I’ve dreamed of owning a 4 door 57 for years now, I have always thought they looked sleeker than the 2 doors, but have never had the $20,000+ to afford one. Well a couple weeks ago the stars aligned and I picked up this unmolested gem. It’s got 60,000 miles and besides the crappy paint job, the car is unrestored and in pretty good shape. Has some rust underneath but I don’t think any is bad enough to need patches. I put 400 miles on it so far and have started putting correct parts on the car instead of the mcgeivered crap. This winter hopefully I can get it repainted to the correct color and get the engine rebuilt just to freshen and seal it up.
Front badge:
waiting on proper backup lights to come in:
replacing axle bearings and seals, and brake shoes and cylinders right now too.
You and 99% of people. lol When I bought this car the guy wanted to show me a few 2 doors…didn’t care how cheap or how nice they were. I wanted a 4 door. They look sleeker in my opinion. Plus they’re 20 times more rare and half the price of a 2 door. lol
Picked up a spare motor and tranny tonight for $120 down in Hershey, PA. Ditched the long block because it’s not “numbers matching” and would cost me $250 more just to get it home. So I took all the parts off it and the tranny and stuck it all in my Cruze. lol All surface rust. It’ll clean up nicely.
Larkspur blue and Harbor blue. My dad has a 57 Chevy Sport Sedan (4 door hardtop) basically meaning no post in the doors.
He’s owned it for 27 years. It was the first car we restored.
Looks like a really solid car to start with! I’ve spent some time with a '55 Chevy, there should still be a thread on the build deep in the nyspeed archives if you’re interested in checking it out. I learned a shitload about these cars, the biggest lesson being what parts / companies to stay away from (Eckler’s comes to mind right away). What is your end-goal with the car?
To restore it over time and just enjoy driving it. I figure I get roughly 20mpg with the lil 6 banger and it’s really quiet, so it’s extremely nice to just cruise around in. I wish mine was a hardtop camarojoe but unfortunately it’s just a sedan. Baby blue would have been a nice color too. According to my firewall tag the car is actually supposed to be a dark greenish color. Hopefully this winter I can go back to that scheme.
FWIW, with the poopy LT1 that I put in I was pulling 20mpg no problem at 75mph when I drove it from NY to MN. Toss in an LS based engine with better gearing and I’d be willing to bet 25mpg would be completely doable, and with the right mufflers could still be quiet.
Fun fact: these cars are relatively light, I weighed in at 3550 with half tank of gas.
But I’m old school and like not having computers. lol 20mpg in a carbureted car is pretty good IMO. But then again my 81 civic is carbureted and I average like 35mpg in that. lol
Plus it wouldn’t be all original then, and how many Tri Fives do you see still rocking their original motor? lol
Picked up an air cleaner off a 56, thought they were the same… NOPE. lol Oh well made it work for now…
Now I just have to paint it. If you can tell, the filter is like a very course steel wool between 2 steel rings. lol Pretty crude stuff back in the day…and the optional oil filter (because they didn’t come standard with oil filters) was just a magnetic ring the oil passed by. LOL
I think I have the original 57 6 cylinder air cleaner somewhere in my parts stash at my parents. I haven’t seen it in years but I know I kept it. If I find it when going through parts, I’ll let you know.
