San Jose Street Sighting - 1930 Chevrolet 3 Window Coupe

If you go to your average car show, you'd think that every car made circa 1930 was a Ford. But that's not true. Ford built a ridiculous number of Model As during this time, but Chevrolet was just as big a player in the market. It's true that Ford built a good half million more cars in 1930 than Chevy, a reversal from two years before when Chevy outsold Ford by half a million. The two rivals seesawed back and forth like this for years, even the now vaunted '32 Ford outsold by 50 percent by Chevrolet. Where the heck did all the Chevys from this era go?

Well, here's one.

I've found a number of feature cars on this block in the past. It's a place where for-sale vehicles are often parked and once in a blue moon they leave something cool there. Other spottings here include a 1937 Ford Touring Sedan and a 1972 Chevy El Camino.

This 1930 Chevy is a standard 3-window coupe with a trunk. A Sport Coupe with a rumble seat was also available at extra cost. This one has been built into a hot rod, I'm guessing probably at some point in the 1980s and then neglected. It wears a Pro Street style of stance with huge fat rear tires and little skinny front ones. It rides on Jegs SSR wheels with side exit exhaust pipes and non-stock skimpy black bumpers. Inside there's a full complement of gauges and what looks like a drag automatic shifter. I can only guess what's under the hood, but it's probably safe to say that this one was built to do quarter mile launches once upon a time. I'd say the paint job is probably thirty or more years old.

As of this writing it's been a year and a half since I last saw this car. I'm curious what happened to it. Perhaps someone bought it to rehabilitate or restore. This seems to be a common style and stance for these cars, at least among older builds that often go with Weld Pro Stars or a similar wheel like the Jegs SSR, in place of the original artillery style solid steel wheels or optional wires. It would be nice to see this one given proper attention to address the rust and generally worn appearance. Given how uncommon these cars have become, it's good to see one existing at all.


Photographed November 2016