, and a branching version of the downward swooping spear in 1957. The top-of-the-line Bel Air always used some variation on the same year 210’s side trim: In 1955, it added a simple spear extending rearward from the headlamps; in 1956, it added a second horizontal piece paralleling the main one from the headlamps back to the notch; and in 1957, the Bel Air added a stainless steel panel between the two side trim branches.
Note too that certain body styles only exist in certain trim levels during the tri-five Chevrolet’s run. No two-door or four-door hardtops were ever available in the 150, convertibles could only be had as Bel Airs, and business coupes (“utility coupes,” in Chevrolet parlance) were only available as 150s.
Station wagons had their own nomenclature depending on the trim level. The 150 series had the Handyman, available only as a two-door; the 210 and the Bel Air had the Townsman, available only as a six-passenger four-door; and the Bel Air had the nine passenger three-row Beauville. And let’s not forget the Nomad, the sporty two-door station wagon from the Bel Air series that took its name and greenhouse from the Corvette Nomad Motorama show car.
While all of the above applies regardless of the number of cylinders under the hood, Chevrolet did add trim to differentiate the V-8 cars from the six-cylinder ones: a small emblem under the taillamps on 1955 models and a vee-shaped piece of trim on the hood for 1956 and 1957 models.
Long a staple of the street rodding scene, the Effies remain simple to restore or customize
Can a pickup truck be beautiful?
Attractive, sure. Stylish, yes. Handsome, absolutely. But is “beautiful” the right word for a pickup, especially one designed and launched in an era when light-duty trucks were still largely sold to farmers, ranchers, and handymen, and generally not seen as acceptable in suburban driveways past five o’clock?
Maybe not when the first Ford F-100s were new or when they were just used trucks plying rural backroads, but in the 70 years since their introduction, the F-100s have gone from workhorses to showponies, earning all sorts of descriptors in the process, including “beautiful.” They’ve also inspired a loyal following, making them one of the simplest and most accessible generations of Ford truck for budding collectors to get into, regardless of what one decides to call it
What Makes F-100s Desirable?
That loyalty and enthusiasm for the first generation of the F-100 goes back decades, as Dave Emanuel wrote in the April 1984 issue of Special Interest Autos. “No other truck, and damn few cars have ever inspired the almost maniacal fervor found in F-100 aficionados,” Emanuel wrote. “In fact, Ford’s early Fifties pickup is every bit as much of a ‘cult’ vehicle as the Chevrolet Corvette or VW Beetle.”
Part of that could be due to the F-100’s simplicity. It had classic and unadorned lines, was fitted with as few gadgets as possible, and sat on a chassis little more complex than a haywagon yet as rugged and durable as grandfather’s ax.
Part of that could also be due to the $30 million worth of research, development, and engineering that Ford claimed to have put into the trucks with the express purpose of making them more driver-centric. Ford’s engineers and designers even went so far as to create a positionable dummy, the “Measuring Man,” meant to emulate the dimensions of a typical American man, and sized the cab and its fixtures around the dummy. For the time, it was indeed a “revolutionary new approach” to truck design, as Ford claimed in its own sales literature for the trucks, intended to “make the driver’s job simpler and less tiring and to permit him to get this job done faster.”
Ford’s ad men even dubbed the trucks “Triple Economy,” referring to their greater load-hauling capacities, their economical drivetrains, and a number of “Driverized” cab upgrades that “reduce fatigue, conserve energy, help keep the driver fresh and alert for better, safer driving.”
Indeed, while the side and front profiles of the new-for-1953 pickups weren’t radically different from the previous Bonus Built F-1 pickups, the number of changes that Ford made to the trucks – everything from larger windshields to wider seats to a four-inch-shorter wheelbase – led to an entirely new nomenclature system, with half-ton pickups now designated F-100. (Medium- and light-duty trucks adopted similar nomenclature from F-250 up to F-900.)
Or, as Emanuel and numerous other authors have noted, the popularity of the 1953 to 1956 F-100s could come from how easy they are to modify. “Here was a truck that had barely launched its hauling career when it became a favorite of the street rod set,” Tom Brownell wrote in his “Ford Pickup Color History.”
Whatever the case may be, the F-100 has become a mainstay on the collector car market and remains as popular as ever with enthusiasts looking for an old truck to tool around in.
Ford brochure image
1953 Ford F-100
Can a pickup truck be beautiful?
Attractive, sure. Stylish, yes. Handsome, absolutely. But is “beautiful” the right word for a pickup, especially one designed and launched in an era when light-duty trucks were still largely sold to farmers, ranchers, and handymen, and generally not seen as acceptable in suburban driveways past five o’clock?
Maybe not when the first Ford F-100s were new or when they were just used trucks plying rural backroads, but in the 70 years since their introduction, the F-100s have gone from workhorses to showponies, earning all sorts of descriptors in the process, including “beautiful.” They’ve also inspired a loyal following, making them one of the simplest and most accessible generations of Ford truck for budding collectors to get into, regardless of what one decides to call it.
How to Identify an F-100
While the F-100 came in a number of different configurations during the mid-Fifties, including chassis and cowl, chassis and cab, and even stake truck, collectors tend to gravitate toward the pickup and the panel truck, which we will focus on here.
The 1953 through 1955 trucks can all be distinguished mainly by their grilles. From a double horizontal bar between the headlamps in 1953, the grille switched to a single bar with two vertical supports in 1954, then back to a double bar with a large V notched in the middle in 1955. The 1956 double-bar grille differed slightly from its predecessors, largely in its use of frenched headlamps.
For 1956, Ford’s stylists also decided to update the F-100’s cab with a more upright wraparound windshield. That required extensive modification to the cowl, the vent windows, and the doors as well as a longer roof.
While F-250 and F-350 pickups could be had with an 8-foot bed starting in 1953, the half-ton F-100 made do with just a 6-1/2-foot bed until 1956, when Ford offered an 8-foot bed as an option.
Each year saw minor changes in what little trim the trucks came with. To distinguish Deluxe or Custom cabs from base trim levels, look for small chrome “teeth” on the grille in 1953, “sergeant’s stripes” hashes on the grille in 1954, a slotted upper grille bar in 1955, and a chrome-plated grille in 1956. Similarly, to distinguish trucks powered by the V-8 from the straight-six, look for a V-8 emblem for the former or a three-pointed (later four-pointed) star for the latter.
The VIN, located on the glove box door from 1953 to 1955 and on the driver’s door frame post in 1956, will not only identify the truck’s model year and tonnage rating, it will also identify which engine the truck originally came with. The first three digits correspond to the truck’s series, so look for an F10 for an F-100, F25 for an F-250, or F35 for an F-350. The fourth digit is the engine code (D for six-cylinders; R, V, or Z for V-8s). The fifth digit corresponds to the model year (3 for 1953, 4 for 1954, and so on)
The designation’s so widespread, it’s almost become gospel among Mustang enthusiasts and the collector car world in general. You’ll see 1964-1/2 as a model year in the titles of Mustang books, in prior Hemmings articles (nostra culpa), even on Ford’s own website. Except, officially, Ford never designated any Mustang as a 1964-1/2 model year car.
“All of the first production Mustangs built from February 10, 1964, through July 31, 1964, were titled as 1965 model year cars,” according to Robert Fria, an expert in pre-production and early production Mustangs who wrote the definitive book on the subject, “Mustang Genesis: The Creation of the Pony Car.” As Fria and many others have pointed out, just looking at the VIN of any early production Mustang should bear that out: All of them – whether the one Fria discovered with serial number 100002 or the one that Captain Stanley Tucker bought with serial number 100001 – start with the digit 5 for the 1965 model year.
Ford Media’s caption describes this Mustang as a prototype, which is likely why we see the “1964” license plate on it. Ford Media image
Case closed, really short article, right? So then why did the 1964-1/2 “model year” become so widespread to the point where it gets its own entry in year-by-year Mustang reference books and where the Mustang Club of America reportedly considers 1964-1/2 as a separate model year?
Part of it comes down to the introduction of the Mustang in April 1964, well out of line with the traditional model year cycle: The rest of the 1965 Fords didn’t debut until that September. While unusual in comparison with prevailing trends through the rest of the industry, it was actually in line with Ford’s mid-year introductions of the Falcon Futura and Galaxy 500XL Sports Hardtop the year prior, as Brad Bowling pointed out in the “Standard Catalog of Mustang” (which, incidentally, has an entire section on the “1964-1/2” Mustang). Indeed, given the success of such introductions – the Mustang essentially had the field to itself when it came to new-car publicity that spring, and that introduction date may have even been key to the avalanche of first-year sales – one has to wonder why we haven’t seen many subsequent mid-year introductions. (Outside of unintentional ones like the 1970-1/2 Camaro, its introduction delayed by a strike.)
Speaking of sales, Ford reported a total of 680,989 first-year Mustang sales, though that total is comprised of the 121,538 early Mustangs sold prior to the traditional start of the 1965 model year and the 559,451 sold during the 1965 model year.
Part of it also arises from the many changes that Ford introduced to the Mustang around the start of traditional 1965 model year production, leading enthusiasts to start referring to the early Mustangs as “1964-1/2” cars simply to differentiate them from the regular production year cars. Those early cars, for instance, had a much different engine lineup, consisting of the U-code 101hp one-barrel 170-cu.in. six-cylinder, the F-code 164hp two-barrel 260-cu.in. V-8, the D-code 210hp four-barrel 289-cu.in. V-8, and the famed K-code 271hp four-barrel 289-cu.in. V-8. Once regular 1965 model year production started, only the K-code remained; the T-code 120hp 200-cu.in. six-cylinder replaced the U-code, the C-code 200hp two-barrel 289-cu.in. V-8 replaced the F-code, and the A-code 225hp four-barrel 289-cu.in. V-8 replaced the D-code. In addition, all early 1965 Mustangs had generators while all regular production year 1965 Mustangs came equipped with alternators.
Mustang enthusiasts generally use engine codes and the presence of a generator to distinguish early from regular production 1965 cars, but a host of other changes took place in late summer 1964. Bowling notes a number of those changes, including the switch from C-clips for the interior door handles to Allen screws, slightly wider Mustang nameplates, and the switch from interior-color to chrome door lock buttons. Others have noted that regular production model year cars had an adjustable front passenger seat in place of the earlier fixed seat, that the early cars equipped with automatic transmissions had smaller shifter handles, and that the fuel-filler cap was given a tether to make it more theft-resistant. By far the most comprehensive accounting of the changes appears to be in Colin Date’s book, “Original Mustang, 1964-1/2 – 1966,” in which he points out, for instance, slight sheetmetal changes at the base of the windshield wipers, the switch from rubber to plastic trunk mats, color-keyed seat belt latches replacing chromed latches, different AM radios, and the brake light switch location moving off of the master cylinder. Even paint colors and codes changed quite a bit from early to regular production 1965 cars.
One thousand pounds. Half a ton. Way more than any strongman contestant can lift. That’s how much weight Finale Speed has been able to cut out of a 1969 Camaro by replacing its steel body with carbon fiber. And the company’s aiming to bring that supercar technology to pretty much any American muscle car.
“Carbon fiber’s been around for years,” said JD Rudisill, who founded Finale Speed in Yukon, Oklahoma, in April 2022. “It’s what they use in Formula 1, all the hypercars, because it’s just a fraction of the weight of steel. Half the weight and double the strength, is what they say. It’s just that nobody had used it on the classics.”
Other aftermarket companies have offered ready-made carbon-fiber components, Rudisill noted, and a handful do offer full carbon-fiber bodies, but Rudisill said that as far as he knows, Finale is the first company to offer full carbon-fiber bodies for 1968-1970 Dodge Chargers and first-generation Chevrolet Camaros.
The latter made its debut this past week at Barrett-Jackson’s Scottsdale auction as a complete car dubbed Viral, powered by a 650hp LT4 6.2-liter crate engine. The former has had a far more eventful few months. From the start, Rudisill wanted to work with Dodge representatives to license the second-generation Charger’s design, and even before those agreements were in place, he got an invitation to unveil the Charger’s bare carbon-fiber body at Dodge’s Speed Week event in August – the same event at which the company debuted its all-electric Charger Daytona SRT Concept.
“We just got there, and we’ve got Tom Sacoman (Director of Dodge Product and Motorsports) and Ralph Gilles (Stellantis Head of Design) crawling all over it,” Rudisill said. “I’m in shock. Then Tim Kuniskis sees it and says he wants it at SEMA, still unfinished and with a Hellcrate in it.
According to Rudisill and Finale’s Chris Jacobs, the company has been able to make such great strides in less than a year due to a number of factors. While Rudisill gives credit to the eight guys in the shop who came to the company from Rudisill’s prior venture (“The eight best guys you want working on carbon fiber cars,” he said), he also has 15 years of experience working with carbon fiber in automotive applications. Finale has also partnered with Brothers Carbon in Sheboygan Falls, Wisconsin, which supplies the dozen or so pieces that Finale then pieces together into bodies.
(For what it’s worth, Brothers displays a complete carbon-fiber Bumpside F-100 body on its website. Speedkore has also built full carbon-fiber Dodge Chargers, but does not appear to offer the bodies separately. Kindig-It Design offers 1953 Corvettes with full carbon fiber bodies. Classic Recreations, which was already building carbon-fiber Shelby G.T.500s, also announced a full carbon-fiber Shelby Cobra body last year.)
Perhaps just as important, Finale employs a straightforward, old-school method for building carbon fiber bodies that dispenses with the time-consuming process of CAD modeling, 3D printing, and other high-tech prototyping solutions normally associated with carbon fiber. More like creating fiberglass body panels, the process starts with sourcing a body from which Finale can pull fiberglass molds, which then go to Brothers for laying up with prepreg (carbon fiber sheets with the resin already embedded in the carbon fiber weave) and curing in an autoclave. “With the prepreg, they just roll it out and trim it to fit,” Jacobs said. “It looks just like they’re installing Dynamat.
Every now and then, another forlorn dust-covered and inoperable GM EV1 makes the rounds on automotive websites and social media. Typically, it’s heralded as the last of its kind or a major discovery, and some people even make attempts to conceal the cars’ locations as if they were archaeological dig sites that needed to be protected from grave robbers and treasure plunderers. However, the reality is that many of the remaining EV1s not in GM’s hands are on public display, have been well publicized, or have become open secrets among generations of engineering graduates over the last 20 years or so. Amazingly, nobody seems to have made an attempt to run down the current whereabouts of all the GM EV1s still in existence, so let’s do so here.
First, a little background. GM built 1,117 EV1s for public release: 660 in 1997 and another 457 in 1999. None were sold to the general public; all were made available via a lease program to customers in California, Arizona, and Georgia. When those leases came to an end starting in 2003, GM took back every single EV1 and decreed that the cars would be removed from the road permanently. The subsequent crushing of many of the EV1s triggered protests from many of those lessees and others who felt that the car and its advanced technology deserved to remain on the road.
That said, GM didn’t destroy every EV1. Similar to what Chrysler did with the Turbine cars, the company donated some EV1s to museums and some to colleges and universities for their engineering students to pick apart and study. In all but one instance, the donated cars were made inoperable, and as part of the deal, GM mandated that the vehicles not be returned to the road.
But how many exactly escaped GM’s crusher? Sources generally claim 40, but that’s not a hard and fast number, and occasionally somebody will claim less—either 15 or 20. One EV1 fan claims there are as many as 180 EV1s, though some of those may be concept, demonstration, or show cars still owned by GM, and some of that number may have been crushed by GM. According to EV collector Steve Hawkins of the Beata collection, 37 total still exist, with nine of those currently in private hands, though as he noted, owners of the cars still prefer to remain secretive and a tight-knit group. “Just in the last couple of years we discovered another complete original car, but the contacts, trust and relationships to get that information developed over a decade of what we call ‘social engineering,'” Hawkins said. “There is another EV1 we are trying to identify now that will likely take years to verify. Our mission is to help every remaining chassis survive for history and education’s sake.”
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