1950 Chevrolet Fleetline

1950 Chevrolet Fleetline Special 2 Door Sedan There's never been a Chevrolet like this. Never a Chevrolet so smartly styled, so advanced in comfort, safety, and performance with economy. It's far and away the finest Chevrolet ever built, the most beautiful buy of all new cars. Two distinctive new body styles in Fleetline and Styleline with 14 grand new models including the DeLuxe and Special. From the Chevy sales brochure.  For consignment, a 1950 Chevrolet Fleetline Special 2 door sedan showing 914 miles, but the true miles are unknown. Here's a fully built street rod with a 540ci big block and a Hillborn fuel injection system. But that's just the tip of this big red iceberg! Exterior We calculated it and it takes .00549 seconds to realize this is not a stock Fleetline.Yes, it's lower. Yes, it has fender vents and side exiting exhaust the size of tree trunks. But three things are immediately striking; the two stage Cherry Red paint, (as far as we know, not an option in 1950), deep dish Centerline wheels with 18.5 inch tires in back, (the car came with 6.7 tires when it left the Baltimore plant), and the wheelie bars protruding from the back. Other clues include the frenched tail lights, the pinstriping to include an enormous flourish in the back, and the red velocity stacks emerging from a hole in the hood surrounded with a painted flame. The front has a facelift too with a snarling chrome grille between chrome covered headlights and a simple chrome bumper. Imperfections are few and include some bubbling within character lines, a deep scratch in the rocker panel, some other random scratches and chips, and an area of cloudy paint.  Interior This streetable rod retains some custom door panels in gray vinyl embossed with some swooping designs and both present nicely. In front, two tone gray bucket seats are wrapped in red five point harnesses tied into the roll cage that also happens to be red and gray. A Lecarra steering wheel fronts a race ready cockpit that includes nicely integrated gauges all canted towards the driver. There's an AM/FM/CD radio for your listening pleasure and plenty of controls to monitor and adjust the fuel injection system while the center console also houses a Hurst shifter and yes, cupholders. Gray carpet coats the floor both in the footwell and the rear interior space, and it's all in nice shape. The trunk is also carpeted and a large fuel cell sits between the roll cage support bars.   Drivetrain Using a hydraulic tilt mechanism, the entire all steel front end pivots forward to reveal an impressive powerplant. It's a 540ci V8 with a Merlin block, Merlin heads and a Hilborn fuel injection system. It's backed by a Tremec 3550 5-speed manual transmission routing power to a Ford 9 in back. MSD ignition is on board as well as a high capacity aluminum radiator with dual electric fans. Coated headers and tall red velocity stacks complete the clean presentation of the engine bay.  Undercarriage Clean, red, and street/strip ready with dual exhaust that travel through FlowMaster mufflers, turn east and west to exit via Supertrapp tips ahead of each rear wheel. Aerospace disc brakes are at all four wheels and suspension consists of coil overs front and rear with ladderbars in back.  Drive-Ability A mighty roar fills the mall and it's coming from the red relic of 1950 and all heads turn as we roll the big meats out the garage and onto the loop. There's obvious power underfoot and tracking is not surprisingly straight. What is surprising is the comfort of the interior and while it wouldn't make a great grocery getter, we'd have no hesitation to drive this cruise night! Meanwhile, the brakes are very soft, the clutch slips, and the front turn signals are not working. All other functions on this street rod work as they should and we thunder back into the mall. While Classic Auto Mall represents that these functions were working at the time of our test drive, we cannot guarantee these