The 1958 Chevrolet Before Being Announced In 1957

You have never seen this Chevy. It looks sort of like a 1957 Bel Air but it isn't. The 1958 Chevrolet Impala was to be introduced in the fall of 1957 and as you now know it didn't look anything like this. This Chevy was designed by an art director at Campbell-Ewald, the Chevrolet advertising agency. Probably Jim Hastings, the guy that hired me. Jim had a studio do a tight rendering like you see here along with a couple of other views. They were used to make layouts for the introduction of the new 1958 Chevrolet Impala. In those days security for the new Chevy products was very very important. Nothing was ever to be exposed to anyone without written security clearance from Chevrolet. Every person working on the new cars, in any way, had to be cleared for security. So when the ad comps were made to present to the Chevy sales group the fake car was used as the illustration. All this began in the spring of 1957 to be ready for the launch in the fall of the 1958 cars.