VCCA Home Forums GENERAL DISCUSSION General Discussions Trying to Find a Specific 1950

I ran into a gentleman at a car show the other day and we started talking about 1950 Chevrolets. He said that he would love to locate his father's 1950 Chevrolet. I asked his for more specific information as to when the car sold, body style and color. He thought it was a hardtop but was not sure. The car was bought in Trumbull County Ohio (northeast Ohio) and was moved to somewhere in Pennsylvania. He is looking for the bill of sale to give me some addition information. I know this is pretty thin on information, but I thought I might him out.

It is challenging to track down a specific car after many years. A key limitation is that most states and counties do not have digitized records in a database that can be searched for vehicles that old. If it is still registered today there would be a record.

It really is almost like a missing person search. You have to keep looking for people who owned or were acquainted with the car owner. They might know what happened to the car.

I was hoping that a club member in Pennsylvania might know about a car that came from Ohio. I'm still waiting for more specific information from the person who asked me.

I suggest contacting the local library and ask for the Chevy dealerships in the area at that time. If the dealership is still around they still might have some records of the sale of the car. You then can go to the local DMV and see if there was any activity on the car.

Does your friend know the correct model description of the car (e.g Fleetline Deluxe 4-door)? If not, would he be able to identify the car by looking at pictures in a book (60 Years of Chevrolet)? That would then give everyone a starting point by being able to figure out the first few numbers of the serial code.

Hawkeye, you may suggest to your friend to try chat with some guys from the Inliner's club/group. My 50 came from up toward Pa. and had an Inliners decal on one of the side window. I've never tried to contact any of them but it may help your friend if he as any info at all.......who knows, someone may have a 50 with the dealer script on the rear deck lid?!

As of today, this person has not contacted me with any additional information to help him find the car. I will send him another e-mail and hopefully he will tell me what he wants to do. He seemed genuinely interested at the time.

A classic example of “suspect or prospect”.

I learned about this from the owner of a small manufacturing company that made conveyors and feeders for diary farms. One of their major marketing and sales tools was participating in various farm shows. He always said that his greatest challenge was trying to determine if the person was a true potential customer (a prospect) or just someone “kicking the tires” (a suspect).

In this scenario the enthusiasm of the moment displayed at a car show quickly disappears as life returns to normal. This is a very common experience. In fact I cannot remember when one of these situations did develop beyond the event.