(Photos by Dave Nutting, unless otherwise noted)

Here’s one for you: Close your eyes for a second and think of a 1950’s Chevrolet. What do you see? Most people with even a passing interest in classic cars will picture a gleaming 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air in all its two tone and chrome glory. Most car guys will also see a Tri-Five, and personally, I see the Two-Lane Blacktop primer-slathered ’55 blasting down the highway. You might even get the image of an elegant 1958 Impala to pop up in there, maybe sporting some wide whitewalls and a continental kit.

But a ’54? Probably not.

(Photo: Chevrolet)

This is a 1954 Chevrolet. They look very much like the 1953 models, and came in three flavors: The 150, the 210, and the Bel Air. With the traditional Small Block V8 a year away, you had a choice of two inline six engines: the 215ci “Thriftmaster”, and the 235ci “Blue Flame”. As you probably know, the Blue Flame engines also made their way into early Corvettes and other cars and trucks in various forms throughout the years, and were stout engines if anything else. Car enthusiasts, especially customizers and old-school hot rodders will easily recognize these, but the common man may have some trouble.

Let’s face it: the early 50’s Chevrolets always seemed stodgy and boring compared to their later stablemates, but the one we have to show you today is neither stodgy nor boring. Instead, we have something that looks like a prop from an automotive-themed horror movie, and we mean that in the very best way possible. If Jason, Michael Myers or Freddy Kreuger were going to roll up to a cruise night somewhere, they would be driving something like this!

Jonathan Pickett, a 30 year old welder, fabricator, and amateur car builder, happened upon this derelict 1954 Chevrolet 4-door sedan and saw potential. Well, sort of; a friend of his did. His buddy Dan saw the poor thing sitting in a junkyard, awaiting the eternal jaws of the crusher. He decided it was old and cool enough to save, and it was granted a stay of execution. After amassing a small horde of early 50’s bowtie parts, and even building a mild 355 traditional small block Chevy V8 and TH350 for the car, Dan lost interest in the project. Jon stepped in to give it a shot.

Did you notice that I said “4-door sedan” in the previous paragraph, and it’s missing two of those doors?

(Photo: Jon Pickett)

As you can see, this used to have four doors. Jon opted to ditch the crew cab format and make it a two door. Jon snapped this pic right before the hacking session began. We think he made the right call.

The first thing Jon did was decide that he wanted two less doors. During a Dr. Frankenstein-esque mad scientist marathon, Jon chopped and spliced the car into two-door form in a single 14-hour thrash session, using tips he recalled from growing up reading car magazines. He tossed in a fuel cell, converted the single circuit ancient braking system to a modern dual circuit setup, and started driving it. He added some wide, black, swap meet-sourced Chevy Rally wheels in lieu of the traditional pizza cutters and wrapped them in 205/75-15’s up front and 275/60/15’s out back. It’s also running a GM 10-bolt rear axle out back. And the paint? Jon explains: “The car was painted after work one night with the highest quality Krylon paint and primer money can buy”.

Jon laid that Krylon right over the pocked sheet metal, warts and all. This isn’t the kind of car that you would be vying for a Ridler Award with; it’s a fun driver that you can blast down a country road in without having to pack a detailing kit in the trunk to clean it every time you stop.

Inside, the car is basically stock, and just barely habitable. The front bench is still there but tired. The original steering wheel is also there, which is the size of one from a contemporary city bus. It’s rusty everywhere, and the doors are lacking upholstery of any sort. Much like the exterior, it’s raw and unfinished.  But, as a car, it’s functional and will get you where you need to go. Keeping it simple is the theme here.

The “pulled from the junkyard” theme continues in the cabin. You get a place to sit, a steering wheel to pilot the thing down the road, a few gauges, and that’s about it. No carpet, no cushy upholstery, no dash padding; this is as raw as it gets.

Under that domed hood, you will find the previously mentioned Small Block Chevy V8, displacing 355 cubic inches. There’s really no aesthetic theme under here; it’s all about function over form. Power-wise, your guess is as good as ours; maybe around 300-350hp? Jon doesn’t even really know, and it doesn’t really matter. “It’s nothing wild, but it’s fast enough to get me in trouble.” He reports. And it has been a really affordable build so far; Jon has just $2,000 into the project.

As you can see, there’s no cosmetic theme going on under here yet. Jon used what he had kicking around to make it function reliably, and it gets the job done. It’s not pretty, but it works!

And even though it’s gnarly enough as-is, Jon reports that it’s unfinished. It’s still rusty in places it shouldn’t be, there’s missing trim here and there, and some other minor safety and aesthetic items need to be addressed. His plan is to clean up the bad stuff, make it safer, and cruise the wheels off the thing.

But, for now, we can appreciate this 1954 Chevrolet as the raw, barebones beast that it is. It’s wild, untamed, and looks like it was dragged out from deep in the the woods to do battle once more. This thing is 100% BangShift Approved! Maybe next time you close your eyes and dream of a 1950’s Chevy, this is the car you will see boiling the hides!

Did someone say “boil the hides”?

Nutting’s Take

Tony has the main story on Jon’s car on lock, so instead I’m going to cover how I first met Jon and what I love about this car.

While I can’t accurately recall the When of when I first met Jon (Best I can do is narrow it down to “sometime in the last decade”), I’m much more certain of the Why in why we met, which was to buy parts for my ‘87 Monte Carlo SS, specifically a set of GTA wheels to complete the trifecta of clichéd Monte Carlo SS modifications, the other two being smoked headlight covers and a 350. Don’t hate.

Turns out that Jon not only had a refined taste in 1980’s factory GM alloy wheels, but was also a bit of a G-body nut himself, owning a Cutlass at the time. We ended up selling each other G-body parts back and forth over the last few years, with the latest deal being for the frame from my forsaken ‘87 Monte Carlo LS project (Long time readers may remember it as the “Nut Driver” https://bangshift.com/category/general-news/nut-driver/), which ended up having more rot than I was able to deal with once I tore into it for the transmission swap and thus was parted out. Don’t get me started.

As Jon and I tend to do, we got to BSing about our cars, including his G-body wagon that he’s set up for drifting (More on that one hopefully soon) as well as his ‘54 Chevy that you’re reading about now. Hearing the story about the car and the simple formula of “old car, small block, and have a good time”, I knew I had to see more of this thing.

Working for BangShift (And I use that term loosely for any occupation where the official dress code consists of a black, slightly greasy car shirt, tan shorts, and flip flops), I’ve seen a good number of cars pass in front of my lens, several at the spot at which the photos of Jon’s ‘54 Chevy were taken. Many of these cars were faster. Many of them were louder. Obvious to anyone blessed with the gift of vision, many of them were better-looking (Or at least had paint that didn’t come out of a spray can).

The thing is, from the moment that this ‘54 Chevy rumbled down my driveway at 5:30 AM on a slightly foggy Sunday morning, emitting the sweet sweet smell of partially unburned hydrocarbons through an exhaust unmolested by a catalytic converter (And there are few smells better than that), I knew it was something different that you readers would appreciate, and it all started with the (slightly more difficult than expected) opening of the passenger door.

Keeping in mind that I’ve never actually seen this car besides a few photos on Jon’s Facebook page, there was a lot to take in once I opened said passenger door, namely the lack of, well…everything. Ripped bench seat, the basic hot-rodding gauges required for Engine Proof of Life (Oil pressure, Water temp, Volts), a skull hanging off the rear-view, and Jon with a smile and “Today looks like it’s going to be a good day”. Yes Jon, yes it does.

Tossed my camera gear in the back seat, moved over Jon’s cup holder, which may or may not be a drink tray from McDonald’s, and went to strap myself in, only to realize that there weren’t any seat belts. Oh right, ‘54, a time when men died like men. That’s fine, I have the passenger door to prop against. “Yeah, I wouldn’t do that in case it pops open around a corner”. Gee, did I remember to kiss my wife and daughter goodbye this morning? Too late to care now, Let’s Go.

Now, I’ve taken a few cars out to the spot where we shot these photos, and every single time I’ve been stopped by at least one person…telling me to get off the road, keep the noise down, or in one extreme case, threaten to call the cops.

But Jon’s ‘54? Not a problem. People smiled while waiting patiently for us to move it out of the way for them to get by, and they MEANT it, which was a complete shock (If you’ve ever visited to Massachusetts you know what I’m talking about; my own mother would probably give me the One Finger Salute if I blocked her getting down the road).

Thinking about it after the fact, this wasn’t because the car is special, with its stock suspension, “barely there” interior, tried and true 355/turbo 350 combination, and rough body.

Instead, it was because of the lack of “Look at Me” attitude that most old cars seem to be displaying which brought out the appreciation. It’s a simple car, put together on the cheap to have fun with. This wasn’t the car we wanted back in High School, but the car we had back in High School, the beater we tell stories about and smile.

Saying it in the nicest way possible, there is nothing truly unique about this car, other than the sheer fact that it still exists in 2018, quite literally an anachronism. Sure, every “old car” is out of its time, but this car was quite literally Out Of Time until Jon’s friend Dan decided to save it from the junkyard, recognizing that its days of cruising weren’t yet over. If you look closely, the car still wears proof of its Death Sentence on its roof.

Jon and I spent time during the shoot talking about many things, but the conversation that stuck with me was the “Things this car has potentially seen during its lifetime”, which is a conversation that I’d like to think pretty much every car guy and gal has had about their car before. While we both hypothesized about late night street racing, the stereotypical “Baby’s Coming” rush to the hospital, and bombing down dirt roads, none of that can be known for sure, only imagined.

What is known for sure is that this car has a second lease on life thanks to Jon, one that may include a modernization of the suspension and drivetrain in the not-too-distant future. But for the short term, in the here and now? Let’s have fun and roast some tires while we’re at at.

Now that I can get into.

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