Inside the Chieftain's Hatch: Chevrolet 1503

well this is something a little bit different there was a point in a man's military career where you were no longer driving unit to unit in Germany in the fields relying on your open air Jeep cold no you you get to the point where you start to appreciate the luxuries of life where instead of the field you're going office to office meeting dignitaries and politicians where you need a little bit less leaf spring and a little bit more Chrome perhaps a little bit more thin at the back you want a Chevy well here it is the Chevy 1503 staff car 1957 what it basically is though it's not all that impressive at all it looks like a Bel Air no it's a Chevy 150 this was the bottom end of Chevrolet's brochure in 1957 and well I mean I guess tax uh um responsibility the government is not being too flash with it's the taxpayer's money I say it's money I guess both but basically if you know anything about Chevys which I don't that's what this is um the main reason I'm doing this is a I have a little bit of free time at the end of one of the days here filming and B well it's a military vehicle and it's something that we tend not to think about very much so what the hell let's see what we can find about this Chevy 150 as I'm alternating between the camera and the great Google so starting the tour of the vehicle well we have front and center the Chevrolet name plate in Chrome it is above the upper lip of the radiator grill frame which is Chrome we have the Chevrolet logo above the bottom half of the intake which is Chrome headlights of course one set each side no blackout markers here because everybody wants to know that the general is coming the headlights are framed with chrome moving further down past these little fog lights here which are also encased in Chrome are these Chrome protrusions the function of these protrusions it may surprise you I have no idea what it is it may surprise me too there's a little item here it performs absolutely no function I can think of whatsoever it is Chrome moving around to the side uh we do pass these little indents here which are not Chrome and I suspect are supposedly representative of extra intakes or vents or what have you the wheels tires are 7.5 by14 for ply 22 PSI with hub caps Chrome moving further back to the large curved windshield and I have to say I I've always wondered about car restorage where they get pieces like this because it's not as if you can go to your you know local Glass Factory and just have a sheet of glass not with this special curve on it it does have a chrome surround with either Chrome or stainless steel wipers my wife and I have always considered on occasion just getting a project car to to play with but every now and then I I suspect it's more than it's worth and more money than it's worth and all that besides all the easy ones have probably been done already moving further past if you didn't realize that you're looking at a Chevrolet from the front it does remind you on the side there is a little bit more Chrome in the windows and then of course you get to the door handle Chrome with lock I'll come back to the inside it's actually kind of interesting inside there is more Chrome of a purpose I cannot identify with black paint inside it to make it look more interesting I guess more Chrome here and a little bit more chrome trim that comes all the way to the side the tire pressures in the rear are the same 22 PSI and so we come to the tail of the vehicle I have read that the fins are supposedly inspired by the f86 fighter jet and you do note how they are Tastefully lined with just a little bit of Chrome com down to the tail light and then more of these Chrome protrusions whose purpose I cannot fathom except maybe they mash up with the Chrome protrusions at the front and and they work a bit like a bumper coming past the Chrome or stainless steel chrome bumper oh by the way the exhaust pipe underneath is silver colored and we come to again the Chevrolet logo and I'm not entirely sure this is an official marking at the 1957 I suspect that L joke the color by the way is 14087 gloss olive drab I haven't figured out if there's a trunk release so I have the key and we can have a quick look inside open simply enough I've seen bigger boots I've seen smaller boots uh do note of course that the spare tire takes up a substantial portion of it and I think that's a jack there is no Chrome on a spare tire you got to take the hub cap off the one anyway to undo the nuts so you just slap it on the spare wheel when you've put it on and fitted it if you were to come around the far side of the vehicle well it's just a mirror image of the opposite side there is no Wing mirror though on the right side actually now look at it there's no Wing mirror on the left side either so good luck reversing there is a rearview mirror something I haven't seen yet is where the hell is the fuel tank okay so now you get to uh Crow it's C all Grant you no they don't do that anymore so that done oh the fuel tank by by the way with 16 gallons time to open up the hood and see what's underneath it's an engine now if you're a general officer of sufficient Rank and stature to Warrant one of these to get around in uh obviously in the event of World War III breaking out you needed to get to your duty station right quick and opening up the hood the engine that results is a little disappointing looking really it does have a cool name it is the blue flame 140 other engines in the line up included the turbo fire and the superturbo fire uh both of which were V8s the blue flame however is a 2352 cubic inch inline valvin head 6cylinder cranks at 140 horsepower just like it says on the side on the plus side the engine bay is pretty empty and it gives us a good view of all the various different components such as the steering mechanism or the horn radiator uh it's a it's a very simple engine really you see when the army bought these things and I should say that the Air Force had them as well um they bought the Bas base version the only two options that the procurements officer ticked were for the cigarette lighter and the heater creatur Comforts not didn't even come with radios anyway so what else is in here so looking in the left side of the vehicle I mean nothing amazing obviously air filter steering system carburetor the inline six is very narrow you can look straight down because youve all this space to work around you can see the tie rod going across uh the belt the cooling system 17 quartz on the opposite side the distributor and spark plug seem to be your main point of interest and of course the batter is located on the side here as well so that done let's close it up I do see that there is no stand on This Hood it's just held in place by the spring which is convenient so anyway let's close it up and see what else we can find inside I've just noticed actually that the the top half of the headlights are covered with cro you only get a half a headlight not sure why if you look underneath the rear of the vehicle here you're going to see that the rear suspension is leaf springs there are all of three leaves to the spring the front axles though those are coils and you can also see the fuel tank under there and well the exhaust system so now we move to the crew compartment and of course the brass will be sitting in the right rear seat because that way he is closest to the foot path as the driver comes around and opens the door for him which does make the question if they called The Brass why didn't they put lots of brass trim instead of chrome oh this is decadently soft h little tight mind well the Commander's position I will say he's got a heck of a lot of head room for his big hat there is a dome light top Center here and uh it looks like his only controls while his accessory is an ashtray and communication with the driver is obviously verbal or I guess you could be close enough to strangle him if necessary the the interior is actually pretty much the lowest quality interior that Chevrolet offered so although it looks kind of okay at first it's a case of well the only reason you you find you think it's cool is because it's so different uh again base of the base for the Army uh otherwise close the door and the commander does have his door glass regulator handle look at that it regulated you can even lock the door the passenger seat is probably almost never used it is a bench seat not two individual seats so you could fit a couple of security guards in here next to the driver the flooring it looks initially like carpet it's not it's actually looks I think it's a vinyl or some sort of plastic like that there is the data plate on the dash now there is a sign elsewhere in this vehicle that states that only three original of these 1503 staff cars complete with data plate exist so there you go something I didn't know for the front door there are multiple Regulators so in addition to the chrome door handle you have a large Chrome regulator for the main door glass and then you have this little additional door glass held in place by a little safety interlock I guess which you can then wind open and close indeed All the Way Forward even to get a little bit of draft coming in should you so desire it is probably been many moons since the last time a car was fitted with one of those and then of course there is the driver's position with a you got a good Detroit lean going almost simple rearview mirror I don't see a dimming option sun shades I can't imagine that many owners of this sort of vehicle today would actually want to be driven around in the back but uh the gauges are very simple I have indicator uh indicators like of better term up top temperature speedometer and fuel tank underneath again that optional extra there were two of them one was the heater so you can select the heater from here or defrost inside or outside air that was unexpected um it would appear that the wipers are always live regardless of the position of the uh the ignition so somewhere in here aha is the other luxury extra the cigarette lighter of course when Chevrolet were designing these things they weren't talking about staff officers so they gave the cigarette lighter to the driver indicator stock on the left um your traditional three pedals uh the handbrake I discovered earlier and a simple glove compartment that well doesn't carry a hell of a lot but it's got something in there little air vent not really much else to say nice big steering wheel the gear shift again this was the base model vehicle and the base model 150 came with a three-speed not even an overdrive just a simple three-speed and there is nothing on here that tells me which gear is which after a little bit of playing around I did discover that reverse is back and up and the other three gears are down and forward I'm kind of curious what other switches come on now these are the lights yes I have no idea again lots of room up top for my head and hat and well that's it I just kind kind of wonder if you can move the seat back there is a never here so I guess you can yes you can you can move the seat forward and backwards it is currently in the rear most position which suits me fine so yeah a 57 Chevy so there you go a 1957 model 1503 staff car now like a lot of the other vehicles that I've been going over last while this one is available for sale in early May in the Rock Island auctions auction and uh if you come back towards the end of May I should have updated the text description in below this video as to just how much money this went for so final thought there have been quite a few debates over the army of today whether or not it's as good as the army of yesterday year and questions are you know should we increase the length of basic training should we change the Personnel system they have it all wrong what you really need is more Chrome irritating [Music] all right so we're going to come back up to the front and pop the hood oh by the way the fuel tank is 16 gallons there is actually a little bit of style so in as much as it goes in amongst the chrome door handle and chrome door glass window regulator and sort of cheap plastic here yeah this interesting little embroidery effect here anyway Hood or parking brake I do not often muck around with 1950s Vehicles he said I'm being straight up honest here I have no idea what I'm doing

Channel: The Chieftain

Views: 145,751

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Id: -Ev8YnpZezM

Length: 18min 42sec (1122 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 13 2019