1951 Chevrolet Styleline De Luxe
The 1951 Chevrolet Styleline De Luxe was the car America actually bought. Not the Bel Air, not the convertible, not the fastback. The plain-looki...
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The 1951 Chevrolet: A Complete Model Guide
When a 1951 Chevrolet was the family car, it did not shout for attention. It just showed up every morning, started on the first pull of the choke, and carried f...
Every 1951 body style
1951 Chevrolet Styleline Special
The 1951 Chevrolet Styleline Special is the car most people mean when they picture a plain old 1951 Chevy. No stainless spear down the fender, no...
1951 Chevrolet Bel Air
The 1951 Chevrolet Bel Air is the car that brought the hardtop down to where working people could buy one. Roll all four windows down and there i...
1951 Chevrolet Fleetline De Luxe
The 1951 Chevrolet Fleetline De Luxe is the fastback with the good trim on it, and to my eye it is the best looking car Chevrolet built in that w...
1951 Chevrolet Fleetline Special
The 1951 Chevrolet Fleetline Special is the fastback that most folks picture when they think of a postwar Chevy sliding down Main Street. Long sl...
1951 Chevrolet Coupe
Somebody says 1951 Chevrolet coupe and I still have to ask which one. Chevrolet built four cars that year that a reasonable person would call a c...
1951 Chevrolet De Luxe Coupe
De Luxe coupe is a phrase that comes off an old dealer advertisement rather than off a factory chart, which is why it causes so much trouble in c...
1951 Chevrolet Styleline De Luxe Sport Coupe
The 1951 Chevrolet Styleline Sport Coupe is one of those cars that gets misunderstood, mostly because of its name. Folks hear "sport coupe" and p...
1951 Chevrolet Styleline Business Coupe
The 1951 Chevrolet business coupe is one of those cars that most people walk right past at a show without knowing what they are looking at. It si...
1951 Chevrolet Sedan
Almost every 1951 Chevrolet was a sedan. Chevrolet built about 1.25 million cars that year and roughly 980,000 of them had a fixed post, four sea...
1951 Chevrolet Hardtop
Chevrolet built exactly one hardtop in 1951 and it was called the Bel Air. That is the whole answer, and it saves a lot of time when a listing sa...
1951 Chevrolet Fastback
The fastback 1951 Chevrolet is the Fleetline, and 1951 is the year to pay attention to, because it is the last one that makes any sense. After 19...
1951 Chevrolet Convertible
The 1951 Chevrolet convertible is the rarest car in the range and always was. Chevrolet built 20,172 of them that year against better than 380,00...
1951 Chevrolet Station Wagon
The 1951 Chevrolet station wagon was the most expensive car Chevrolet sold that year. Not the convertible, not the Bel Air hardtop. The wagon, at...
The 1951 Chevrolet Custom
More 1951 Chevrolets have been modified than restored. That is not a complaint, it is arithmetic: Chevrolet built well over a million cars that y...
1951 Chevrolet Models
A surprising share of the people searching for a 1951 Chevrolet are looking for a car that did not exist. Not because they are careless, but beca...
Trucks and commercial bodies
1951 Chevrolet Trucks
The 1951 Chevrolet truck is the one year of the Advance Design run that you can identify from across a field, and most people who own one do not...
The 1951 Chevrolet 3100
The 3100 is the half ton. It is the truck almost everybody means when they say Advance Design, the one on the calendar and in the film, and in 19...
1951 Chevrolet 5 Window Pickup
A 1951 Chevrolet five window pickup is not a different truck from a 1951 Chevrolet pickup. It is the same truck with an option box ticked, and th...
1951 Chevrolet 3600
The 3600 is the three-quarter ton truck, and it is the one I tell people to buy. Same cab, same nose, same six, same year-specific door details a...
1951 Chevrolet 3800
The 3800 is the one ton, the heaviest of the three light Advance Design chassis, and it is the truck people walk past at shows on their way to th...
1951 Chevrolet Panel Truck
A panel truck is a pickup with the bed replaced by a closed steel box, and in 1951 Chevrolet would sell you one on the half-ton chassis or the on...
1951 Chevrolet Suburban
Long before anybody used the phrase sport utility vehicle, Chevrolet was selling one. The Carryall Suburban is a panel truck with windows cut int...
1951 Chevrolet Sedan Delivery
A sedan delivery is a car from the windshield forward and a delivery van from the doors back. Chevrolet built them for decades, and the 1951 is t...
1951 Chevrolet Truck Parts
The reason people restore Advance Design trucks rather than something rarer is that you can buy almost everything. Cab sheet metal, fenders, runn...
1951 Chevrolet Truck Restoration
An Advance Design truck is one of the easiest old vehicles in the world to restore and one of the easiest to get wrong, and the two facts have th...
Specifications & restoration
1951 Chevrolet Specifications
People ask me for the numbers on a 1951 Chevrolet more than anything else. What does it weigh, how long is the frame, what did the six make, what...
1951 Chevrolet Engines: The Stovebolt Six
The 1951 Chevrolet engine was a valve-in-head inline six, the engine folks came to call the Stovebolt, and it is the heart of what makes these ca...
1951 Chevrolet Factory Body Colors
The 1951 Chevrolet body colors were a modest, tasteful set of factory paints, mostly quiet grays, greens, blues, and maroons with a few brighter...
1951 Chevrolet Interiors
The 1951 Chevrolet interior was a plain, honest cabin built for a family car, and that is exactly what makes it worth getting right in a restorat...
1951 Chevrolet Passenger Car Features
Chevrolet did not redesign the car for 1951. It went through it. The 1949 body was only two years old and it had been a hit, so what the 1951 buy...
1951 Chevrolet Factory Accessories
The 1951 Chevrolet accessories were where a plain family car turned into the car a buyer actually wanted. A base Chevrolet in 1951 left the facto...
1951 Chevrolet Wiring Diagram Explained
A wiring diagram is the map that keeps a 70-year-old car honest. When the taillights quit or the horn goes dead on a Sunday drive, the factory di...
1951 Chevrolet Restoration Guide
A 1951 Chevrolet restoration is one of the friendlier old-car projects a person can take on in a home garage, and I say that after decades of doi...
The 1951 Chevrolet Chassis
Everybody photographs the grille. Nobody photographs the frame. Then the car gets bought, driven fifteen miles, and the new owner discovers that...
1951 Chevrolet Identification
Somebody is standing in a barn with a torch, looking at a black sedan, and the question is not whether it is a Chevrolet. The question is which o...
The Chevy Powerglide
The Powerglide is the reason half the arguments about 1951 Chevrolets happen. It is the option that decides which engine the car has, which serie...
The Chevy 235 Engine
The Chevrolet 235 six is one of those engines everybody praises without asking which one they mean. There are two very different 235s, and the di...
How to Identify a Chevy 235 Engine
Somebody sells you a car and says it has a 235 in it. Maybe it does. The 216 and the 235 look close enough from the driver's seat that plenty of...
Rebuilding a Chevy 235
A Chevy 235 is one of the friendlier engines to rebuild in a home garage. Six cylinders in a row, a cast iron block you can lean over, no interfe...
6 Volt to 12 Volt Conversion
The six volt to twelve volt conversion is the most argued-about job on an early Chevrolet, and most of the argument is between people who have ne...
Buying and selling
1951 Chevrolet Cars and Trucks for Sale
A 1951 Chevrolet is one of the few genuine postwar classics you can still buy without a second mortgage, and that is exactly why the good ones mo...
1951 Chevrolet Parts for Sale
Before you buy a 1951 Chevrolet, find out what the parts cost. That is backwards from how most people do it, and it is why so many of these cars...