List of Chevrolets from the 1940s

On an idle whim, I?m trying to remember what car my parents owned when we lived in the USA many years ago.

They had a black 4 door Chevy, not too dissimilar to a Morris Minor on steroids. Pretty sure it was a 1940s model. The closest I can find to it is the Fleetline.

It has many features that I remember(ish) one of them being it had an odd gearbox that you couldn?t shift until the engine was running. I remember this as the handbrake was poor so my parents would leave it in gear when parking, and would have to hold the clutch down when starting. Not normally a problem unless they had parked on a slope, when they?d have to press the brake down too to stop it rolling.

Of course as was typical of engines of this era, a bit of throttle jiggling was often needed too to start it and just to complicate matter, it had a floor starting pedal. ;-). As children we were often required to press the starter.

This all kind of fits with the vacuum assisted gear change on some Fleetline models.

The thing is, my sister reminded me that it had running boards and the Fleetline doesn?t and I?m darned if I can find an image that looks right AND mentions the gearbox options.

I?ve looked at numerous wiki pages and other sites listings Chevys but with no luck.

Essential features, bulbous rounded body a la Morris Minor, running boards, weird (non-auto) gearbox.

Any car detectives out there who fancy a challenge? ;-)

Tim