Four doors take nothing from the classic charm of the 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air sedan
The continuing popularity of the ’57 Chevy isn’t confined to those old enough to remember it when it was new. Miami, Florida, resident Ben Harris wasn’t even born when his 1957 Bel Air sedan was built, and yet, he bought it before he turned 30. This landmark car had made an indelible impression on Ben when he was still younger. “I’ve always liked old stuff. Growing up, my grandparents had 1960s and 1970s Chevys, but I loved the ’57 model–it’s the one I always wanted to have,” he reminisces.
“Back when I was in junior high, I was always doodling the tailfins of 1957 Chevys in my notebooks and on papers–they looked like backwards ‘7’s. One time, in the middle of taking a test, I was doodling those fins on the edges of the paper. The teacher saw this, grabbed my paper and told me to go wait in the hall until class ended. I didn’t understand what happened, so I waited until class finished, and went back in,” Ben recalls. “The teacher said she always saw me making those marks, and that I must be cheating, using some kind of code. I explained that I was doodling tailfins, and the 1957 Chevrolet was my favorite car. She was old enough to remember them, and she laughed, and gave me back the test to finish.”
The demure tailfins that Chevrolet stylists gave their family of models that year–the One-Fifty, Two-Ten and Bel Air, in all their myriad body styles–were one of many visual alterations that set that year’s cars apart from the related-under-the-skin models of the previous two years. Indeed, they helped the newest of the “Tri-Five” cars appear, in the late 1950s General Motors idiom, longer, lower and wider. Numerous available V-8s meant the 1957 Chevrolet could be optioned to be significantly stronger than its predecessors, but a modern-day level of power was only one of this car’s ahead-of-its-time conveniences.
“I’d always wanted an antique car. My dad told me that I needed a Ford Model A, maybe something that I could crank up to start. I didn’t want something that old,” Ben admits. “I don’t drive stick… I told him I wanted a nice automatic car with power steering and air conditioning, but Dad said that didn’t exist.” Ben’s father had painted the collector car market with broad strokes, his son would learn, as that adolescent favorite with the “backward-7” fins could indeed tick all of the young man’s boxes.
Six months after joining a local antique car club, Ben met a man less than a decade older than himself, who drove a black-and-gold 1957 Bel Air sedan every day. In fact, he’d recently driven it to Florida from his previous residence in Arizona; before that, he’d strapped mountain bicycles to a rack on the sedan’s roof and used the car’s ample V-8 power and reasonable ground clearance to access high-altitude riding trails in Colorado, where the man purchased the car about a year prior from its second owner.
1957 Chevrolets received a sporty and ergonomic new instrument panel. Note the circular A/C vents and accessory tissue dispenser.
“I’d just met the guy. I was asking questions and going on about his car, and he tossed me the keys. I couldn’t believe it! I got in and turned on the radio, and after the tubes warmed up, an AM oldies station came on. The first three songs I heard were by Elvis, Buddy Holly and Ricky Nelson, and right then, I was falling in love with the car and the experience.”
Among the options fitted to this four-door were a column-shifted Powerglide automatic transmission, push-button AM radio and factory air conditioning, which cost the equivalent of $3,602 in 2016 dollars. The interior was restored with correct reproduction fabrics, vinyl and carpets.
Ben made fast friends with the owner of that Bel Air, which was an unusual example of what had been an incredibly popular car when it was new. Indeed, the Bel Air sedan was the second-best selling car in Chevrolet’s 1957 lineup, after the mid-line Two-Ten sedan. Its poorly-applied paint was far from original, as the 94,000-mile car had left the factory in two-tone Imperial Ivory over Dusk Pearl, a combination illustrated in the showroom brochure on the pillarless hardtop Bel Air sport sedan. It was fitted with a wide range of options and accessories, including the automatic and air conditioning Ben dreamed of.
Powering the accommodating four-door was the new-for-1957 Turbo-Fire 283-cu.in. V-8, which had been rebuilt at around 85,000 miles. This featured a 3.875 x 3-inch bore and stroke, 8.5:1 compression ratio and a single two-barrel carburetor, and made 185hp at 4,600 RPM and 275-lb.ft. of torque at 2,400 RPM. The aforementioned automatic transmission was the column-shifted two-speed Powerglide, which had added $188 to the car’s $2,390 price, and the factory-fitted air conditioning–a rare and expensive option at $425, or more than $3,600 in 2016 dollars–helped push the sticker of this upscale family four-door well over $3,000.
“I started asking him if he’d consider selling me the car, just about every two days!” Ben says with a laugh. “He soon told me that he hated his job in Miami, and was going to try for a job in Canada. He would go up there for a trial period of three weeks, and would I watch the Chevy for him, since I had a garage and was very conscientious about it?” Again, Ben couldn’t believe his good fortune–and his new friend would end up leaving the car in his care for three months.
That extended period gave him a chance to learn how it would feel to own such a classic car. “I welcomed the four doors–I could take a bunch of friends out to dinner, and everybody was very comfortable. Something happened, though, while he was away–the ignition switch shorted out. It cost $40 to buy one from Eckler’s Classic Chevy, and there were two wires to connect–it was very easy for me to work on,” Ben recalls. “Around that same time, my brother’s new 1989 Toyota had a similar problem, but it took two weeks to get that part, and with installation, his bill from the dealer was $600–that was an eye-opener!”
The Bel Air owner eventually got the job in Canada, and decided to sell Ben the sedan, asking for exactly the amount he had put into it: $8,800. “I went to the bank to get the money that very day,” Ben says with a grin. “When I bought the car, the people in my car club said, ‘Oh, you got a donor car!’ They considered sedans and station wagons donors because nobody wanted those body styles, but they’d want parts from them like the air conditioning, the dashboard with the A/C vents, and the power front seat. When the cars were new, you’d often see four-door sedans and wagons, but the two-door models that people collect now were unusual.”
When this ’57 Bel Air was truly his, Ben chose to restore it to factory condition, sparing the unusually equipped car from an ignominious parts-donor fate. Indeed, the air conditioning and power front bench seat weren’t its only desirable bits–it was built with power steering (but oddly, not power brakes!) and full tinted glass, and its accessories included the Vacu-Matic cigarette ash receiver, No-Glare day/night rear view mirror, seat belts, under-dash tissue dispenser, traffic light viewer, under-hood lamp, reversing lamps, front bumper guards, rubber bumper bullets and more.
The original Colorado car had no rust, and had never been in a serious accident. The only damage he found was a scrape on the aluminum passenger-side rear quarter trim, and that was explained when Ben made contact with the son of the original purchaser, who’d been a 65-year-old woman named Rose. “He asked me if the car had any damage, and I mentioned the scrape… and the guy started to cry. He told me his mother had done that when she was backing out of the garage in 1959, and they never had it repaired. She’d chosen the paint color because it was like her name.”
Ben worked with a Miami man who specialized in painting high-end cars, to return the Bel Air to its original state. “It was a bit difficult getting the color formulas for the paint back then, but we did it. He put three coats of color, and six coats of clear, and I worked with him, wet-sanding between coats. He did such a beautiful job, I’ve never had to wax the car–it just glows. The colors are very unusual and great for Miami Beach, with the pastel colors of the Deco hotels.
“I sourced new gaskets, and had to replace one bent wheel,” he remembers. “I got correct silver-and-black replacement upholstery, plus carpeting, interior panels and seatbelts from Classic Chevy–it cost about $1,000 for everything, a lot of money 25 years ago–and that was installed by a shop about three blocks from my house. They specialized in interior work, and had been around so long, they did an interior for my father back in the 1960s!” The cosmetic restoration of this well-traveled car took about six months.
The Bel Air is no longer a daily driver, long since transitioned to Sunday-ride and award-winning show car duty, and it’s even participated in photo shoots, like its star turn with a Baywatch actress in the pages of Men’s Health magazine. But it still receives annual oil and coolant changes, and remains a blast to cruise in. “It’s a big, powerful car that really drinks gasoline, to the tune of 15 MPG.
“It’s like driving a tank,” Ben continues. “You get in, close the door and ‘thunk,’ it’s a solid sound. You feel well-protected–I don’t feel as safe in my little modern car as I do in here. It’s very comfortable, in front and back, like sitting on sofas. And you can feel the car’s power. It’s a lot of fun to drive, especially with all the gadgets.”
It’s not surprising, considering this car’s 1950s style and color scheme, it’s a car his family and friends love to ride in, and that it gets tons of positive attention. “I’ve had people stop me to ask about the paint, telling me it’s gorgeous. I get so many comments–it’s an iconic car,” Ben says with a smile. “I always wanted to own the classic Wurlitzer jukebox, the classic 1930s radio, the classic Philco television… and I’m lucky enough to have the classic car–the ’57 Chevy.”
