Collector Car Corner; Collector Car Mailbag, ‘56 Chevy and Old Tires

By Greg Zyla —

Reader loves his Chevrolets 

Q: Hi Greg. I love your car and truck columns and read them every week in the Wayne County Times. You really know your cars!

I’m 81 and a half years old, and I’ve had my share of Chevys. My first was a 1949 long sloping back with a three on the tree and a six banger for an engine. It was a real American style car, solid and dependable. Talk about gas mileage; I would get anywhere between 18 and 23 miles per gallon. Of course, it depended on how I was driving. I’ve also had Fords, Buicks, and once a Chrysler LeBaron. All were good cars, and I wish I had some of them back.

My question is about the 1956 Chevy, of which I enclosed two advertisements that tell two different stories. One ad says all came with a 205 horse 265 V8. However, the second ad says you could get one with 225 horsepower. One ad came from a June issue, and the one about the 225 horsepower came from the August issue of National Geographic.

I have a theory that maybe Chevy built too many 1956 models that they made a 225 horse version? I know of the six cylinders and later the 283 engine, which was my favorite over the 289 Fords.  

I remember, with the 289 Ford, living in the upstate New York Syracuse area, the 289 Ford distributor was in the front of the engine, and if I hit a snowstorm or a snow drift, the snow would get under the engine and hit the distributor and foul it out. I remember a few times I had to dry out the distributor cap and points. This was not an easy task; with my Ford, I didn’t look forward to snow and blizzards. As for the Chevy, the distributors were in the back of the engine. Back then, many feet of snow were normal. Signed, Chuck Rotach Jr., Wayne County, N.Y.

A: Chuck, thank you so much for your handwritten question and the two pages from the 1965 National Geographic magazine. As for your theory, Chevy didn’t make more 1956 models; they just upgraded the performance options. I’m sure you noticed in the August issue featuring the 225-horsepower engine, Chevrolet noted that it was doing great in NASCAR racing and also winning and setting records at the Pikes Peak Hill Climb. Further, by August, Chevy was already finishing up its 1957 design and also the introduction of the 283 engine.

As for the specific engine, 1956 was the second year of Chevy’s small-block overhead valve V8 that came in a 265 cubic inch design that debuted in 1955. The 225 horse engine arrived when Chevy decided to put two four-barrel carburetors on, resulting in 225 horses versus the single four-barrel carburetor’s 205 horses. This setup was a high-performance option, often referred to as the “Power Pack” or “Super Power Pack,” and was available in Chevrolet passenger cars and Corvettes.

There was also a 240-horsepower version of the 265, which was primarily a Corvette option and featured a more aggressive Duntov-style solid lifter camshaft.

As for your personal experiences driving in the snow, back in the 1950s there were many cars that would experience “fouled out” distributors that sat in the front of the engine design, and many from water in addition to snow. If you were driving it fast, when you hit a larger puddle, the designs back then just didn’t do a great job of diverting water away from that distributor.

Thanks again for the original advertisements and very kind words. It’s people like you that keep my column going, Chuck. And more importantly, you are buying the Wayne County Times each week to read my car stories.

Replace those old tires on your collector car

Q: Hi again Greg, it’s Jack Umholtz, whose 1969 Cutlass you featured in a September 2023 column. I have a car topic for the approaching season that you have touched on in the not too distant past, which I think may be important enough to revisit.

And that topic is old tires!

First, some background. My first car was a 1962 Chevrolet Impala, 327/250 HP, 3 on the tree. I sold it in 1973 to buy my ’69 Olds. Then, I found my original ’62 Impala in 1979, immediately bought it back, and put it back on the road in 1981. I still have that ’62, too. That’s the short backstory on the Chevy. (Photo attached.)

Anyway, in August 2024, my wife and I took the Chevy to the Wayside Inn above Shamokin for dinner. We were approaching Locust Gap on Route 901, running about 50 MPH when I heard a rumbling sound, and the steering wheel (non-power steering) started to shake. I held on tight, braked hard (non-power brakes), and got it off the road without any damage to us or the car.

The left-hand steering tire belts separated, causing the side-to-side wheel shake, and the tire went flat. We had the car taken home to Valley View via rollback and put in the garage. The next day, I put on the spare (the non-mag lug nuts for the spare were at home, not in the trunk!), went to the local tire shop, and put on five new tires, a new spare, too, as that one was pre-metric size HR70-14!

I asked the tire shop guys about the age of the tires, and after reading the date code, they told me the tires on the car were new in 1997. Yes, they were 27 year old tires that looked almost new. The age caught up to the service life of the tires.

Anyway, that’s why I’m sending you this email. We’re at the threshold of cruise and car show season, and just because the tires appear to be almost new does NOT mean they’re safe! I don’t even want to think of what the end result could have been for me if the tire had blown when I was running the car through the gears to clean out the carbon! Could easily have been disastrous for my wife, me, and the car!

So, edit, condense, do whatever you want with this email, but I think another tire age and related safety article might be in order.

I read your column each week in the Citizen Standard (found the one interesting a few weeks ago about the best buys on used SUVs (that’ll be my next move) and always find them interesting. Keep up the good writing. Jack Umholtz, Valley View, Pa. 

A: Jack, you just automatically achieved running a second column on the importance of making sure your collector car tires are safe. It’s something very important to collector car owners, as you found out when you safely brought your ’62 Impala to a safe stop when a very old tire let go. Thanks for your excellent “column.”

(Greg Zyla is a syndicated columnist who welcomes reader input and questions on collector cars, auto nostalgia, and motorsports at extramile_2000@yahoo.com or greg@gregzyla.com or snail mail to 303 Roosevelt St., Sayre, Pa. 18840.)