I was driving through East Moline recently and, as happens often with me, noticed something interesting on a side street. What materialized as I approached was an early postwar Chevrolet. A Fleetline, to be specific.
It looked like it had been sitting in this driveway for quite some time, judging from the brick holding it in place and the out-of-date antique auto license plate. Could it be a recent purchase, or a long-term project? The plate verified it was a 1947 model, but the ’46s and ’48s were much the same. Hopefully it will be on the road with warmer weather rapidly approaching!
It looks just right sitting in front of that house. Barring the orange utility pole guy wire, this picture could have been taken in 1953.
I like the body-color steelies and hubcaps!
You are absolutely right – it is not hard to imagine a young family posing in their new Easter outfits for a black and white photo in front of that Chevy.
I love finds of straight old cars like this. I hope the owner can get it indoors to keep it from deteriorating.
Beat me to it… It just needed a bit of cropping, which I just did, to get rid of that orange utility pole brace. Better now.
Just for fun…
Not bad, but you’re no Lawrence Jones. 🙂
Yay! It hasn’t been turned into a ghastly “Hot-Rod” (of course it has 4 doors, but somebody might like 4-door hot rods).
We hotrod anything here the door count is unimportant as we didnt get 2door sedans
Bryce, in ‘Murica, Cleatus & Billy Bob would only usually hot rod a car w/ 2 doors.
With the easy availability of fibreglass bodies now that is pretty much the norm here too now, however a 4-door is still popular as a “family rod”, particularly late-30’s and 40’s cars.
Still, Good ole Cleatus & Billy Bob would want to have nothing to do with a 4 door sedan most of the time.
My Dad Had a 46 Chevy 4 door much like this one. He paid $46 for it in 1956. It selled wonderful like old cars do. Once the car got a bent valve and my Dad pounded it out straight with a hammer and kept on going. Great car.
The spitting image of the old Chevy used to go on vacation in the Jean Shepherd movie Ollie Hopnoodle’s Haven of Bliss .
As great as the tri-fives are (and they are great), I’d almost rather have something from this era. Wonderful lines, mechanically simple (OK, maybe I’d do something about the 6-volt electrical system), and distinctive among all its later brethren. And I love the sound of a Chevy “stovebolt” six, reminds me of my dad’s pickup when I was a kid.
This was a family car for a serious man. Unlike the fastback version which was more popular, this was designed for the man who leaned forward into the future with it’s notchback design. In 1947, there was a huge itch that was needing to be scratched after having 1930-styled aerodynamically styled teardrop cars unavailable due to World War II.
When the War ended, young men returned to catch up on the lives they postponed in order to save the world from Germany and Japan. Most of them wanted a car like the one they wanted when they left to fight overseas.
A lot of stuff has been written about how easily it was to sell anything on wheels during these years, but buyers still had choices. The situation never got to the point where men were forced into buying something they didn’t want. While everything was sold, some designs were more popular than others.
GM made extra loot on every fastback sedan sold since they didn’t have to redesign it. On these cars, GM still cashed in, but had attempted to take the Pre-War body and modernize it with a newer look found on the new competition, the popular Studebaker and the hot new Kaiser. Pre-War teardrop aerostream styling didn’t appear on these new cars in 1947, Post-War auto design had shifted towards more modern designs which eliminated front fenders with capped single headlamps and fastbacks.
But GM and Ford discovered that the old style was still in demand and the fastback coupes and sedans styled before the War, was more popular in 1947. We begin to start seeing attempts to drop the old-fashioned front fenders, running boards and two-piece windshields within a few years.
This car was an attempt to bring about a new, more modern look on an old sedan.
Additionally, we see here, a four door sedan. Obviously, someone returned from the war with a need for more than beer and smokes. With the end of the Great Depression in the US, men who grew up watching every dime, then risked their lives and watched their friends lose theirs in Italy, the Pacific and in France, were ready to do what they had hoped all their lives – marry and have a family – get a house, a yard and a car. The gentleman who originally bought this beast, was a man with a plan for his, and his family’s future.
East Moline was a good place to live in 1947. It was a good place to stake a claim, find a decent job working a line at Deere or one of the other great farm implement manufacturers and live a good life. Schools were good, houses are affordable, and the food was cheap. There was a new interstate highway crossing through the Quad Cities that signaled a new era in personal transporation, speed and safety. Getting out of the buses and into a new Chevrolet was what new veterans did.
Embrace our great heritage and drive it too!
The immediate postwar years were indeed interesting times for trying to get a new car. From what I have read, most folks took the attitude that “beggars can’t be choosers” and were happy to get what they could. I understand that because there were huge waiting lists of customers, it was common to go around to multiple dealers and get on each one’s waiting list. Folks would often jump at the first call from a salesman saying “we have a car for you.” Often money would change hands to improve a person’s place in line – a big bribe or some other kind of special connection could get you a car fast. There were a lot of reported court cases in the late 40s involving fraud and breaches of contract for folks who didn’t get cars they were supposed to get, or for damages after dealers added extra charges on top of what had been agreed-to (some because of inflation and price increases, others out of fraud).
I have also read that the only dealers who did not have waiting lists were those selling Lincolns, which in 1946-48 were hugely uncompetitive with its flathead V-12 that suffered from a (deserved) bad reputation and the lack of any kind of automatic or semi-automatic transmission. They were expensive enough that most folks could not afford them, and the ones that could wanted something better, which was almost anything else.
I recall reading in contemporary sources that some dealers prioritized their best customers to the disadvantage – and annoyance! of returned GIs, many of whom had been in no position to buy new cars regularly before the war and indeed had been teenagers in high school in 1941.
Reminds me of the 1941 Special Deluxe 4 door that I had as a kid (actually we had two of them, my mom had an identical one that was a runner). I took mine completely apart during high school and started the body work, but then college intervened. I ended up parting it out after years of sitting.
The demand for 4-door cars was so low in the early 1990s that I ended up cutting up the body for scrap metal just to get rid of it – I couldn’t even give it away (believe me, I tried)! The rest of the parts did go to good homes however.
I like the parking brake!
My first car (in 1956) was a 1947 Chevy Fleetline 2-door sedan, the type with three chrome strips on all the fenders. It had been equipped with every option the dealer could scare up – backup light, glove box light, visor etc. Shiny black paint that our geese loved – they could peck at their reflections in the side of the car to their hearts’ content. It needed front shocks and a clutch when I got it – the clutch was so bad initially that I got stopped at a traffic light halfway up the 11th Street hill in Tacoma, couldn’t get it to restart up the hill, and had to back around a corner and figure out an alternate route to the top of the hill. It got sold when I went to college that fall.
The grilles were the easiest way to distinguish the 1942-48 Chevy cars. The ’42 had an outlining bar and a vertical center bar. The ’46 dropped the center bar. The ’47 had no outlining bar or center bar, and the ’48 again appeared with a vertical bar down the middle.
My second car (59 or 60) was a 46 two door of this style. We had a family 47 four door. They both ran good. Dad put the engine out of a wrecked 49 (different style) in the 46 and I managed to pretty much ruin it by hot rodding. Rods on these engines until insert bearings in 1954 were easy to get knocking.
If I had one today it would run a 235 from 54 or later and a different transmission than that vacuum assisted model. The vacuum assist kept going out and shifting was like lifting weights.
Wouldn’t it just be easier to get a Plymouth? 🙂
Yup, it would. It would also be preferable. The flathead six in the Plymouth seemed to run for a long time. For us jerk kids who thought we were hot rodders it also shifted faster and better. One of my classmates had one that was pretty quick but not real fast.
Never had one. Took what I could get.
A friend and I dragged one of these home once a $25 rust bucket I actually towed that Chev up the paddock with a Humber 80/Hillman Minx as the Model A Ford couldnt tow it on grass, We sold the engine for $50 and threw the remains away, very few of these left here now rust was their main enemy and of course the later models were so much better and the 30s Chevs much more popular nobody wanted the postwar chevs in later years and they got left to rot
Reminds me of the kind of car you would see in an old black & white movie parked at the curb on a cool, foggy night. Inside is a 50ish with man wearing an overcoat and hat. He is slowly smoking a cigarette while contemplating the crime he just committed. He looks satisfied and is in no hurry.
When he pulls away from the curb the camera focuses on the left rear wheel as the car eases into the night under the low, quiet whine of the transmission. Like the man this car is all about calm.
My father’s first car was a ’48 that he owned in 1953 when my parents married. It had a manual transmission that at times refused to go in reverse. After she was stranded at church one Sunday, my mother refused to drive it anymore and it was quickly replaced with a 1953 Ford with an automatic transmission.
No hot rodding necessary. Trick one of these out old-school style- built stovebolt six with split headers and rappin’ pipes, Lancer-style hubcaps, gangster whitewalls, and a mild lowering job.