When I first saw Nick’s 54 at the Starbird show in Tulsa, I was instantly drawn to it. Great chop, great stance and sinister black… Yeah, I’m in! A while later at the KKOA Leadsled Spectacular we got together to shoot the car for Car Kulture Deluxe Magazine, sadly after the article was turned in, the magazine closed. Here’s what I shot and wrote…
Once in awhile there’s a car at a show that just draws people’s attention. Typically it’s something new, that many of us haven’t seen before. This 1954 Chevrolet hard top owned by Nick Beard of Lockwood, MO definitely stopped a few people in their tracks in it’s debut year.
Beard first saw the car at a swap meet, and at first wasn’t fully interested in it. He changed his mind and asked a friend to go back and check to see if the car was there, but it was already gone. Not long afterwards, the car showed up on Facebook Marketplace and this time, a deal was struck before losing the chance again.
“I liked it because it had a decent interior in it and it was fairly straight. I already had a rolling frame on air built for a 49-54 that was just about finished. I didn’t know what I was going to put it under but it turned out that I got this car. I was going to just put this body on the frame and drive it as a low budget build. I was talking to Everett Reynolds and he said I HAD to chop the top.”
When you think of a chop on this body style car, the Moonglow comes to mind for most custom guys. Beard confessed that he didn’t really love the look of the Moonglow at the time, but he went and studied the historic car in photos and finally figured out that his initial feelings might not have been on the money. “So I sat and studied the top for about an hour and the next thing that I know, I have the top lowered 3 1/2”,” Beard related.
What had started with the idea of being a budget build that would be good enough to cruise and enjoy changed when that chop got done. Once he chopped it, Beard decided to build the car to the best of his abilities. With the chassis nearly finished and a pretty straight car to begin with, he got to work. The car had been wrecked in the past, the left quarter panel was welded on about 3” lower than it should have been, other than that and some minor rust in some floor braces, the car was good to go. The rest of the car just needed properly gapped.
Beyond the chop, there were some other custom touches applied to the body. The hood’s center seam was welded solid and peaked, the door handles shaved to clean the car up as well. At the rear of the car was a bit more work. Loving the lines of the rear quarter and wanting to do something that he hadn’t seen before, Beard shaved the tail lights and re-shaped the quarters. He used 5” exhaust tubing, cut it in half and kept pie cutting it until it had the same radius as the trunk lid. Then he welded it on the quarters to smooth the body lines through the tail light area.
Feeling that the stock 54 rear bumper was kind of boring he decided to go with a stock 55 bumper. The 55 unit was widened and the bumper guards were modified to fit some new tail lights. Knowing that some go through the process of molding whole new tail lights to do this, Beard had an idea to use some red acrylic brakes lights designed to go in a rear spreader bar on a 32 Ford. After reshaping the lenses with a flap disc to fit the bumper guards better and re-polishing them back to perfection, they were attached back to the bumper guards.
Wanting a car that he could drive anytime anywhere Beard chose an early 2000’s Camaro LS1 and 4L60E transmission to provide the motivation for the 54. The original transmission hump was widened to give the larger transmission a bit more room but retain a stock style look to the floors. Some small block Chevy valve covers were modified to fit on the LS1 to give it a bit more nostalgic look.
The frame that Beard has started even before he got this car has a Mustang II style front suspension but Beard designed his own crossmember and bag mounts for the 49-54 Chevy. Using the Mustang II control arms means that he can use any of the readily available MII brake set ups on the market, without having to source hard to find parts. In the rear, he went with a custom built trailing arm 2 link set up. Once the 54 was purchased, he finished up the frame and had it powder coated before mounting the body on it.
Talking about the frame Beard says, “On these cars you can lay the frame but still have about a 1” gap between your rockers and the ground. I cut the “belly” out of the middle of the frame so that the rockers would lay with the frame.” The ride height of the bag systems is managed by an Airlift controller with air provided by dual ViAir 485 compressors.
With the lengthened and flush mounted fender skirts on the rear of the car, there wasn’t much of the tire left visible, which meant that finding the Cadillac hub caps just got easier by half since he only needed two. At the time Beard cousin’t find any reproductions available so one day while at his friend Bill Daniel’s house Beard told Daniel what he was looking for. Daniel first tried to talk Beard into some different caps, but Beard’s mind was made up on what he wanted, Caddy caps with bullet centers. While explaining that he didn’t really want to sell any of his Caddy caps, Daniel showed Beard that he “had some over here, and some more over there…”
Finally as Beard was ready to leave Daniel said “those hub caps are bringing a lot of money these days…” Beard shot a price to Daniel and he agreed to let go of two of them.
Upholstery done by someone who doesn’t really call themselves a custom upholstery person. When he first showed up with the seats and door panels she said “you have the wrong person, I don’t really do that” But Beard had faith that she could do it and feels that it turned out awesome. The dash is now sporting new VHX gauges from Dakota Digital to keep track of all of the vitals of the LS1.
When the car was painted, the lace on the roof wasn’t originally in the plan. But after finding a section of lace in his stash that wasn’t flowery, Beard laid it out in purple and pink to add some pop to the roof of the car.
“I drive it a lot, that’s the only real problem with having a nice car is that it’s always dirty. I take it to lunch and take my kid to school in it. It’s the coolest car in the drop off line for sure. I keep it sitting pretty low and the back end drags in parking lots from time to time, I just have to explain to people ‘that’s fine, it was designed to do it’.”
After getting the car in the fall of 2022 and getting right to work, the car debuted at the 2023 Darryl Starbird Show in Tulsa, OK in February of 2023. The car was also shown in 2023 at the KKOA Leadsled Spectacular in Salina, KS and a couple of other shows.
So far Beard is happy with where the car’s at but plans to perfect a couple of small things that most people wouldn’t notice and hopes to take it back to Starbird’s next year and also to the Custom Car Revival in Indianapolis. The Starbird show was good to Beard and the car, the show usually works to make sure that cars only get one award but Beard ended up with three awards.
“When it’s Darryl Starbird, Gene Winfield and Murpho that pick your car, they bend the rules a bit, who’s going to tell them no?” Beard said. Murpho commissioned this feature article on the spot at the show. Also while at the show Beard had the car pinstriped, unfortunately all of Beard’s previous pinstripes on different cars were done by his friend Ron Myers, who passed a couple of years ago. One of Myers’ fellow stripers was tasked with adding the stripes and the name on the trunk.
The car is named Hallie Mae after Beard’s daughter who tragically passed away shortly before Beard bought the car. Hallie loved pink & purple, so the color choices on the roof lace & pinstriping were inspired by her and the car named in her honor.
Thanks Nick for letting me document the car and I’ll forever wish we could have gotten it in a magazine. If any of you want to see the full gallery, just click on any of the photos to go see all of the photos.
Buy a print (click on the image for the shopping cart) if you like a photo!
See you at a show,
Royboy
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