Here’s another find from the photo album. It took me quite a while to nail this down as a Chevrolet—I’m not that familiar with early post-war cars, and the hood badge sent me down the wrong path. The 1946 model was actually a pre-war design (the grill was the most noticeable change for 1946) powered by the venerable 216 cu. in. (3.5 L) “stovebolt” OHV six engine making 83hp. Given the car weighed over 3,100 lb., “stately” is probably the term best used to describe it’s fleetness of foot.
Sport sedan is a bit of a stretch for something like this these were slow cars. I saw one in the wild recently while doing nighttime trailer swaps I passed a 46 Chevy on an uphill passing lane it was no match for 480 hp of Volvo even pulling two trailers. Rust claimed most Chevs of this model here and the survivors are rare
You have a 480hp Volvo? Cool.
Nar its not mine I was relief driving for a friend, but yeah cool trucks
Make it a two door and splash some color on it and you have my second car. I went from a 4 door studebaker champion to this and felt like it was a real improvement. That did not last long. The rod bearings in these things were not as good as the rest of the car. Wasn’t long until I was screwing up a succession of flathead fords. When you are a jerk, nothing holds up.
The 216 had babbit rod bearings lubricated via bucket scoops. All the money was spent on the OHV head, not the bottom end.
Even now in 2013, I could picture myself driving one of these things, albeit with upgraded brakes, suspension, and powertrain. Here in Southern California these cars are hugely popular with both the Latin lowrider and the white rockabilly crowd.
Some net research indicated that a stock ’68-’74 Nova rearend will bolt right in, Fatman Fabrications and Chassis Engineering make bolt-in kits for adapting late model Camaro or Caprice brakes to these things, as well as mount kits for adapting either the venerable small block V8, or the more modern and reliable 235 / 250 / 292 six.
I currently have a perfectly good, rebuildable 250 / Powerglide combo sitting in my parts stash. All I need is a good body to throw them in.
A final observation. I see a lot of these cars and their truck siblings for sale in the CL ads around my area, but most of them are missing their original drivetrain for some reason.
The ’46 was the only model to have that hood emblem. The ’47 and ’48 Chevys were different, may have had a slightly different grille, otherwise were the same car.
Yeah, the grille bars were open-ended on the 47 and 48 – 48 had a vertical center bar that wasn’t on the 47.
My first car was a black 47 Fleetline (fastback) 2-door. Visibility was similar to trying to see out of a cave. Front shocks were gone. I sold it at the end of the summer and spent the money on college tuition.
http://gomotors.net/pics/Chevrolet/chevrolet-fleetline-coupe-01.jpg
My car looked very similar to this one, but didn’t have whitewalls or wheel rings. It did have a less-radical sun visor that came off it as soon as I got it home. The guy that bought the car wanted the sun visor – good thing I’d saved all the attaching hardware.
This gander that we had at the time would see his reflection in the door and quarter panel, and would invariably try to pick a fight with the rival he saw, resulting in a lot of scuffs and scratches on the passenger side of the car.