1946 Chevrolet Fleetmaster - The Chevrolet

I wish I could find my parents photo album that had black and white pictures of them on their honeymoon in 1950 up in the Adirondacks. In several of them, they were posed next to my father's gleaming, seemingly black although it was dark green, 1946 Chevrolet Fleetmaster. "The Chevrolet", as my mother referred to it, looked very much like this shredded '46 for sale on Marketplace in Baltimore, Maryland for $5,500. 

My parents lived in Jackson Heights, Queens after they returned from their honeymoon and I can only imagine what it must have been like for my father to slog that big heap around those tiny, traffic clogged streets. No power steering or brakes, and a manual transmission? Air conditioning? Please. At least it had hydraulic brakes but those were "brakes" in the loosest sense of the word. 

Many automobile conveyances and features we take for granted today, not to mention we don't even call "modern", trickled down to Chevrolet through General Motors pricier divisions in the early to mid 1950's. Chevrolet's first automatic transmission, the two-speed "Powerglide" debuted in 1950, power steering in 1953. What are referred to as "power brakes", they're not "powered" in the literal sense like many systems are today but rather vacuum assisted, debuted in 1955. Air conditioning as a factory installed option came out in 1955 as well, the Chevrolet V-8 came out in '55 too. 

So, by the time little old me came around in 1964, the development of the automobile had all but peaked. Subsequent upgrades all but refinement of what had already been invented. Think about it, name a single, significant automobile invention that came out after 1955. Go ahead and Google it. I'll wait here. 

Styling wise, beg to differ all you want, but as big a fan of GM styling as I am, through my foggy goggles, Harley Earl, the famous head of General Motors design and his team "lost their way" starting in the laste '30's and didn't get it back until their first post war models came out in 1949. GM styling really hitting its stride again from 1955 through 1972. 

Sorry, mom and dad, you may have looked great in those photos, but I've never been a fan of, "The Chevrolet". 

I'd love to see what someone does with this car, I want nothing to do with it for a number of reasons. Again, I don't care for cars of this era, and my personal ship has sailed on taking on hopeless basket cases; damn, she needs everything... Fifty--five hundred? Really?  Poster of the Facebook Marketplace ad says there's quite a bit of body filler in it, there's rust, carburetor is shot, 6-volt electrical system needs work, it leaks oil and on and on.