Red over white, and a plate that reads GLENN 55 so there is no mistaking the year. A 1955 Chevrolet Bel Air sits at the front of the lot with the low sun firing straight through the windshield, and the chrome is doing most of the work. This is the first of the Tri-Five Chevys, the 1955, 1956 and 1957 cars that a lot of people will tell you are the best-looking things Detroit ever built. Stand in front of this one in a Toronto parking lot and it is hard to argue.
The Grille Is the Whole Year
You can date one of these from fifty feet, because the grille only looks like this for a single year. A wide chrome egg-crate, and the story goes that Chevrolet’s stylists were looking at Ferrari when they drew it, with the gold V and the Bel Air script sitting above. The body is all straight lines and flat panels, the shoebox shape that finally threw out the bulgy pre-war look. I shot it head-on and low so the grille and the front bumper filled the bottom of the frame.
What a 1955 Chevrolet Bel Air Does in a Sunburst
I caught this one in the best ten minutes of the evening. The sun dropped behind the plaza and burst into a hard star right over the roof, and the red paint went molten where it caught the light and almost black where it did not. That is the frame I was waiting for. A two-tone car like this needs that kind of light to separate the red body from the white roof, otherwise it just reads as one bright shape. I worked the front three-quarter straight into the sun, then the rear three-quarter with the light raking across the fins and the chrome.
Hood Up, White Interior, the First Small-Block
The owner had the hood up most of the night, which I like, because on this car the engine is part of the story. 1955 is the year Chevrolet introduced the 265 small-block V8, the engine that more or less made the company’s reputation for the next fifty years. Lean in and the interior is just as much of a period piece, white seats and that wide dash with the big round speedometer and the Bel Air name across it. None of it is hidden. People who bring these cars out want you to look.
I shoot all of this on the Leica Q3, available light only, no flash, nothing on the car touched or moved. The fixed 28mm keeps me close enough for the grille badge and the GLENN 55 plate and far enough to keep the long body straight. This is its own set, this 1955 Chevrolet Bel Air on its own, alongside the other classic cars I keep finding at these Monday-night meets in Richmond Hill, in the north end of the Greater Toronto Area.
Thanks for looking!
