Alameda Street Sighting - 1955 Chevrolet Two-Ten

Picture yourself at a car show. What do you most expect to see there? If you said a plethora of 1955-1957 "Tri-Five" Chevys, most of them sitting on chrome five-spoke custom wheels, then we probably go to the same car shows. Or maybe we don't, because the Tri-Five Chevy is an extremely popular choice for classic car owners. Don't get me wrong, it's popular because it's a beautiful car, a solid design with room under the hood for some cookie-cutter GM small block crate V8 and they look great with American Racing Torq-Thrust or Torq-Thrust II wheels. They usually end up painted black-and-white or red-and-white or blue-and-white or something-else-and-white. They look really nice all done up. I've become so bored of Tri-Five Chevys, I typically walk right past them at shows unless an owner has actually done something unique with theirs.

That said, I freaking love this one. Why? Because it's not a cookie-cutter custom. It's not even a Bel Air. Everyone loves the higher-trim Bel Air hardtops and convertibles and they go for a lot of money. There's the problem, though. Everyone saved the Bel Airs and let the base 150s and mid-range 210s go to scrap. The Bel Air is more showy, with more chrome and usually fancier options and and bigger engines and two-tone paint schemes. This sedate 210 has just enough chrome trim to reflect '50s style. It isn't a hardtop coupe, it's a two-door sedan. I actually really like the pillared cars, including the pillared four-doors. This car just looks right to me in every way. It's a beautiful color with a perfect body and perfect chrome, appears to be all stock with clean whitewall tires and full chrome hubcaps with all the detailing intact. It's likely a lovingly restored car equipped with some factory options to class it up. This really is one of my favorite '55 Chevys I've ever seen. It blows the other '55 I've featured, a generic red and white Bel Air convertible on Torq-Thrust IIs, completely out of the water. It is, like the license plate says, a clean '55.

I was driving through Alameda with friends, looking for the Pacific Pinball Museum when we stumbled upon this car. I stopped and quickly photographed the Chevy in the evening sunlight. I've stayed away from Alameda for blog sightings previously, if only because I considered it the domain of Murilee Martin's "Down on the Street" series, formerly of Jalopnik and now of The Truth About Cars. Murilee was the one who got me interested in blogging about parked cars in the first place, and photographed over 500 old and interesting cars in Alameda alone. But since he moved out of state, I figure whatever I find on 'The Island that Rust Forgot' is fair game now.