Introducing the 1946 Chevy Stylemaster: Freedom Sure Feels Good, Doesn’t It? [Chevrolet Centennial, 1940s Edition]

Chevrolet is marking its 100th anniversary this week. To celebrate, we’re republishing two posts per day from our blog archives, each one plucked from a different decade of the marque’s long existence.

Meet the 1946 Chevrolet Stylemaster! She’s a homely sort, the sort of gal you might reluctantly take home to mother, but those plain sides hide a war-winning frame and the kind of stump-pulling horsepower (90 at 3300 rpm!) that helped Ike knock out Hitler and the Jerries. Like the rest of the ’46 Chevrolet lineup—a killer-diller group of gems like the Fleetmaster station wagon and Fleetline sedan—this new beauty’s just the thing to get America moving again. Your boy home from overseas and ready to climb back on the highway? Missus have a bun in the oven and need dependable transportation? Rationing’s over! You can get into a new ’46 Stylemaster Business Coupe for $1022! Any way you slice it, that’s better than what we had last year. Because last year, we had War. Capital-W War, folks. No new cars, just a whole lot of doing our duty.

A bit of buying advice from the peace-loving gang at Car and Driver: The Stylemaster’s no ducky shincracker in the two-lane two-step, but her Carter one-barrel fuel-mixer will still take you across our great nation without batting an eye. Hirohito would have killed (and he sure tried to!) for a cast-iron block this durable—those are solid valve lifters and four main bearings! This is a stable cruiser, just what Chevrolet was working on before Pearl Harbor, when Lady Liberty was sucker-punched out of her stompers.

Freedom. It sure feels good, doesn’t it?

–S. Procter Smith

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