Automotive History – 1949 Chevrolet Fleetline And Styleline – Seize The U.S.A. In Your Chevrolets

 

For modern enthusiasts and nostalgists, the popularity of postwar Chevrolet cars (and trucks) is so tied up with the SBC V-8 engine that it’s almost hard to believe that for many years, Chevrolet didn’t offer anything but the trusty Stovebolt Six. Even so, six-cylinder Chevrolets like the Satin Green ’49 pictured above managed to become the best-selling cars in the entire world. Let’s take a closer look at the million-selling 1949 Chevrolets.

1949 was actually Chevrolet’s second million-selling year — the first was 1941 — but the ’49s were Chevrolet’s first all-new design since the end of the war, even if they don’t look all that different to modern eyes:

 

The 1949 Chevrolet was not the car — or rather cars — that Chevrolet originally planned to build. In 1945–1946, beginning shortly after V-E Day, GM had been seriously contemplating moving the A-body models up a step in size, with the Chevrolet going to a 118-inch wheelbase rather than the former 116 inches. Chevrolet intended to balance this with a new compact “light car” called the Cadet, riding a 108-inch wheelbase. Developed by engineer Earle S. MacPherson, the Cadet incorporated many advanced features, including fully independent suspension by what we now call MacPherson struts.

 

By mid-1946, both plans were changing. New Chevrolet general manager Nicholas Dreystadt, previously general manager of Cadillac, sided with the faction who felt the existing Chevrolet was already getting too big, while complaining that the Cadet program was becoming too complex and costly to build. The enlarged A-body Chevrolet was abandoned, and the Cadet was finally canceled in May 1947.

 

As it finally emerged, the 1949 Chevrolet was a bit smaller than the ’48. You couldn’t really called it “downsized,” but it shrank an inch in wheelbase, to 115 inches, and about three-quarters of an inch in overall length, to 196.94 inches (an inch longer for wagons), although the ’49 was 1.4 inches wider than the ’48. Overall height was also reduced by about 2.5 inches, with no reduction in headroom.

 

As the overlay above shows, this was accomplished by shifting the powertrain forward about 4 inches, allowing the seats to be shifted forward a like amount. Moving the rear seat forward of the axle not only preserved headroom, but allowed the rear seat to be widened by about 9 inches. It did cost some rear legroom, but the new floorpan had sunken foot wells, and the seats were thinner than before, so total interior room was a bit better than before. There was about 30 percent more glass area as well.

 

 

The 1949 Chevrolet car chassis got a new front suspension with tubular shock absorbers rather than lever-action dampers. With the lower center of gravity, handling was now probably the best in its class, and new “Center Point” steering linkage made the steering less susceptible to bump steer. Ride was also improved: As Chrysler had demonstrated with the Airflow 15 years earlier, shifting the center of gravity forward and bringing rear-seat passengers within the wheelbase rather than over the rear axle.

 

People still weren’t going to buy a Chevrolet for performance. The sole engine in the passenger car line was the 216.5 cu. in. (3,547 cc) Stovebolt Six, advertised at 90 gross horsepower. Unusually for this era, the very comprehensive Chevrolet specifications also included net ratings: 83 hp and 168 lb-ft of torque. The Stovebolt was a dependable lugger (net torque peak was at only 1,100 rpm!), but 83 net horsepower for 3,200+ pounds of Chevy meant only average performance. With the standard 4.11 axle, fuel economy was nothing special either, and top speed was limited to about 80 mph. You could have a 3.73 axle as a factory option in 1949, improving fuel economy and probably top speed at a further cost in acceleration. (Chevrolet didn’t yet offer factory overdrive, which would have been a desirable compromise.) However, a Ford V-8 was still the obvious choice for buyers concerned about performance.

 

Since 1942, Chevrolet had offered both fastbacks, called Fleetline, and notchback body styles, now called Styleline. (The Styleline series also included the convertible coupe and the station wagons, which were still offered in both steel and woody forms.) The previous-generation fastbacks had been very popular, so the new Fleetline series sold well at first: The best-selling 1949 Chevrolet model was the Styleline De Luxe four-door sedan, at 191,357 units, followed closely by the two-door Fleetline De Luxe, at 180,251 units. However, the fastback’s popularity dropped off quickly after 1949, especially the four-door models, which disappeared after 1951, a year earlier than the two-door.

 

Chevrolet’s principal edge over its low-priced rivals in this era was reliability and build quality. This may seem bitterly ironic if you’re more familiar with the division’s later products (certainly, the plasticky Chevrolets of the ’80s had nothing to brag about in these areas), but in the late ’40s and early ’50s, the “Body by Fisher” emblems on Chevrolet step plates still promised above-average solidity. Consumer Union (later publisher of Consumer Reports was very keen on the Chevrolet despite its mediocre mileage, while Tom McCahill said in the September 1950 Mechanix Illustrated, “For service and reliability, the Chevy will match any car made, and lately the old gal has gotten good looking as well.” (The 1949 Chevrolet did have some problems with sagging doors and leaking seams early in the run, but the issues were sorted during the model year, whereas quality control problems dogged the 1949 Ford throughout its extended model year.)

 

The other great commercial strength of the 1949 Chevrolet, and one that did continue into later eras, was Chevrolet’s much bigger dealer network. According to Automotive Industries, here’s how the low-priced four compared in total dealer outlets in 1949:

1. Chevrolet: 7,190
2. Ford: 6,662
3. Plymouth: 9,965*
4. Studebaker: 2,270

* Total of Chrysler, DeSoto, and Dodge franchises that also sold Plymouths

Plymouth theoretically had more total franchises, since it was then paired with DeSoto and Dodge as well as Chrysler, but that just meant that every dealer who sold Plymouths had more incentive to try to sell you something bigger and more expensive. Surprisingly, Chevrolet now had much better dealer coverage than Ford in sparsely populated rural areas, and was signing more dealerships: Between January 1948 and January 1950, Chevrolet added 294 U.S. franchises, while Ford added only 42.

 

Motorsport fans will be familiar with the concept of winning a championship on points rather than outright victories, and that was essentially what Chevrolet did in 1949. A 1949 Chevrolet wasn’t the fastest, the thriftiest, the roomiest, or the plushest car in its league, and I’d call its styling “pleasant” rather than striking, but its balance of attributes made it a solid value, and its strong dealer network make a new Chevrolet easy to buy and easy to service. This paid off: Standard Catalog of American Cars 1946–1975 puts total 1949 Chevrolet production at 1,037,600 cars for the model year.

 

It’s impossible to overstate what a commanding figure that was in 1949. Chevrolet calendar-year production came very close to matching the combined passenger car output of every other industrialized country in the entire world that year: Chevrolet 1,109,958, the rest of the world 1,016,047. The division would built 1,520,577 cars in calendar 1950 (1,371,535 for the model year) and 1,118,096 in 1951 (1,250,803 for the model year), all of them very similar to the ’49 model.

 

The still-familiar Chevrolet advertising jingle “See the U.S.A. in Your Chevrolet” (written by Leo Corday and Leon Carr) is most commonly associated with Dinah Shore, but it actually debuted in 1949 on the short-lived CBS variety show Inside U.S.A. With Chevrolet, sung by Peter Lind Hayes and Mary Healy. By then, Chevrolet had indeed seized the U.S.A. — and for a time, the world.

Related Reading

Curbside Classic: 1941 Chevrolet Special Deluxe – Maroon’d In Time (by Jon Stephenson)
The Radically Advanced But Aborted 1947 Chevy Cadet: GM’s First Deadly Sin? (by Paul N)
Cohort Classic: 1949 Chevrolet Fleetline Special Two Door Sedan – Your Choice Of Fastback or Notchback (by Paul N)
Curbside Classic: 1952 Chevrolet Styleline DeLuxe 4-Door Sedan – The Sun Sets On GM’s New Post-War Design (by Paul N)
Cohort Classic: 1949 Plymouth Special DeLuxe Club Coupe – It’s Pretty Special To Me (by Paul N)
Car Show Classic: 1949 Plymouth Special Deluxe – We Don’t Build Excitement (by Tatra87)