My Favorite Ride mea culpa: The old Chevy from 2 weeks ago is a 210 Delray, not a Bel Air

In a column a few weeks ago, I went on and on about a 1954 two-tone Chevrolet. I'd seen the car and was nearly run over by it when I stepped into its path as the driver pulled out of the Assembly Hall parking lot one August morning. 

Frank Guzik was behind the wheel, and his wife Cindy in the passenger seat. They live up in the part of northern Indiana where majestic cars were manufactured a century ago — Auburns, Cords, Dusenbergs. If you've seen the 2013 remake of "The Great Gatsby," you know these fancy cars: a 1933 Auburn and a 1929 Dusenberg were featured, even though the F. Scott Fitzgerald novel the movie is based on was set in 1922.

Back to the Guzik's Chevrolet. Which, by the way, is not a Bel Air.

I misidentified their car two weeks ago. Darn it. I examined online photographs and  brochure artist depictions of 1954 Chevys — even got out a magnifying glass to get a closer look at taillights and chrome grilles — and was confident: Bel Air.

Nope, it's a 210 Delray.

My readers, thank goodness, do not let me get away with mistakes like this. I got an email the morning the column appeared in The Herald-Times. The subject line: "54 Bel Air 2 dr. hardtop picture needs fact checked!"

The writer was right.

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"Yes, it is a '54 Chevy, NOT a two-door hardtop, but rather a series 210 two-door sedan."

The unsigned email continued. Because with old cars, there often is a story behind the familiarity. "My first car was a '54 Chevy 210 four-door sedan, so I have been well acquainted with '54 Chevy models most of my 78 years. The Bel Air hardtop was 'pillarless' between the front and back side windows."

I should have noticed that. "Your pictured car definitely is 'pillared' and its side trim is that of series 210, not Bel Air series," he said.

The writer explained why there aren't many 1954 Chevrolets around: "Surviving '54 Chevys are few and far between because the quality of steel used in them did not age very well. One like you pictured is rare indeed. A college roommate had a true '54 Chevy Bel Air hardtop as his first car, and I was jealous of his good fortune to find such a classy ride."

I heard from a few others as well. "The photo jogged my memory," wrote Thomas Snell. "I remembered my folks having a car just like that for a short time when I was about 10 years old. I think the bottom color was cream as you described in the article and the top was a rusty brown color. I have often wondered what kind of car we had when I was young and I think this may be it."

He asked me to verify the color combination, since I had consulted a paint chart to identify the colors on that two-tone non-Bel Air as Fiesta Cream and Bermuda Green. It looks like the car Snell described from his childhood was Saddle Brown Poly over Shoreline Beige.

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I also heard from Ed Yess in Bedford. "Lots of nostalgia for me with this one. My mom had a '54 Bel Air, same color combination but with "three on the tree" transmission," he said. "It also had fender skirts that were a pain to remove for a flat tire. It was the car on which I learned to drive in 1959. They were indeed nice cars."

The Guziks' 210 Delray — no fender skirts! — is indeed nice. I found out more about it.

"A car like it was my parents' first car in 1954," Cindy said, "purchased in Kentucky." They kept it 12 years or so, then sold it while living in New Jersey. They bought another car like it in the 1980s in Texas, "and had it restored to the same colors as my dad‘s original car," she said.

She and husband inherited the Chevy, and had it refurbished two winters ago. "It had a full repaint job, new chrome, polished stainless trim, as well as a new interior put in," Cindy said.

They keep the 67-year-old classic on the road, and drive the car on regional tours with the Vintage Motor Car Club of America, known for its nationwide tours. They were on a tour with a few dozen other cars the day I spied the Chevrolet.

"It’s a great car to tour in," she said, "easy to drive, despite the fact it does not have power brakes or power steering."

Contact reporter Laura Lane at llane@heraldt.com, 812-331-4362 or 812-318-5967