1955 Chevy Bel Air With Original 265ci Small-Block Chevy And Powerglide Transmission

At first glance, a stock 1955 Chevy Bel Air with a 256ci small-block Chevy and two-speed Powerglide transmission might not seem all that “hot roddy,” but that’s not the case. Tri-Five Chevys were the first passenger cars to be delivered with GM’s new small-block V-8 (and we all know how well that worked out for the hot-rodding community). Maybe the 1955 Chevy Bel Air wasn’t immediately seen as an icon of performance and hot rodding, but boy is it now!

Sometimes it’s fun to get a glimpse into what cars were like back in the day, and Joe Pollard’s Tri-Five Chevy is the perfect specimen. “My uncle bought the car from the original owner, and he sold it to my father in the early ’70s for $125,” said Joe as he began telling us of the ’55 Chevy’s history. For about a decade, the Bel Air sat at his great-grandmother’s house until she passed away. Then Joe’s parents brought it to their house in Santa Rosa, California.

“My mother drove it daily for a few years,” Joe remembers, “but the lack of power steering and a few other issues made the car somewhat unreliable.” Again, it sat for a few more years until Joe was in high school and about to get his driver’s license. “My dad and I decided to rebuild the motor and get the car running again. I emptied my bank account to pay for the rebuild,” Joe told us. The rebuild entailed getting the original block bored, the crank turned, installing new pistons and rods, and replacing the original cracked cylinder heads with a set from a newer 283ci small-block Chevy. While they were in there, Joe and his father also tossed in a hotter Isky camshaft and replaced the two-barrel carb with a four-barrel carb and intake.

“I drove the car as a senior in high school,” Joe says, “and for two years at the local junior college,” where, coincidentally, the original owner of the 1955 Chevy was a professor. Then Joe moved away to finish his college career, leaving the Tri-Five Chevy with his father who drove it occasionally.

The next phase of life for the ’55 came in the early 1990s when Joe’s father began a restoration on the car with all new paint, reworked trim, re-chromed bumpers, and new interior.

“Years later, after finishing school, getting a job, getting married, and buying a house with a garage, I asked my father if I could have the car. He always said ‘someday,'” Joe remembers. Someday seemed to never come—until Joe’s 50th birthday. “My father brought the car to my house in Redding, California, in the middle of the night before my birthday and left the car in a neighbor’s garage.” The next morning, his neighbor had rolled the Bel Air out in front of Joe’s house to complete the surprise.

Since then, Joe has replaced a few things here and there to keep the 1955 Chevy on the road, but he has kept as many of the original parts as possible. To this day, Joe tells us that he “drives the car mostly on weekends when the weather is nice.” He also added, “My wife loves going with me to get coffee on Sunday mornings.” Joe’s ’55 might not be a rip-snorting, big-block-powered muscle car, but it is a great reminder of the car that started a movement with its modest 265ci small-block Chevy and Powerglide transmission under the hood.