Using Carefully Curated Parts to Instill a ’60s Style Vibe Into a 1956 Chevy High School Dream Car
For Bill Barranco, the Goodguys All American Get-Together serves as an anniversary of sorts, as this is the very show that brought him together with his 1956 Chevy. In fact, it was 22 years ago to the day of the event that Bill bought the 150-series sedan from Jim Aust, who at the time was the editor of the Goodguys Gazette!
Bill found the old Chevy parked in a back corner of the Alameda County Fairgrounds, donned in primer, shredded seats, sans all the glass, and with a hazy six-cylinder engine and three-speed manual for power. The car wasn’t for sale but upon examining it, Bill exclaimed to his girlfriend, “This is MY car!”
“No, it is not,” was her reply.
“You don’t understand! This is my car,” Bill explained, and left his business card on the weathered seat.
At this point, it is important to note that Bill had always had a thing for the middle Tri-Five Chevy. He sketched 1956 Chevy cars throughout high school and has had other Tri-Fives, but the ’56 has always been his favorite. He feels they are a refinement of the ’55.
Turns out, Bill was right about the Chevy being his, as the next day he received a call from Jim and after a bit of discussion about the car, which happened to be built at the nearby Oakland Chevrolet plant, Jim surrendered the title, and Bill had the car he’d wanted to build since high school.
As a former Detroit automotive designer and auto journalist, Bill already had a vision for the ’56. He planned a few very subtle mods to the body and wanted to finish the car as if it was built in the late-’60s when hot rodders searched salvage yards for parts rather than skim through catalogs and websites full of shiny new aftermarket components.
“I wanted the car to be built as if you were in high school in 1969,” Bill said. “That is, if you had the money to build it in high school!”
To achieve his goal, Bill planned to use parts from older cars (with a few exceptions). In fact, most of the parts Bill used were swap meet scores or from friends.
This use of old parts comes to the forefront when you open the doors and are greeted by a ’60 Corvette steering wheel and bucket seats from a ’64 Impala, plus the Impala rear seat with its distinctive speaker grille divider. The center console came from a ’63 Impala and sports a vintage Pontiac vacuum gauge on its tip. Bill worked in a little race flair on the door panels with dimple-die-accentuated sheet metal separated by Chevy 210 exterior trim pieces. The icing on the cake, or dashboard in this case, is the autograph from Candy Clark, who played Debbie Dunham (Toad’s girl) in the classic film “American Graffiti.”
Another example of recycling vintage parts lies under the hood, as Bill lucked upon a complete, 425-horsepower 409 that was pulled from a ’63 Impala. Bill enlisted NASCAR engine builder Ted Yamashiro at Top of the Hill to rebuild the vintage engine with fresh internals, a rumbly Isky cam, bigger valves, and a vintage Offenhauser intake topped with a pair of Edelbrock carbs and finned valve covers. One of the few modern parts Bill installed was a Tremec five-speed transmission, which is disguised with a classic 8-ball shift knob atop a Hurst shifter.
Most people this deep into a body-off build would have opted for a completely new chassis, but not Bill. The original frame was retained and with the help of Performance Fabrication, the front suspension was rebuilt, heavy duty shocks and coils were added, and the sloppy, slow steering box was upgraded with a quick-ratio unit from an early Camaro. A Ford 9-inch axle was narrowed 3-inches, fitted with 3.50:1 gears, then mounted on leaf springs complemented with a set of traction bars. Drum brakes from a ’68 Impala were used in the back with S10 truck discs up front.
Bill had always envisioned white steel wheels with stock ’55 Chevy hubcaps for the project, though he did opt for 17-inch versions with a 10-inch-wide pair in the rear wrapped in 255/60 Nitto tread. And no, he didn’t mini-tub the body, as this beefy wheel-and-tire combination was perfected through careful measuring and math.
As for those subtle body mods, you need to look close at the sharpened peak on top of the front fenders, which corresponds to similar crease lines under the famous 1956 Chevy taillamp assemblies. To help fit the big tire combo under the rear quarters, there was a slight variation made to the lower front corner of each rear wheel well, which led to restrained mods to the wheel well arches, as well. Tri-Five fans will certainly notice the one-piece California bumpers, but Bill knocked off the front and rear bumper guards to follow his less-is-more approach to the overall design of the car.
As for the color, Bill holds the specific recipe close to his chest, but he did let on that it was a factory shade used on a certain ’50s-era German sports car. Rick Silva from America Rod and Custom applied the color and it seems perfect for the style and goal Bill was after. Note the factory green tinted glass and lack of the factory hockey stick trim that is usually below the rear side window – both add to the subtle and clean overall appearance.
One of the coolest features about Bill’s 1956 Chevy is that the car gets driven! In fact, upon hearing that he was chosen as both our Feature Pick as well as Roseville Rod & Custom’s Subtle Elegance award, he drove the car about 100 miles home Saturday night, only to make the drive back to Pleasanton through early morning rain to take part in the awards area on Sunday. In fact, Bill has racked up more than 17,000 miles on what he calls his “high school car.” Keep that odometer rolling, Bill!
