Automotif DLVII...

Few cars are as iconic as the classic "Tri-Five" Chevies, the full-size models from Chevrolet in '55, '56, '57. While the Bel Air, especially in its 1957 coupe form, gets all the ink, the 150 and 210 were the most numerous.

The 150 was largely intended for fleet sales and quite spartan, but the 210 was basically the standard variant; the Bel Air was as deluxe a Chevy as you could buy in those days, but most of its options could also be had on a 210.

The 210 could be had with either the 235 cubic inch "Blue Flame" OHV inline six, rated at 140 SAE gross horsepower, or the (still relatively new) OHV small block "Turbo-Fire" V-8 in one of three states of tune. The base V-8 had a 2-barrel carburetor and 170 horsepower, or a buyer could opt for the 205 horsepower single 4-barrel "Power Pack" or the dual-quad 225-horse "Super Power Pack", complete with a lumpy Duntov cam.

Road & Track tested a 1956 Chevy 210 2-door with a 205 horse Power Pack V-8, a three-on-the-tree manual transmission, and 3.55:1 rear end and it returned a 9.0 zero-to-sixty time and dispatched the quarter in 16.6 seconds at eighty miles per hour. The 4-bbl small block would push the 3,725 pound shoebox all the way to 111 miles per hour before being defeated by the built-in headwind.

Price as tested was $2,064, which comes to just short of twenty-four grand in constant dollars.

This Calypso Cream 1956 210 pillared sedan would have been somewhat slower, and was photographed in September of 2021 using a Hasselblad Lunar and Sony Zeiss Vario-Tessar T* 16-70mm f/4 OSS zoom lens.