For Sale: 1920 Chevrolet 490 Touring - $15,000 - Old Brooklyn, OH - Not Mine - Minor Price Reduction to $12,500: 8-5-2024.

[58L-Y8]

For Sale: 1920 Chevrolet 490 Touring - $15,000 - Old Brooklyn, OH - Minor Price Reduction to $12,500: 8-5-2024. See New Link Below.

1920 Chevrolet 490 Touring for sale by owner - Cleveland, OH - craigslist
Seller's Description:

1920 Chevrolet 490 Touring. Great original condition. Has new aluminum gas tank. Needs tune up. Backfires under load. Video can be seen on YouTube by searching 1920 Chevrolet 490 Touring and look for Blueline classics video. Possible partial trade. Make Offer.
Contact: Bob (216) 5-7-one-2-fifty-0
Copy and paste in your email: 21287f0e1ede3fcc8046497d2ec58d17@sale.craigslist.org

I have no personal interest or stake in the eventual sale of this 1920 Chevrolet 490 Touring.

Edited August 5 by 58L-Y8
Minor Price Reduction to $12,500: 8-5-2024. Crossed out the dead CL link, (see edit history)

[Leif in Calif]

VERY nice example of a an important car you rarely see today. Take it to the Cars and Coffee and leave it idling with the hood open...people love that exposed valve gear!  

[58L-Y8]

Still Available, Same Price $15,000: 4-12-2024.

1920 Chevrolet 490 Touring for sale by owner - Cleveland, OH - craigslist
Contact: Bob (216) 5-7-one-2-fifty-0
Copy and paste in your email: b4c225afc52637e5a1004abb4e9d1fc0@sale.craigslist.org

[wayne sheldon]

On 1/16/2024 at 7:20 AM, Leif in Calif said:

VERY nice example of a an important car you rarely see today. Take it to the Cars and Coffee and leave it idling with the hood open...people love that exposed valve gear!  

 

Leif, So right you are! Most people do not realize that the 490 Chevrolet was the model at which Chevrolet truly became a serious competitor to Ford's domination of the low price market. It was also one of the first car models which one could buy a sedan for the same price as a touring car, therefore speeding up the enclosed car's becoming more popular than open cars for most buyers.

Sadly, today, there aren't a lot of nicely restored 490 Chevrolet cars to be seen. They don't have the club support or parts availability that the Fords have, and that hurts their popularity. 

This is a very nice example (with a few things not quite correct?), and deserves a good home that will care for and drive it often! (Price might be a bit high? Although one could not restore another car for that amount!)

[WSP 530]

From where I’m sitting it looks like a bargain 

[JRA]

It seems a good 490, indeed! By the way, the original price tag of this model, $490, in today’s money worths about $15,000, the ad sale price!

My 1928 Chevrolet has the last version of this very successful engine, also good and reliable.

I was not aware of the model 490 sedan and touring bodies were sold at the same price. I have always credited the turning point to closed cars to the 1925 Essex coach, that was first car model/year that a closed body was cheaper than an open body. But maybe the 490 was already contributing to this shift in taste for closed cars.

 

 

 

 

Edited April 15 by JRA (see edit history)

[58L-Y8]

1 hour ago, JRA said:

"I was not aware of the 490 had sedan and touring bodies were sold at the same price. I have always credited the turning point to closed cars to the 1925 Essex coach, that was first car model/year that a closed body was cheaper than an open body. But maybe the 490 was already contributing to this shift in taste for closed cars."

Surveying The Standard Catalog of American Cars, 1805-1942, edited by B. R. Kimes and H. A. Clark for Chevrolet 490 and successor Superior for the years 1918 through 1928 shows that the open touring model was consistently priced less than either the four-door sedan or the two-door coach when it joined the model selection for 1923.  Although the two door coach prices were reduced close to those for the roadster or touring, they aren't listed at parity.  This doesn't preclude the possibility that large dealers ran sales of bargain-priced two door coaches to compete with Ford and Essex.   Even Ford didn't reach price parity for its touring and coach for the late Model T years.   

 

Hudson, in conjunction with both Budd for metal stamping and Briggs for the wood frame structure, developed a modular method to build the two-door coach bodies which allowed them to reduce the prices for each to that 'sweet spot' where the customer could afford to select the body style that best fulfilled their needs.  It truly was a breakthrough for the American car buyers. 

[Leif in Calif]

3 hours ago, JRA said:

It seems a good 490, indeed! By the way, the original price tag of this model, $490, in today’s money worths about $15,000, the ad sale price!

My 1928 Chevrolet has the last version of this very successful engine, also good and reliable.

I was not aware of the 490 had sedan and touring bodies were sold at the same price. I have always credited the turning point to closed cars to the 1925 Essex coach, that was first car model/year that a closed body was cheaper than an open body. But maybe the 490 was already contributing to this shift in taste for closed cars.

That's very interesting about the price in "today's dollars". I've always found those conversions hard to put in context because so much has changed in our modern world. The 490 was a few dollars cheaper than the Ford T, which is in itself interesting given Henry Ford's relentless push to lower costs and the OHV engine of the Chevy, which must have cost more to produce. I was wondering what a truly "basic" car would cost today, so I asked Google and came up with this one, available in India for about $5K: (Maruti Suzuki Alto 800)

I suppose modern manufacturing methods have driven the costs down to a third of what they were in 1920. 

[58L-Y8]

Still Available, Minor Price Reduction to $12,500: 8-5-2024.

1920 Chevrolet 490 Touring for sale by owner - Cleveland, OH - craigslist
Contact: Bob (216) 5-7-one-2-fifty-0
Copy and paste in your email: 37766b81a22038e18e97072c3bb9a850@sale.craigslist.org