<VV> 55 Chev Dream car

Sun Feb 22 01:32:51 EST 2015

Wow.
very, very cool.

On 2/19/2015 8:34 AM, Mel Francis via VirtualVairs wrote:
> No problem, Frank.
> Since we were able to display the car at Pebble Beach with all its 
> deep reconstructive plastic surgery well
> concealed, looking more like a well preserved 'barn-find', even Joe 
> often forgets to mention the 'Frankenstein'
> middle period this car went through.
>
> There were two others involved, Kerry Hopperstad, who built the new 
> chassis for the car, since the entire
> chassis was lost during the junkyard period and a previous fiberglass 
> attempt which needing to be completely
> removed in order to proceed with my step. The axis of the body had 
> been bonded back together crooked,
> but it was Joe's first sight of the car back, somewhat together and he 
> said it inspired him to proceed further
> to get the chassis built.
>
> I have to hand it to Joe for his perseverance, when it looked like the 
> car was so far gone, that it was just a
> pile of cut up parts, with no future. It was his son, who convinced 
> him to load the pile on the trailer too,
> along with the other cars they were rescuing that day in Warhoops 
> junkyard.
>
> The engineers at GM, who by then had become friends with Joe and 
> enthusiastic about his efforts, presented
> him with a pack of the original engineering drawings for the Biscayne, 
> developed from their own stash of old
> microfilm records. That info was used by Kerry and myself, as we 
> reconstructed the missing elements of the car.
>
> Yes, it must have been the lack of fins. The car actually WAS a car of 
> the future, since it pointed the way
> to the period that came AFTER the excesses of oversize cars, well into 
> the '70s. Joe has promised me that at
> the next show, he'll get a Mustang owner to park their car next to the 
> Biscayne and shoot some pics,
> in order to demonstrate the strong basic resemblance between the two 
> designs.
>
> Mel Francis
> Oconomowoc, WI
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "corvairduval--- via VirtualVairs" 
> <virtualvairs at corvair.org>
> To: <virtualvairs at corvair.org>
> Sent: Thursday, February 19, 2015 9:52 AM
> Subject: Re: <VV> 55 Chev Dream car
>
>
>> I'm sorry, I forgot to mention your involvement when I mentioned Marty.
>>
>> You did a lot of good work on the Biscayne.
>>
>> I got to see the car when Marty had it. It is a shame it did not inspire
>> production cars for the late 50s. I guess it was the lack of fins! ggg
>>
>> Frank DuVal
>>
>> Original email:
>> -----------------
>> From: Mel Francis via VirtualVairs virtualvairs at corvair.org
>> Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2015 09:02:48 -0600
>> To: lechevrier at q.com, virtualvairs at corvair.org
>> Subject: Re: <VV> 55 Chev Dream car
>>
>>
>> None of the windows in the '55 Biscayne concept rolled down, although 
>> the
>> installation was meant to represent roll-down windows.
>> The windows bolted in place in either the up position or the down 
>> position.
>> This was a showcar, remember.
>>
>> Before the car went to Marty Martino, it spent a year at my shop,
>> undergoing
>> a complete fiberglass restoration, due to heavy
>> damage and several large body sections had to be completely replaced,
>> including the roof. The taillights were long gone, so I adapted '60 
>> Corvair
>> tallights, since they were the closest to the original design, although
>> they
>> were a larger diameter. The bezels and all the rear trim had to be
>> re-created in fiberglass, then chrome plated, since all that had gone
>> missing, too.
>>
>> From there, the car went back to Fran Roxas' shop in Chicago, for
>> additional
>> hardware details, then off to the Pebble Beach concours
>> in 2008. It was displayed there without paint, in its raw green 
>> fiberglass
>> look. Once it returned, it went to Marty for paint and upholstery
>> and was finally displayed fully completed in 2010 at Meadow Brook, MI.
>>
>> One of the most interesting things about this car is how incredibly 
>> close
>> its overall dimensions and proportions are to the '64 Mustang. If GM had
>> put
>> this design into production in say, 1957, they would have scooped the
>> introduction of the Mustang by seven years!  It's also one of GM's first
>> perimeter frame designs, which allowed the roof to be 7" lower than a
>> production '55 Chevy, at 52". It was very compact for its time, 
>> perhaps too
>> compact and in 1957, longer, wider and fins were in, so this car was
>> shelved
>> and scrapped in '59.
>>
>> It was a really educational experience to work on this car and see, from
>> the
>> inside, how GM built their showcars back in the '50s.
>>
>> Mel Francis,
>> Oconomowoc, WI
>>
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-- 
Jay Maechtlen
SoCal
'61 2-dr modified w/fiberglass skin,
transverse 3.8 Buick V6 TH440T4 trans

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