History did any of you older guys remember how cool ,57 Chevys were in the '60s?

A guy in our school bought a 57 Chev with std transmission for $600, which seemed kinda high to me; however, the 283 engine had just been overhauled by a reputable mechanic.
It was that nice blue / white combo that seemed so very popular at that time.
But, like others have said... "it's just another car" like so many other cars back then.
No-one realized the potential.

He had put some nice bucket seats in it and asked if I could build a console for it that would surround the shifter and have 3 holes farther up the slope for gauges.
He also wanted a raised area that was about the same height as the seats, with padding no less.

With limited tools and an old Allen stick-welder, I managed to get one made and it turned out nice.
Unfortunately, he died just a year or so after that.
I don't know what became of the 57.

 

It depended on what part of the country, what part of the 60's and mostly if you liked Chevys.
During the 60's I lived in Sacramento, CA, Sulphur, LA, Galveston, and Houston TX.
I wasn't or am not a big fan of Chevy's ( even though, I owned a couple) so I didn't think they were that cool.

 

I suppose the consensus is that for those here who remember is that 57 chevys in the 60,s weren't the coolest items on the road. kinda like a lot of good western actors paled in comparasion to John Wayne. Or a lot of throphy girls paled in comparasion to Linda Vaughn. There where a lot of really cool factory High horsepower cars coming from the factory in the 60,s. The mid to late fifties vehicles where just simply out classed by factory hot rods.

 

In the late 60's I bought a 57 4 door hardtop for $100.00 dollars. It was a great car that I drove the wheels off of. Then the generator light lite up. I replaced the brushes for about .57 cents. then the retaining clip broke and the brush flew out. I was pissed and called the local tow truck to take it away. dumbest thing I ever did. Still miss that car.

 

I don't know a whole lot about anything but I know
the only '57 Chevy I would want, then or now is a Black Widow.
Lots of clones of these but I mean real.
Like these.

 

My 57 was on the road until 1976 north of Boston. It had a 59 283 Muncie 4spd and 4.11 posi. The paint was wild candy apple red with prisms and planets on the hood. Probably pretty fancy for the early 70s. I paid 800 in 1990 and it was rotted BAD!

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57 was max cool,more exactly the hard top or conv.,not so much 4D or post jobs,slitely older kid up the block ,got 57 conv. Black with red insides from his Dad for making it out of 12th grade. That was 1960

 

I knew in 1970 that I should buy up all the 67 / 68 / 69 Camaros I could.

I bought my first 57 in 1973

 

It's all relative to how old you are. I turned 16 in 1975, my first car [and my second as well] was a 67 Mustang. A 9-10 year old car was $500-$800, anything older than 10 years old you didn't see many of them on the road or for sale. 55-57 models were sitting parked or on dragstrips. Nobody wanted a 20 year old car, no matter what it was. If a car made it to 100,000 miles, it was considered worn out. I remember my Great Grandpa had a 50-52 Chevy in 1975, that was the oldest car I knew of on the road. He traded it and got him a new car in about 75-76, a 1961 Chevy. Still had it when he died in the 80's.

I gave $600 for that first Mustang in 75. I had saved my money for two summers cutting grass and doing odd jobs. That $600 was probably about like you older guys buying a car in the 60's for $150. My mind didn't notice tri fives because there weren't any around. It wasn't until I got into my early 20's that I started really noticing stuff built before 1967. People had started dragging them out of fields and barns and restoring and rodding them again. But by the time I began seeing them on the roads, prices had shot up so much my lowly salary didn't allow me to get in on them. Now they are totally out of reach, just like my favorite 40 Fords. I doubt anything other than the pony cars of the last 20 years will become the collectables of the future. Who would want a bellybutton car?

 

I had a '57 hardtop in high school (1963/64). It was definitely cool, with a 265 & a 3-speed Hurst. I bought it off of a state trooper, who was moonlighting selling cars. He told me he bought it off of a guy he arrested for a heist. Obviously, it wasn't such a fast getaway car, as it still had the automatic rear, after it was converted to stick. My '90 Miata would have wiped it up. It handled worse than my '66 C-10. Still, it was a joy to behold. I recently heard somewhere that the '57 was made up of an inordinate amount of individual parts. Has anyone else heard this? (Sorry, I have not one picture, for in those days we didn't carry cameras around with us.)

 

Not sure what you mean by that but A 57 was just a tweaked version of the 55 as was the 56 for purpose of having a new model year design, while keeping and/or tweaking and using some of the previous years dyes,parts,etc. like they still do today but they did get a little more fancy in 57, I think the 57 became the most popular iconic one of the tri fives at least in the 70s/80s general public eye. As a kid growing up in the 70s and early 80s, liking hot wheels and model cars etc I think it could have been a sign of the times that I knew what a 57 was before I ever remember seeing my favorite, A 55, You could easily find a 57 hot wheel or model car back then but you rarely ever seen a 55 on the shelves and even when you did start seeing them they were all hardtops (remember the black 55 and 56 hardtops with flames?)
55 and 56 chevys have grown in popularity today maybe even to be equal to the 57 in manys eyes, also by listening to the older guys, a hardtop was the thing to have back in the day but I think that has also changed today..I for one like em all but like the sedan (post cars) best.

 

Thanks for the laugh, Beano

 

When I'm in the mood for some good "soap opera" drama, I look for threads just like these. Once the pot gets stirred, a whirlpool starts. Time for popcorn

 

I am not sure I qualify as an older guy, but I can relate a story my Dad told me as a kid in the sixties. He would say that the 57 didn't really take off in popularity, until the 58 came out. I never knew if that was true, but he had a solid black H/T 57 and swapped it for a black 4 dr H/T 57 in 1961 when I was born. His excuse was, us kids could get in and out of the 4 dr better. I remember the 4 dr as he swapped for a 60 4dr when the engine gave out in 1967. The pictures they had of the 2dr with the classic tail dragging stance made me fall in love with the car. I bought one in Jan of 1978 for $850 and painted it and kept it around until 1981 when I got married. Should have hung on to it but you know... Seemed like even then ,there was one in every barn or fencerow and restorable [by todays stds], parts cars, were to be had for a couple hundred bucks or less. I like the H/T in a 57 and a post in the 55 and 56. Tri Five Nats are coming up in August and you will see again just how popular they still are. Not just to the older guys ,either.

 

I bought one in the early seventys. Blue hard top bel-air. Put a 327, 4 speed in it. Frank

 

There was a girl whos dad owned the ford dealership. And she drove a new Mach I mustang 351C automatic. Her boyfriend who was a chevy guy his father ran the Local DX station. And nobody wanted to Race him for money when he was driving her car. He married her and probably still has the mustang. There where a pair of brothers (I think they were twins) who had a 57 chevy convertible. They worked on it for years. I never seen it running. Right after High school they bought a 440 GTX and promptly wrecked it and killed themselves. I never knew what happened to the ragtop.

 

^Damn^

 

A clean 57 post was my high school ride, 1964. In 65 I bought a grown ups car, 61 Impala with 348. $1000

 

Tri-5 was car to have in central Illinois until muscle cars came along. Not many fords around. Always loved them, still do. My older sister had a 57 Bel Air convertible in 58 that was truly outstanding. I bought 57 210 in1967 for $225 and used as daily driver for couple of yrs till 283 wore out. My son bought a 55 nomad right after he got first job, must have passed love of tri 5s along. He has done total restore and is close to back on the road with big block power.

 

I can remember in the 60,s the headlight eyebrows rusted out on the tri five chevy cars and trucks. They would beat it down and fill them with bondo. You could always see a rusty crack where the bondo met the sheet metal. The 55 &56 ford cars had a pot metal headlight bezel and didn't rust. the 57 fords the headlights would rust really bad. We where in Arkansas however most of the cars had spent their early days someplace up north in the rust belt. many the rockers where plaster lath with a half inch on bondo. This Guy had a 53 ford and had put in a Y block. Tea Pot Holley carb. he had a string ran through the fire wall so he could pull open the four bbl! For a floor shift he had two pump pipes sticking up. He had slotted the floor boards. He somehow would drag race that engineering marvel!

 

I bought my 1st 57 as 16 year old in 1962. They were the coolest !!! 55's and 56's were the race cars. Mine was a Belair 2dr HT with a 265 and a close ratio 3 speed,bright red with a black and white R&P interior, tube grille and fuel injection emblems. It was as fast in 2nd as it was in high. I got a reckless driving ticket doing 105 coming into a 30 mph zone and lost my license at the age of 16 !! Those were the days.

 

When I worked at Boeing in the mid-60s, I had an all-aluminum car (non HAMB-friendly) that I did not want to get banged up in the parking lot. I bought a 57 BA 2dr hdtp, all black, 283/PG off of a used car lot for about $800 if I recall. Excellent condition and the back seat appeared seriously to have never been occupied. Drove it for a couple of years and sold it (with no other money invested) for $2000. I've had about a dozen tri-fives in my long career as a hobbyist hotrodder. and that work car was the only one I ever left stock in all respects.

 

The aluminum car was a Shelby Cobra,right?

 

Yeah at least tell us what it was, Maybe they wont kick you off the board for that
Cool avatar by the way propwash.

 

My cousin bought a off the showroom floor black with red interior hardtop. Immediately took the chevrolet scripts off the front and back and removed the hood ornaments, filled the hood peaks.
Thought it was the ultimate until the 58 Impalas came out.

 

In 1967 I was 13 yo. We moved to Bakersfield across the street from a machinist. His wife's everyday was a 57 Belair with a Hilborn injected 396, 4 speed and a chrome straight axle. She worked near my school so I got to ride in it everyday. She was in her mid 20's, had a beehive hairdo and I was king of the world.

 

Popular Hot Rod Magazine came out with their long running PROJECT X article in the mid 60's while I owned my 57 Bel Air hardtop.
Those articles were the biggest single factor in upgrading my old Chevy in those glorious times.
Eventually PHR moved onto Chevelle's and GTO's then further into MoPar land (And so did I).
The latest version on Project X turns my stomach. How they could go pro-touring with that icon I cant understand.
The current version saddens me deeply.

 

This picture says it all....Car, cloths, hair cut, fueling up with $ .36 gas and heading out to the local drive-in with Peggy Sue.

 

Don't forget, baby moons and skinney whitewalls!
Nobody seems to use them much today.