August 2016. I'm at a car show, just mulling over a plan to buy a Chevy Bel Air. I wanted a 1957 one, with a V8. I get speaking to a man with a
1959 straight 6 engined Bel Air - close enough you might think, so I agreed to buy it. The man then changed his mind a few days later. I hit the
classifieds, and there, in all its glory, is a very nice 57 Chevy Bel Air V8. Nice shape, nice colour, cool as a penguin’s naughty bits, and as
smart as nippy sweeties. So I phone the seller, and he sounds reasonable, he sends me more photos, and it’s still nice. Anyway, net result is that
I went to Manchester to see it, bought it, got a few wee jobs done to it, and arranged to have it transported here the following week.
Now, driving a noisy purple Cerbera used to get a bit of attention. Driving a classic Porsche, a little less so, but still quite a lot. This thing, though, is off the scale. The first time I went out in it, I don’t know how many people spoke to me while I was sitting at junctions - there were quite a few pedestrians, a bus driver and a lorry driver. I saw a few people taking photos as I passed, and one woman at a junction just stopped and stared as I turned in… then said “wow” in the window as I passed. Two old biddies on their way home from church asked what it is. It’s so cool, it even breaks the ice!
Even my “too kool for school, disnae give a fuck” daughter likes it - she sits in it then starts it, then says “If a guy turned up for a date with me in a car like this, he would be right in there”, which isn’t necessarily what a dad wants to hear from his baby girl…
Being of 1950's technology, servicing it was very easy and old-skool. It had lived most of its life in San Jose, California, so nothing was too rusty, so usually, it all came apart fairly easily.
I bought it as a 350 cubic inch (5.7 litre) V8, but discovered that it had originally had a straight 6 engine, and had been fitted with a V8 later. The engine, I discovered, wasn't a 350 but a 327 (5.3 litre) engine from a 1967 Corvette. While slightly disappointing, the 327 is actually a better stronger engine, so I wasn't too upset.
The main thing about the engine, though, was that it had "Brazilian" heads, rather than the Detroit heads fitted originally. These were exactly the same, except that the mating surface for the valve covers weren't flat, but had a slightly curved profile. As a result, they were a right bastard to seal.
This led to a fun episode when I took the car to a show in the north of England, in the company of 3 TVRs, and the Chevy pissed out all of its oil before we reached the English border. I borrowed some from my travelling compatriots, and then installed new gaskets that I had with me, tightened up the covers and bought more oil at the show itself, to get me home.
Just as we leave the show, one of the TVRs overheats drastically. I won't go into that here, but it takes us ages to diagnose a stuck fan, dodgy wiring, and lack of water, and then fix all of those.
Further up the road, we stop again, to make sure everybody is all right. When we set off again, it’s nearly 11 pm. When I say “we set off”, I mean “the other 3 set off, my Chevy won’t go…” they come back when they realise that there’s not a lumbering tank in the rear view mirror By this time, the will to live has shuffled away silently into the surrounding countryside, and I’m too worn out to be bothered with all this nonsense so I phone a tow truck. He arrives just after midnight, and gets me home at 1am, reversing this enormous truck into the drive without my neighbours even noticing… yeah right…
In the light of day, I am able to quickly diagnose that the low-tension wire between the coil and distributor has been nipped uder a valve cover, and is permanently earthed, so no spark...
This was an absolutely brilliant car - it served as my daughter's wedding car, and I also did another wedding for a friend, who in return, painted my 1961 pedal car... but that's another story.
It went down well at Sporting Bears events, and was always popular for "Dream Rides". Those all stopped in 2020, due to COVID, and I never really went back to that. I fancied a change. so the Chevy was sold in April 2024 to a man who lives near Verona in northern Italy, where it is currently living a life in the sun again.