Tri-Five Chevrolet Data and ID Guide: 1955, 1956, 1957

1955

The Delray was a submodel inside the Two-Ten series that had a unique vinyl/vinyl interior pattern and colors. The model was popular with customers, as 115,584 examples were built, with a base price of $1,835. Shown here is a ’55 Two-Ten Delray coupe in Onyx Black.

Until the fall of 1954, Chevrolet had been nothing more than GM’s pedestrian, entry-level car line. Excitement was a word that never came in the same sentence with Chevrolet. But the wheels were turning that would take Chevy from strong-selling brand to leader in design, horsepower, and appeal. In 1952, Ed Cole, until that moment one of the top men at Cadillac and partly responsible for remaking GM’s top brand post-war, became Chevrolet’s chief engineer. Cole knew what it would take to transform the Chevrolet brand, and he also knew he would need a lot of help to get it done.

At the time of his ascension to chief engineer, Chevrolet’s design department consisted of 850 people. Under Cole, that was quickly expanded to more than 2,500, providing the necessary personnel to design a completely new car top to bottom, inside and out. That team of talented and visionary designers and engineers completely transformed the brand and created a trio of automotive icons. But while it was a team effort to execute the plan, it was the strong leadership of Ed Cole that made it happen.

The first was the Corvette. After debuting at the 1953 Autorama and leaving attendees stunned, the Corvette went into limited production and showed that the Chevrolet brand was starting to emerge from its chrysalis. At the same time, Cole’s team was busy transforming Chevrolet’s core products into something Detroit had never seen. And the transformation wasn’t superficial.

The 1955 Chevrolet

Design work began in June 1952 at the GM Styling Building in Detroit. Thousands of early sketches were further refined until a handful of concepts remained; then these concepts were mocked up in full-size side views. The process began to bog down at that point as certain design aspects of the new car were overthought, slowing progress considerably. Harley Earl, the legendary design chief, became increasingly frustrated with how things were going. The situation culminated with Earl losing his cool with the designers and reading them the riot act, a move that helped unjam the design process and get things going again.

To start, Cole had the engineers come up with a whole new chassis for the 1955 model. This chassis featured a completely new front suspension system that became the basis for many of Chevrolet’s and GM’s front suspension designs for decades. The rear suspension still used longitudinal leaf springs, but the heavy torque-tube drive setup was pitched in favor of an open Hotchkis drive system and Salisbury-type rear axle in place of the old Banjo-type axle. Convertible chassis were equipped with a strengthening X-member to help boost rigidity on the more-flexible convertibles. Together with the redesigned suspension system, the new Chevrolet chassis proved to be a top-handling platform.

Besides its many styling firsts and groundbreaking design, the ’55 Chevrolet also ushered in a new era of automotive performance that would lead to the following decade’s muscle-car era and was the delivery platform of probably the greatest engine design of all time, the small-block Chevrolet V-8. It gave the redesigned Chevrolet the power and response to match its new styling, and versions of the original small-block remain in production by General Motors to this day.

Chevrolet’s V-8

To go with the new chassis, the powertrain team came up with a completely new engine to power Chevy to the top of the sales charts. Two ideas had been considered: a small V-6 designed by GM central staff engineer John Dolza that was deemed underpowered and a 230-ci V-8 based off the Cadillac V-8 that Cole and Harry F. Barr had designed in the 1940s. The Cadillac-based V-8 was passed on as being too costly for Chevrolet to produce. This left about 15 weeks for the engineering team to come up with a suitable new engine to power Cole’s totally redesigned 1955 Chevrolet.

Cole brought Barr over from Cadillac (such was Cole’s influence and power inside General Motors) to become assistant chief engineer at Chevrolet. The engine Barr and his team created was the first V-8 to come from Chevrolet in 30-plus years. It stood apart from competitors with a new, lightweight design, strong power output, and solid reliability. Until that time, the Ford flathead V-8 had been the top dog, but what came to be known as the small-block Chevy quickly supplanted it and became an automotive legend in its own right.

In a 1974 interview, Cole talked about designing what would become one of the most iconic engines every produced and the cornerstone of Chevrolet’s powertrain lineup.

You just know you want five main bearings—there’s no decision to make. We knew a certain bore/stroke relationship was the most compact. We also knew we’d like a displacement of 265 cubic inches, and that automatically established the bore of 3.75 inches and the stroke of 3.00 inches. And we never changed any of this. We released our new engine design for tooling direct from the drawing boards, that’s how crazy and confident we were.

Ed Cole’s core concept for Chevrolet’s makeover was built around using lighter components, and the new V-8 engine was no exception. All the new components for the 265 were designed with weight savings in mind. And while shaving a little weight from components individually didn’t seem like much, together it combined to make the new small-block the lightest V-8 produced to that point capable of making the power it did.

For buyers not ready to make the leap to the new V-8 engine, Chevrolet also updated the tried-and-true 235 Blue Flame Six with higher compression and internal upgrades for better performance. The 235s mated to 3-speed manual transmissions were rated at 123 hp and had solid-lifter camshafts; 235s paired with an automatic were rated at 136 hp and had hydraulic-lifter camshafts.

Transmission options for 1955 consisted of the proven Powerglide 2-speed automatic (paired with a 3.55:1 rear gear ratio), the fully synchronized standard 3-speed manual (3.70:1 rear gear ratio), and an optional 3-speed manual equipped with BorgWarner’s overdrive unit, the first time this was available in a Chevrolet and called the Touch-Down overdrive. It was activated by a pull handle mounted on the dashboard and could be used with every gear. Paired with a factory 4.11:1 rear gear ratio, it dropped engine RPM by 22 percent from 25 mph and above.

While the ’55 Two-Ten wasn’t loaded with lots of chrome and shiny stuff, its clean styling and shape made it just as eye catching as a chrome-laden vehicle from the competition. While GM management wanted more brightwork on the new ’55 Chevy, Harley Earl fought and won the battle to keep the use of chrome and stainless more modest.

A Totally New Direction for Styling

On the outside, the design of the 1955 Chevy was not only a major departure from Chevrolet’s previous styling efforts but also a huge gamble in terms of sales. Would customers like or even accept the new styling? Would they want a car with an unproven engine? The designers and chief engineer Ed Cole, believed in the new car, which gave them the confidence to forge a new path for GM’s leading sales division despite the risks.

The final designs were mainly influenced by Chevrolet studio chief Clare MacKichan, body engineer Charles A. Stebbins, and staff designer Carl H. Renner. Harley Earl issued the design edict of go all the way, then back off; the edict helped drive a final design for the 1955 Chevrolet that was only a bit less daring than originally conceived but was sure to turn heads and be a sales winner.

Even though the car featured a somewhat boxy design (helping to give the nickname Shoebox Chevy to the eventual trio of cars), several of its design elements lent it a sleek, modern, bold look that was very clean compared to the 1953–1954 models. While the 1955 Chevy was actually an inch shorter and narrower overall than the previous model, the fully flush rear fender design (the first in Chevrolet’s history) and low hood top that did not rise above the front fenders made the car appear longer and wider than it really was.

The totally redesigned body pulled styling cues from Ferrari and other sporty vehicles. Interestingly, the main feature most influenced by Ferrari, the front egg crate–style grille, was the only significantly controversial part of the car with management. Harley Earl loved the simplicity of the design, but the higher-ups preferred a design with more brightwork that spanned the full front width of the car, similar to a concept initially considered in the early design stages. In the end, the grille was left alone, but management’s preferred design would be incorporated into the 1956 model year update.

Some dealers weren’t fans of the new grille either, thinking it would be tougher to sell against the chrome-laden front ends of the 1955 Ford and Plymouth models that were also new for the model year. Designer Carl Renner bore witness to the discussions and Harley Earl’s power in the GM hierarchy. Although some people didn’t agree with the design decisions made by Earl during the car’s development, his rank and power prevailed, and Harley Earl got his way; the car went into production as he intended.

Harley Earl’s Influence

The final product was almost a personification of Earl, harmoniously integrating many of his favorite ideas into a unified design that flowed smoothly from front to rear. The ’55 Chevy’s one-piece, wraparound front windshield (the first one-piece windshield used on a Chevrolet) took cues from Earl’s famous 1951 LeSabre show car, the new Corvette, and the 1953 Oldsmobile and Cadillac Eldorado Fiesta convertibles. Earl’s fondness for low roofs was expressed in the ’55’s noticeable, rakish beltline dip on all models except wagons. On station wagons, curved rear side glass gave the increasingly popular model a less utilitarian look that did not impede functionality. A major contributor to Harley Earl’s mindset was his height. His 6-foot 4-inch stature gave him a unique view of design mockups. It has been noted that sometimes designers strapped wooden blocks to their shoes so they could stand at the same height as Earl and see things from his viewpoint, though this was never done in front of Mr. Earl.

Two-Tone Paint Schemes

Important to the 1955’s design was the two-tone paint scheme, a big selling point in the mid-1950s. For Bel Air and Two-Ten model cars, special paint dividers were added to highlight the bold new two-tone scheme. The dividers allowed Chevy designers to create 23 different two-tone color combinations for the ’55 models, a veritable rainbow of offerings that added to the cars’ bold new look. Since the One-Fifty models had no side trim, two-toning was limited to just a secondary color for the roof, but roof-only two-toning could be ordered on Two-Ten and Bel Air models if the buyer so desired. This was an easy way for dealers to add two-toning to a car already on the lot to sell to a potential buyer who wanted two-tone paint.

Stylin’ and Profilin’

Hooded headlights were quickly becoming a must-have styling trend, and not to be outdone, Chevrolet designers blended this concept into the 1955’s fenders beautifully. Out back, designer Chuck Stebbins came up with the distinctive ’55 taillight design, pulling them out slightly from the rear fender downslope to accent the car’s flowing lines, while at the same time making the taillights and related turn signals more visible from the side. Part of this came from the original design of the 1955 decklid that was to have a strong horizontal crease just above the license plate, which Stebbins’s design would’ve accented and complemented. But in a rare occurrence during the new Chevrolet’s design process, Harley Earl and Ed Cole (both proponents of the decklid crease) were overruled by newly appointed GM president Harlow Curtice, and the crease was eliminated. It’s surmised, and most likely the case, that the crease was eliminated due to production costs; the crease would have added multiple extra stamping processes into the decklid’s component pieces and increased the complexity of welding those pieces together. As time has passed, though, the GM brass’s frugality proved to be a good thing because the simpler shape made the design of the ’55 more elegant.

Interior design for 1955 ditched the jukebox-style design of the previous model and went with a cleaner, more symmetrical layout. Although the yellow dash in this photo looks good against the green interior, it’s incorrect. From the factory, the dash was painted green to match the interior, not the car’s Harvest Gold exterior main color.

As MacKichan later commented, Nothing was carried over. With the new V-8 engine and the young man’s youthful image, we tried to make the design more youthful. But there was always a Cadillac feeling. The front fender eyebrows, the swept-wing eagle hood ornament designed by Carl Renner, and the new wraparound windshield. And Stebbins’s taillight design was intended to give a Cadillac look. I don’t think ‘copy’ is the right word, but the flavor was definitely there.

It’s What’s Inside

The new ’55 Chevy’s interior didn’t escape the constant wave of changes as its design was refined and updated.