This may be the most significant find I’ve ever posted on CC. It’s hard to believe–a 1959 Chevrolet Biscayne 2-door sedan, one lady owner, a little old lady from Pasadena (actually Upland, about 20 miles east). Original Gothic Gold and Snowcrest White two-toned paint, 283 V-8, Powerglide; 48,964 miles. Things like this practically no longer exist. As of this writing the bidding is up to $22,600 (reserve not met). Will be interesting to see how high it goes. Let’s take a closer look:
A few little dents and scuffs; nothing bad.
Gothic Gold takes on a different personality in the bright sun.
INTERIOR:
This Biscayne has the optional custom steering wheel with chrome horn ring. Two black knobs (at left) are LIGHTS and WIPERS. If you want the knobs labeled and made of shiny bright metal, you have to move up to a Bel Air or Impala.
Front seat is covered, but tastefully so.
Back seat with original ice-blue and gray two-toned upholstery and trim with embossed pattern.
Cloth headliner looks mint–no rips or stains visible.
Original spare?
Turbo-Fire V-8, manual steering, manual brakes. The paint and decal on that air cleaner looks immaculate!
Original documents that come with the car:
Brochure image:
I always liked the way they described these: “Dollars never went farther or bought longer lasting pride than in Chevrolet’s new Biscayne series . . . If it’s beauty on a budget you’re after, the Chevrolet Biscayne is your car.”
“The eye-filling 2-door is stunning proof of a Chevrolet promise . . . to give you more car for your money.”
I know many of you have seen pictures of my car already, but I thought I’d include some photos for comparison. My car is a Biscayne 4-door, Cameo Coral, same ice-blue and gray interior, 6 cylinder, Powerglide, 56,000 miles. Mostly original paint, may be one owner before me, not sure.
The engine has no oil filter–that was optional.
Incidentally, I find this ’59 Chevy to be a very pleasant car to drive. The handling is fairly sharp with very little lean on turns. The manual steering is precise on the highway with very little play. However, the steering is far from easy at parking speeds, and going around corners requires a lot of wheel-winding, as it is about 6 turns lock-to-lock. The car feels well-made; doors close with a solid click.
The low seating position encourages relaxed cruising, not upright alertness. There is a broad, flat hood which makes the car seem like an aircraft carrier with two little chrome jets on each side. The giant Panoramic windshield gives you a splendid view ahead as well as above and to the sides. Adequate power is delivered smoothly and quietly (sort of like a vacuum cleaner) and Powerglide has but one upshift and is very unobtrusive. The suspension soaks up tar strips and little bumps well, but still feels firm and “poised”. Drivers trading in their older Chevys and Fords will feel like they’re now driving something in the Buick or Cadillac class. They will also be amazed by how much they can put into the cavernous trunk. Consumer Reports described the ’59 Chevy as “unusually smooth running and smooth riding”, but “overlong” for a low-priced car.
Just a side note: I was thinking of making my car a two-tone (Cameo Coral and Satin Beige, as shown above). I have the correct bright-metal paint separators (thin stainless steel strips to separate the two colors along the rear doors and deck). However, my original roof paint is in such great condition that I hesitate to paint over it. Any opinions on this?
So if you like these cars and you’re in the market to buy (and don’t mind traveling to where the car is located), I think this would be worth investigating. You’d have to compete with all those other bidders though. That’s not my thing. I like to buy what no one else wants (or, that is to say, what no one else sees the greatness of). That way, both sides are happy: The seller makes a sale, and I get a bargain price. Although there are times when you have to overpay for what you know you want, and which is unobtainable any other way.
The game of buying and selling: Look like a lamb, strike like a cobra!
This car is so original and pristine–you wonder if the new owner will preserve it as is. Hopefully it won’t be turned into something like this, but unfortunately such things happen way too often:
Wow, what a time capsule! These are not my favorite cars (I would take a 59 Plymouth over one of these every day) but I can definitely see the appeal. This is one of my favorite dash designs and there is no disputing the great feel of a classic “Body by Fisher”. This would have been a nicely dressed-up Biscayne when new, with whitewalls, 2-tone paint, V8 and Powerglide.
I hardly ever recall seeing cars with this 2-tone treatment where the deck lid matched the roof. I think a white or cream roof would look nice, but I can’t say that I am a fan of the treatment on this car. If I owned your coral car, I would leave it alone. If the original paint on your car looks as nice as it does in the photos, I would be reluctant to paint over it.
The interior color on this gold/copper car is interesting – I would have expected some kind of tan/copper inside instead of the gray. Did the Biscayne offer any other interior colors? Even if they did, sometimes people ordered interesting combinations.
Here’s the comparable Plymouth model, the Savoy.
I shot this at Braun’s Automotive in Morristown NJ back in 1999:
I owned 2 1955 Savoys circa 1975ish. One was a 2 door red and black, the other a light blue 4-door. Also, our family of 6 moved to Vancouver from Detroit in a brand new 1959 Chev wagon.
Upland, CA. is 32-34 miles east of Pasadena, not 20 miles. So much for any accuracy on here, but you got the direction (east) right!
Somehow, the ’59 Plymouth sedan looks a bit ungainly next to the ’59 Chevy. I’m a Mopar guy, and as a nine-year-old, couldn’t like the Chev, but it you want to go quintessentially space age, get the GMer. There’s no arguing how seamlessly the 2-toning works on it. Plymouth had to wait a year for that odd, truncated prow that assimilated a second paint color so well.
Distant cuz of my mother had a gray/white tutone Belair. They had garage.Car was still in service around 1975.Paint, as I recall still looked good.
How about a vinyl wrap instead of painting over the roof and trunk?
Not my favorite 1959, either (I’d go for a canted-headlight Buick), but still interesting, particularly in the fine ‘survivor’ shape.
I thought the color combination odd, as well, but suspect that, as surmised, that was the only interior color the Biscayne came with. If you wanted a more appropriate interior color, you had to move up to a Bel Air or Impala. I also liked seeing the two different (base and deluxe) steering wheels.
As to adding the two-tone color on the second car, I say go for it. As a six-cylinder Biscayne sedan, it’s nowhere near a true collectable (unless it’s an Impala in pristine shape, 1959 Chevys aren’t exactly a hot item) and I can’t imagine adding a second RPO color that it didn’t have when it left the factory dimishing the value much (if at all).
I would agree that the ’59 Buick is the best looking cars that GM had that year. The Chevy would be a close 2nd. Cadillac was a little too much for me, even though my older brother had one for a few years and I loved. If my arthritis and budget would allow me, I would be serious considering this ’59 Chevy.
I would also leave your car as it is, Stephen, and not paint it. To me, an old car is best if it is original. That said, I don’t feel painting the roof and trunk lid would be detract from the car if it matches the colors that were offered in 1959.
That’s a beauty all right. I know the 59 Chevy is just over the top, but I’ve always loved these since I was a small boy.
Let’s hope it stays unmodified and un messed with. To be honest I doubt it will.
Your Biscayne is lovely, and the paint on the roof is great. I vote don’t mess with it.
It’s going to be “restomodded” beyond recognition.
I doubt it. It’s too expensive now; it’s a genuine collectible. Makes much more sense to start with a beater.
Well I learned something new today. Oil filters can be optional. Wow, that is cool.
Not as cool as these lovely 1959s. Either one, at sixty years old plus, is a real gem. I hope this lady’s car is in as good a condition mechanically as it looks in appearance.\
My affinity for ’59 Chevs goes back to my childhood when I got rides in an olive green one, a neighbour’s car. I was an impressionable kid in kindergarten, and we didn’t have our own car.
It’s probably also significant that detergent motor oils had only fairly recently become common when this car was new.
@ moparlee, My dads 59′ Chev wagon was olive green, and I never saw that car as attractive in any way, and I still don’t. I’m a 60s classic car buff too, but this model just doesn’t ‘make it for me’. It’s mostly the tail lights! When I grew up, I drove mostly Fords, and the 1965 rebuilt Mustang conv. was my ‘chick magnet’ in the early 80s! Now, my GOAT car is the 1968 Mustang Shelby Cobra KR conv., neck and neck with the 1970 Challenger RT conv.! Now that I’m OLD, I drive a 72 volt ebike! I got it painted up nice with decals! It’s cheap to ride, and gets me into town in 12 mins. (6 KMs).
Still has 3 days left on the ebay auction and bidding is at $25,800 reserve not met.
Wow…The featured car is probably my favorite ’59 model, regardless of make. I’ll echo Doug’s sentiment above that I hope nobody screws it up, but many don’t appreciate original cars these days, let alone an original driving experience.
Regarding your car, Stephen, add me to the “leave it alone” column. It looks good as-is.
Turn that car into a four door, and dad had one just like it, around 64-65. Not as transportation, but bought as a junker to block an access to his back acreage during a property dispute with the next door neighbor. I drove it once or twice, but my main use for the car was after I surreptitiously made a copy of the key and used it to hide my beer supply (I was 17-18 at the time). Dad didn’t catch on, fortunately, until I’d cleaned out the last six pack.
Can’t remember what happened to the car. Came home from college one holiday and it was gone, so I assume the border feud had ended.
Surprised the lady went for a 283.
Probably because the dealer pushed the 283. By the late Fifties, sixes were definitely out of style. I remember my father always having to special order his brother-in-law’s cars, as Uncle Mike, being a disabled vet, invariably wanted a Bel Air with a six, power steering and power brakes. Which meant special order.
That brings back memories…..I remember my dad’s 57 Ranch Wagon 6 stick. Had an overheating problem in the summer. He “fixed it” by popping the hood till it hit the emergency latch(hood opened from the windshield). Drove it around like that, guess the increased airflow helped. Next was a 58 Plymouth, flathead 6 stick. Whenever it rained and he hit a puddle, water got on the top of the engine and caused it to miss or stall. He’d pull over, wait 5 minutes until the heat of the engine dried it up. Good to go!
@ravenuer, My ’55 Savoy had that flat head 6 in it. I enjoyed that car bc it was a 2-door, better for a single guy! It was an automatic, with a little lever on the dash just to the right of the steering wheel.
Both of these cars are truly amazing just for still existing in the condition they’re in. Cars like these low spec “averagemobiles” should theoretically have been retired by their final owners sometime before the first oil crisis. I too hope someone leaves this one alone. I get the whole idea that they’re not in great demand and thus aren’t considered investment grade collectibles, but I’m one of those curmudgeons who thinks people should respect the history of things that have outlived their contemporaries. It’s probably as much a result of my own AARP worthiness as anything else, but that’s my opinion and I’m sticking with it.
On the other hand Stephen, both in light of and contrary to my ramblings above, if you feel strongly about adding a period correct factory paint treatment to your car I say go for it. I will concede though, that as far as general wow factor is concerned I don’t think adding the second color is going to do much more to add draw to that car than its already great presentation gives it now. There’s not a whole lot to add to a big pink bat-winged Chevy in a world of bland monochromatic CUV’s that’ll make it stand out any more than it already does. And boy, does it ever.;
This post got me thinking about the ‘59 and ‘60 Chevies, which were everywhere when I was a kid. Yet despite their ubiquity, they were considered to have very radical styling, even more so because by 1961 or ‘62 when I became aware of them (at age 4 or 5) they were already superseded by much more conservatively styled Chevies. While this was also true of other cars, especially premium GM brands, these Chevies were completely different than Fords of the same vintage. As such, I started thinking of analogies to the Prius or even Tesla’s. Modern cars which are very common, but have polarizing styling which didn’t really set any trends.
Both of these cars are great examples of how good they look when they are kept to the appearance that the manufacturer gave them. The narrow wheel track with wide fenders, and the way the cars sit low over those tall, skinny tires, is the way these cars are “supposed to be”. The “salami slicer” Chevys are actually growing on me in recent years.
Fifty years ago, cars like this of like age to this were one of three legs of the antique car hobby, the other two being Model T and A Fords, and fully restored classics. AACA rules, of course, restorods didn’t exist yet, and hot rods were definitely NOT welcome on the field. Only cars in original condition or restored to exact factory specifications.
Thank God for the “little old ladies” who bought cars like this and kept them until the very end. My first car, and only antique car, was a 37 Buick Special bought in 1968 for $400.00 and the equivalent of this: Owned by a never-married schoolteacher, bare bones with only a South Wind heater installed in the basic car.
You just know, assuming there’s still an antique car hobby, that 40 years from now someone’s going to find a Toyota Corolla in the same condition. Owned by one of the last of the “little old lady” drivers.
Funny how the brochure shows the “Biscayne” nameplate on the front fenders, like the Bel Air was, but the real cars had them on the rear quarters.
Good looking ’59(s) all around… well, I don’t like the green one.
I’ll vote for keeping your the original color, Stephen, but here’s a thought:
Since you say the roof and deck (Cameo Coral) paint is in great shape, what about leaving those surfaces alone, and painting the other surfaces in the Gothic Gold or Satin Beige?
That might look pretty cool, but would be more work.
Uh, that wouldn’t work. Cameo Coral is never used as a top color.
BTW, it looks like I incorrectly described the car above as “Gothic Gold and Snowcrest White”, but apparently it’s Gothic Gold and Satin Beige. The Satin Beige is so light it looks almost white. (Or was the top color repainted?)
My aunt had this car in that hideous light green. 6 cyl, 3 on the tree. At 16 I was driving with her from Cincinnati to Clearwater Beach & a radiator hose let go in somewhere/nowhere Georgia. Back then, a guy in a pickup stopped, took us to the nearest town to return to the car in the towtruck from the station and a radiator hose & a bucket of water, repaired on the spot and about an hour elapsed time, and on our way.
All the way up until GM and Ford started phasing out the low trim levels in the 70’s, Consumer Reports always advised full-size car buyers looking for the lowest price and the best gas economy to start with the base trim level and add only the accessories you absolutely needed. (This was back when the option list was truly a la carte, not bundled into two or three “packages”). Looks like this owner took that advice to heart.
Amazing cars – both yours and that little old lady one. I ran into the polar opposite of the range recently. That’ll make a fine contrast when I get down to writing it up. High trim 59 Chevys are impressive in their own way, but the playne Jayne Biscayne is far more attractive (to my eyes, anyway).
Shades of my dad’s 4th car, but his first new one: a ’60 Biscayne, 4 dr, 3 on the tree, power nothing, 6 banger. What handling, what brakes? A large barge of a car with, to me as a teen ager, NO redeeming attributes except I got to use it about once every other week……..whooppeeeee!
Once I got my nifty, thrifty Honda Cub 50….who needed the Biscayne??!!! 🙂 BTW, the heat in the back seat of the Biscayne in a Wisconsin Winter @ equaled my Cub 50! DFO
When I first got my ’59 Chevy, it had really old Sears bias ply tires on it and the shocks were probably ancient. It was hard to keep it in your lane, and was dangerously unresponsive if you had to say, pass a bicyclist.
I put on gas-charged shocks, modern radials, and replaced a ball joint and it was like a completely different car–tracks straight and true, handles with a precision close to the modern level–nothing distracting or annoying while driving. Power steering I’m sure would make it nicer.
As for brakes, mine seem decent. Did you ever try adjusting yours? Makes a big difference!
Aftermarket equipment and good maintenance makes the difference between a clapped-out jalopy and a car which “drives like a dream”.
“original spare?” Looks like it to me.
This takes me back; what a time capsule.
Paint your car if it suits you.
I remembered that I had seen a ’59 at a car show last summer. It was an Impala, and it had this writeup on the styling details.
Reduced file
Rocket exhaust
As an owner of a “bottom-feeder, plain-Jane, 4-door 65 Biscayne”, I also say leave it alone – it managed to avoid being crushed, demo-derby’d and rusted out all these years. It deserves respect and a good old folk’s home.
I have a pic of the ’59 wagon my dad had in around ’63 or ’64, red with a white top, definitely not a stripper, but maybe not top of the line. Us kids are standing in front of it, so no ID on the car that I can see.
While I am quite opinionated re what mods a person might do and will easily write them off as a person With whom I would never associate, I don’t for a second care about them ” ruining a car” . It’s their car . The car doesn’t have feelings . And what is the real expectation of what should be done with a car that really isn’t that popular? And if it’s such a thing to save… then you buy it. I do agree that it is cool to See the time capsule/UN restored/unloved /average Joe car that you don’t see that much.. But not so much that I feel there’s some loss if it gets turned into something else. I wasn’t gonna drive a 100 miles to see the car anyway. Switching subjects the thing that caught my eye right away but wouldn’t have before I became a curbside classic reader, It’s how frigging narrow track that car is! And the 2nd thing is another example of how cool Some of the dashboard/instrument panels were . A recent article about ojmobil showing the elegance of a sixties dashboard versus the seventies was very very appropriate
I love this, it’s exactly how I would have ordered one back in the day, base model 2 door V8 automatic with a radio, and a heater.
Regarding your car, I can see the attraction of painting it. If it was a later 60s or 70s car, I would leave it in one color, but with cars from the 50s and early 60s having more sculptured styling themes, 2 toning can really give a visual lift.
As long as I can remember, I’ve always had a thing for these. They were so distictive and futuristic in a Jetsons kind of way. Even the low trim level Biscayne pops. I’d take one of these any day over a tri-five.
Biscayne – probably means nothing(?) but a great name
6 turns lock to lock – my Alfa Spider is 2 (with PAS)
Those rear fins – see Ford Consul Classic for evidence of inspiration crossing Detroit
2 tone on your car – your call obviously and you wouldn’t be wrong either way, but I’d retain the original – patina, story and all that
And now $25,800…..
…and the winner of windscreen of the week
There’s a Key Biscayne and adjacent Bay of Biscayne very near Miami, Florida, both almost certainly the inspiration for the name.
Dual exhaust? Hmm…
I wouldn’t have thought this car in this condition today would be possible. What a time capsule!
2,000 mile warranty and no oil filter? The past is another planet.
So nice to see this survivor .
What happened to the black and yellow license tags since it’s still in California ? .
They’re only original once so Festina Lente .
-Nate
A worse fate than modifying this California car would be to crash test it, as happened to another rather infamous 1959 Chevy, a Bel Air 4-door sedan.
I was the one who posed as the buyer for the latter, which was crash tested by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety as part of its 50th anniversary celebration in 2009. I flew out to Chicago, rented a Prius, and drove to the seller’s home in Newton County, Indiana. The seller was a very talkative guy, retired from a UAW job in a car factory (Ford if I recall correctly), and told me all about the car. He found it in very good survivor condition not far from where he lived.
I told him (truthfully) that my late aunt had purchased a very similar car brand new. His car also sported the two-tone treatment in Gothic Gold and Snowcrest White, but it had a matching brown interior. The only modifications he made were new upholstery plus some Impala-specific items including the tail lights (with chromed vertical ribs), steering wheel, deck lid chrome wind split, and fake roof vent.
The car had the Stovebolt Six and a 3-speed manual transmission. I test drove it, and it rode and handled just as Stephen described for his car. From having learned to drive on a 1967 Chevy Bel Air with the 250 cu. in. six, 3-on-the-tree, and no power steering or brakes, I was very familiar with the slow steering, but was surprised as to how ineffective the brakes seemed to be. As in, is this car going to stop?
Knowing the car’s fate, I did ask the seller if he was going to miss it. He said no, because he had a pristine 1960 Chevy Impala 2-door hardtop, which he showed me. Also he planned to use the sale proceeds to purchase a 1929 Ford that he would turn into a hot rod. The Chevy was in fact sold to me (with my name on the title) and I sent him a cashier’s check for $8500. The only hitch came when he suggested that he and a friend drive the car out to Virginia. I mentioned this to my supervisor, who quickly arranged to have a flatbed driven out to his place to pick up the car.
Here’s a photo of the car about 2 months after we purchased it, stored outside behind the crash test facility.
Wow, interesting to know the backstory to that famous crash test, every time I see a picture of a 1959 Chevrolet, I think of that video.
Thanks, now that I’m retired from the IIHS, I figured it was time to reveal the proverbial rest of the story.
Interesting back story, thanks for sharing. Even though he said he wouldn’t miss the car, I wonder if the seller would have sold it knowing the fate of the car? Did the seller ever figure out what happened to his Chevy? That crash test was interesting, but the results were hardly surprising to anyone who understands vehicle construction. Nevertheless, I still think it was a shame that a nice old survivor was destroyed for what amounted to a publicity stunt.
Thank you. My guess is he wouldn’t have sold it if he knew what would happen. I believe he did find out after the crash test from his friend, who listed the car for him on the internet (not eBay).
Considering all the conspiracy theories surrounding this test of old vs. new, a lot of people couldn’t believe the results and thought the test was rigged in some fashion.
Deep down inside, I was also dismayed that an old survivor would be crashed, but as an employee and the designated car guy, I couldn’t refuse the assignment.
Oof, talk about internal conflict. In your shoes I might have been able to stomach condemning a car I didn’t particularly care about, but the pickle would’ve been much sourer if I’d had to send crashing a pet make or model.
Because I’d been around since we started crash testing brand new cars in 1995, including some very expensive luxury models, I had become somewhat inured to the destruction.
My grandfather had one, a 59`2 door post coupe like this one with the V8. It was a medium green color with the ‘woven’ seats in a light green and white color. I also had in-dash factory air air conditioning, Powerglide and power steering. It was about 2 years old when he bought it from a used car dealer in Brooklyn, NY. He said it was a police detective`car from Florida, so that would explain the A/C. I told him to sell it because I wanted it when I got my license. He gave it to my uncle instead
What a wonderful find. Although I am probably more open to light modification of an old vehicle than most on this site, I do agree with the consensus that this car should be preserved as is. I often wonder how much prep is done to these untouched survivors. While I am sure that little old lady took great care of this car, it’d being interesting to see it prior to the detail job. Undoubtedly the engine bay would have had to have been detailed and I often wonder how many parts there get touch ups to make them look perfect.
Stephen, on your Chevy, if it has original paint, I can see the hesitation to change it. However if you have no intention on selling this car anytime soon, I don’t think changing the paint is out of line, especially since you want to keep it factory appearing. Ultimately, it’s your car and if changing the paint is something you want to do, go for it. I agree that it would improve the appearance, although, it looks wonderful as is.
I’d say keep the solid color. I like the idea of having a base model be really base, especially coming with such flamboyant styling.
I am astounded that an oil filter was optional as late as 1959.
This 235CID engine was the very last of the old ‘Stovebolt’ design, it has a low pressure high volume oiling system and the filter when added is a by – pass typ .
Many think it does nothing but they’re dead wrong .
-Nate