posted by William Garrett
You would be forgiven for thinking this was a business coupe, given its shortened roof and resulting long trunk. It would be a business coupe if it were a lower trim Styleline Special. But Chevy also offered this coupe in the Deluxe series, and it had a full back seat to boot. And to distinguish it from the Styleline Two Door Sedan, it was dubbed the Sports Coupe. Not exactly sure what made it sporty, but then it was favored with the go-fast crowd as business coupes were a bit lighter and of course looked…sportier.
Here it is in the 1951 Chevy brochure. “There’s room for six in this spirited coupe with ample knee room between front and rear seats and ample headroom for everyone”. How did they do that? I think they just eliminated the rear parcel shelf and probably used the same rear seat as in the sedan. Or something very close to that.
This looks not to have Powerglide. Back then, Powerglide was essentially a one-speed, although that’s a bit of a misnomer, as its torque converter did provide for a 2.20:1 effective gear ratio range (torque multiplication). That’s close to the typical 2.20:1 to 2:54:1 (or so) first gear in most three and four speed manual transmissions. But then that’s not exactly an apples-to-apples comparison. Among other things, the torque converter kept the engine at a much lower speed (stall speed) at take-off, and engine speed only increased very slowly as the car picked up speed (slowly). Low, which had a 1.82:1 ratio, could be manually selected, but it was not recommended to be used regularly, as it resulted in a hard shift.
In 1953, PG did get an automatic first gear start, making it feel significantly livelier.
Since it didn’t have PG, this would have come with the venerable 216 CID Blue Flame six. The PG came only with the larger 235 CID six, making 105 hp, the most powerful engine in its class that year.
That is quite a booty there.
I’m keeping this short, as I did a very thorough CC on a 1952 Chevrolet here.
SWEET ! .
I’d love to drive this car .
? Was the Power Glide slush box still cast iron in 1951 ? .
-Nate
“still”? The PG had only come out in 1950; it was only in its second year in 1951.
The aluminum PG came in 1962, when it needed to be lighter for the Chevy II. Of course the Corvair’s PG was aluminum in 1960, but that was abit different.
Thanks Paul ;
When I was young and Power Glides were everywhere I remember them as being slugs and so avoided them .
I didn’t realize they started off in second gear or perhaps forgot, certainly they made the cars extremely slow .
-Nate
As it says in the text, only the early (1950, 1951, 1952) Powerglide started in direct drive. The 1953 and later variety started in low and shifted automatically between low and high.
Odd as it may sound, I’m no expert 😉 but IIRC, the aluminum case Powerglide made its debut in 1962, backing up the 327 small block.
That dash brings back all kinds of memories – I spent hours and hours as a kid pretending to drive a 52 Styleline 2 door sedan owned by a relative. The dash was almost identical to this one.
Not only did Chevy offer this “sports coupe”, they had two other versions of sedans, the fastback Fleetstyle and more conservative Styleside. A Chevy buyer this year actually had a choice of three different two door sedans. Twenty years later, the full size two door sedan was all but dead.
I’m wondering what the sports coupe offered over the traditional sedan. Was it cheaper? Looks like a bigger trunk, but was this at the expense of the passenger cabin?
It’s a style thing. A short roof car looked more dynamic with its long tail, and less like a school bus. Obviously, it’s a straight trade of utility for style, like a lower roof.
I feel like when each division of the Big 3 only built one size of car, they had plenty of resources to make many variations on that single theme. Those multiple variations might give any particular brand an additional chance to find buyers.
It looks like the rear seat of the coupe is farther forward than in the sedan, so less but I guess enough leg and knee room, and with a definitely more upright upper/backrest part. The rear shelf is around the same size and maybe even identical.
’49 with nonstock upholstery
Two door sedan back seat
Look at that sofa-like rear seat with the small driveshaft tunnel. Our ’55 had a similar seat and floor hump, despite the lower roof. Then our longer, lower, wider ’61 had a huge hump and footwells. Progress? Not so much.
Great read!
My first car was a ’52 business coupe w/3 on the tree that was originally owned by the public works department of Plainfield, NJ. The rear “seat” was a sheet of plywood covered by a rubber mat, which made my friends anxious to bail out after a short spin.
Overall a great car, as pointed out in the article. The only quirky issue I can recall is the carb floats would stick flooding the engine. A few taps on the float bowl, and off she went!
I can see nothing “sporty” about this car?
Compared to the other rides parked on the street in 1951.. It could projected a “sport vibe”..lol
Neighbors, up the hill a number of houses, had a “fastback version” as their “daily driver” until 1967. Got replaced by a “67 Fury III” that year.
The Chevy was brown, garage kept mostly, body/paint had stayed quite good. I think the guy could do some “mechanic stuff” as well.
I remember it looking “soo different” from all the other cars on the street.
The Fury was quite attractive too. Stayed that way (courtesy of the garage/good care) It was “air conditioned” by “Airtemp”..lol
I have never understood some people’s fascination with the slushbox early Powerglide automatic transmission? The sound of a Chevy six/Powerglide groaning up a hill, wide open in low/only gear, will forever be ingrained in my automotive memory.
It made a slow car even slower and gave worse gas mileage for what little advantage it gave in smoothness and non-shifting.
Just me?
“Fascination” with a long-defunct historical curio that in many respects is quite different from the later, more familiar Powerglide is not the same as finding it desirable or thinking it was a good idea even at the time. No one is suggesting that it wasn’t a miserable slug, and obviously enough people at the time were sufficiently disgruntled with it that Chevrolet extensively redesigned it after only three years. It took an idea that only sort of made sense for Buick and Packard, with their big straight eights, and applied it like a tourniquet to the poor Stovebolt Six.
BTW, the distinctive whine of an early Powerglide (or Dynaflow) going up a hill wasn’t just the engine complaining miserably. The torque converter had an unusual two-stage impeller. At cruising speed, the two parts of the impeller were locked together, to create a more efficient (sic) blade profile, but on acceleration, the secondary impeller would freewheel wildly on its one-way clutch. This curious device was abandoned on the later Powerglide and Twin Turbine Dynaflow, so one may assume it didn’t work out that well.
Ahhhhh…..that irritating powerglide whine finally logically explained.
As a grade school kid I would literally cover my ears with my hands when a PG Chevy oozed up the hill by my Grandparent’s house.
You could hear it coming 2 blocks away!
There’s an important fact to remember about the original PG: Despite it’s inherent limitations, it was a huge boon for some folks to have a fully automatic gearbox available on a low end car.
In Iowas City, we had a Mennonite woman come once a week to help my mom with the housework. She had had polio (or some other condition) that resulted in her left leg being shorter, requiring a very tall platform shoe. Her left leg was also substantially weaker and she could not use a clutch, or only with great difficulty. She bought a new 1949 Olds 88 because it was available with the Hydramatic, and it changed her life. She loved that automatic and drove it for some 20 years.
There were lots of folks who either had physical impairments or were just either annoyed or challenged by standard shift cars. My mom, who learned to drive after we moved to the US, was almost 40 at the time, and I’m sure a standard shift would have made the whole experience of learning to drive at that age more difficult. I could go on…
The point is: these folks didn’t care whether their PG Chevy was a bit pokey; they were happy to be able to buy an affordable and reliable automatic equipped car. Not all car buyers are/were enthusiasts.
Weren’t these two cars/engine/automatic transmissions different in many ways?
Yes. But in 1949, she had no choice; the Olds was the cheapest fully automatic car available. And given how she drove, across the flat farmlands of Iowa to get into town, I suspect she would have been quite happy with a Chevy/PG.
My point is that these early automatics may have been less than perfect, but for some folks it was a trade-off that they were very happy to be able to make.
The early Hydramatic wasn’t exactly all that perfect either. I drove one a few years back (written up at CC), and the lack of a torque converter and some pretty abrupt shifts made it feel quite different than the typical automatics that came later. Frankly, it felt like an automated manual, like they used in the Smart. It was the other extreme (jerky) end of the spectrum, and precisely why Buick and Chevrolet went the route they did with the Dynaflow and PG: they wanted something smoother than the HM, and they got it. So buyers had a choice of two very different approaches to automatic driving.
If you’re not in a real hurry, there’s something to be said for an early Dynaflow or PG: it feels like you’re at the helm of a motorboat, in more ways than one.
Getting best results out of Hydra-Matic also involved learning how the different modes worked. 1952 and later iterations were quite versatile, but you really needed to at least read the owner’s manual, and we all know how many people read the manual.
Good point, Paul.
My Aunt kept her last year Dynaflow Buick well into the late 1970’s because “It’s just so smoooooooooth when I drive it”.
I belatedly read the article Paul wrote on the ’52 model which is referenced at the beginning. Even by his standards, the detail, the insight and the presentation is outstanding.
Thanks, I finally know exactly what model I have…
Wish she were a 235 but my mechanic Fred said just drive it..
Hope attaches photo works..
That’s lovely Bob .
-Nate