Attention, Lowriders: Continental Kits Are Available For Your ’49–54 Chevy

I’ve always felt kind of sorry for cars saddled with a continental kit—that upright spare-tire holder that protruded from the rear bumper of some larger cars, mostly in the 1950s, but made popular by the 1939 Lincoln Continental. Such a kit is a long, relatively heavy appendage attached to the back of a vehicle so you can—what? Have more room in the trunk, assuming you can load and unload it, reaching around and over your continental kit?

Of course, Wikipedia points out that the term continental kit “also describes a non-functional bulge stamped into the trunk lid or a cosmetic accessory to the rear of the car giving the impression of a spare tire mount,” which has never been an impression I’m interested in making.

That said, I’ve owned a few cars that could have conceivably made use of a continental kit, including a white-and-salmon 1957 Mercury, kin to the Mercury Turnpike Cruiser that was offered in ’57, and was the pace car for the Indianapolis 500. The Turnpike Cruiser was offered with a continental kit, which made the otherwise handsome car appear to be puckering at the rear.

(I do kind of wish my Mercury had the “Seat-O-Matic” feature, one of the first electric memory seats, which moved back and forth when the ignition was cycled on and off, but then, few of the electric features it did have worked, so I doubt my car’s seats would have done much moving on their own.)

This inevitably brings us to the company Chevys of the 40s, based in Vancouver, Washington. As the name suggests, it offers part for Chevys of the 1940s, and into the ’50s. Model year 1954, to be exact, since its catalog stops short of the 1955, ’56, and ’57 Chevys, for which there is a plethora of parts available elsewhere.

Which means Chevys of the 40s offers continental kits for the 1949–50 Chevrolet for $1935; the 1951–52 Chevrolet for $1936 (wonder what the extra dollar is for?), and the 1953–54 Chevrolet for $2098. Each kit comes with a chrome rim that covers the tread on your spare tire, but can either have a full face or an open face if you have a fifth wheel cover in your collection.

Let’s split the difference and look at the continental kit for the 1951–52 model. It takes “six to eight weeks for delivery,” which I take to mean the company is so surprised that someone actually wants one that it takes six to eight weeks to wake up the manufacturing division and have them build it.

OK, that was harsh. The continental kit really doesn’t look that bad, in a low-riderish sort of way. Googling this brings up multiple images of something else I didn’t know existed—custom continental kits for lowrider bicycles, which actually kind of makes sense. Or you can buy a whole chrome lowrider bike for $1179, with a continental kit, four mirrors, “gangster mufflers” with dual exhausts (!), and dual squeeze-bulb horns. I thought the whole point of building a lowrider bicycle was that you created it, not uncrated it, but what do I know?

Anyway, make up your own mind about whether or not you want to add a continental kit to your 1951–52 Chevrolet, which is a rather attractive, long-unappreciated model that I’m not sure is much enhanced by the addition. But then, I never knew I needed four mirrors or gangster mufflers on my 20-inch lowrider bicycle. Now that I have them, somebody just try to take them away! They will, eventually, here at the old folks’ home.

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