- Obtain one on the cheap
- A great starting base for a dream machine
- Resisted modernizing it to contemporary themes
WhenGordie Cowan wasgrowing during the 1960s in western Pennsylvania, he always liked cars and dragracing. 1955 Chevrolets were extremely popular on both the street as well asthe drag strip during this era and this kid knew one day he himself would ownone!
The goal for him was to obtain one on the cheap and then fix it up in afashion that he wanted, based on all the ’55 Chevy examples he had seen on thestreets of his hometown ofSharon, PA, the drag strips he had visited and in car magazines that he hadread. Determined as he was, when he turned 18 years old in 1971, he found andpurchased a ’55 for himself and was on his way. Even though it was thenequipped with a six-cylinder engine under the hood, he knew it was a greatstarting base for his dream machine!
After paying the paltry sum of $225.00 for the car, soon the decision was made toupgrade it with a V8 engine, which became a .060 over 283-cid salvage unit thatGordie added anEdelbrock tunnel ram 2-piece intake manifold and a pair of 550-cfm Holleyfour-barrels. A Borg-Warner T-10 4-speed was also added, given to him by afriend that was parting out his ’63 Pontiac. Soon Gordie went to the close-by speed shop (Chargo’s PerformanceSpecialties, Masuri, OH) to purchase a Hurst Competition Plus shifterthat was a mandatory aftermarket piece for his car!
An11-inch clutch and pressure plate (diaphragm design) originally specified for a1969 427 Corvette was purchased at the local Chevrolet parts counter, and Ron Chargo set upthe rear end (4.88:1) gears. A set of Hooker Headers were obtained and for thefront of the car a pair of 15 x 6-inch Cragar S/S wheels were bought andinstalled. The stock front 6-cyl.coil springs were removed and replaced withheavy-duty V8 items and the rear leafs were updated by Sharon Spring in hishometown with an addition leaf and re-arched. The installation of the tunnelram intake wouldn’t clear hood so it wasn’t installed, and a set of Monroe Maxair shocks to get the rear end up for “the look.” For a teenaged kid, this wasstart of one street machine!
These are the old-style water transfers “decals” and not modern stickers. Gordie firststarted collecting these when he first built the car back in the early 1970s.
Neptune Green was the color of the car when Gordie purchased it, and once he installed the V8 engine and got everything up and running, the attention went to the body and doing a colorchange using authentic 1955 Chevrolet hues. A pair of brand-new front fenderswere bought using a buddy’s body shop price discount ($42.00 each) as theoriginals had some spots of rust near the headlights, a typical place forcorrosion on these cars.
Muchof the car today is in the same condition as when Gordie built the car back in the early 1970s,although some improvements (like a dose of NOS chrome and an updated MSDdistributor) have been added over the years. Gordie decided on the type of car he wanted whenhe was a kid in the late 1960s, and he kept it true to form and resistedmodernizing it to “Pro Street” or other more contemporary themes over theyears.
