1957 Chevrolet Bel Air
After A 35 years in a bone-dry bit of Teexas, this beautiful ’57 Bel Air came to the UK, where it still retain ns an impressive mix of beauty and originality, as Nigel Boothman discovered…
If you head north out of Austin, Texas and then hang a right on to Highway 79, you’ll pass by the malls and the industrial lots and soon find yourself among table-flat farmland. After another few miles you’ll be in Thrall. Not ‘in thrall’ to anyone or anything in particular, but in a tiny town of a few hundred people, a town named after a Methodist minister called Homer Spellman Thrall.
To be honest, you could almost roll through it without noticing. There are a few single-storey buildings in lots next to the highway, while rusting billboards offer you dentistry, bulldozer rental, or the chance to buy real estate from a smiling man in a cowboy hat. Yet this little place once supported a thriving Chevrolet dealership.
Krieg Brothers Chevrolet began trading from a corrugated tin shack with a gasoline pump outside, sometime between the wars. They clearly did well, and expanded into a long, low building on Highway 79 in the Fifties, possibly on the site of what is now a large Shell gas station. But if you double back after the gas station and turn south across the railroad on Main Street, then keep going to the corner of West Sheldon Avenue, there is the original tin shack still proudly labelled ‘KRIEG BROS. CHEVROLET CO.’ Check it out on Streetview.
The brothers must have been somewhere near their peak in 1957 as America rode the wave of its postwar boom, with customers in Williamson County buying plenty of pick-ups and even the odd Bel Air sedan, like this one. The car in our photos was manufactured in Kansas City on November 7, 1956, one of 499 cars churned out by the plant that day. It probably took a week or two to join a delivery of cars to Texas, then rode the 700 miles down to the Krieg Brothers’ showroom.
We’d love to know if it was ordered and specified by the first owner, or bought for stock by the dealership. Either way, it was a very well-equipped car, with a 283cu in V8 instead of the base inline six, a recirculating heater, power steering, EZ-tinted glass, two-tone paint and whitewall tyres. The dealer then added a radio and aerial, a clock, bumper bullet inserts, a courtesy light, a cigarette lighter, rocker mouldings, reversing lights and wheel spinners.
This dragged the total price up to $2929.10, quite a jump from the Bel Air’s $2290 base price, and further still from the $2048 you could pay for a Chevy One-Fifty sedan. The upscale models – the Two-Ten and the Bel-Air – gained increasing amounts of exterior and interior décor, but to keep even the posh Chevrolets within reach, the mechanical spec remained basic unless you got busy with the options boxes.
So our first owner drove off into the Texan winter of 1956 and ’57 – was the car a Christmas present? Who knows; however, it can get chilly enough even that far south to be grateful for the new Chevy’s heater. Over the next 25 years, the Bel Air stayed in Texas and racked up around 83,000 miles before it was taken off the road in 1982. Ten years later, the car was brought back to life and offered for sale, at which point an English chap with family in Texas found it, bought it, and brought it home to Norwich. Over the next two decades this gentleman did a fair bit to keep the car looking its best. He re-covered the seats in the correct vinyl and brocade material, had the car repainted and rebuilt the engine, keeping it in original 185bhp form. Unable to find someone to cure the jerky two-speed transmission, he sourced and fitted a replacement.
So it was in decent fettle when Kevin Parsley found it in 2016. Kev was looking for any nice Fifties American classic, having started with a six-cylinder 1974 Camaro many years ago, before moving up to a C3 Corvette – a car he still owns, but which wasn’t getting used much, as he explains: “Once the kids came along, it spent a lot of time in the garage. I’d admired ’57 Chevys for a long time but they’d always been out of my reach. The two-doors and convertibles are still very expensive, but this one came up at a decent price, so I went to have a look at it.”
The motive for seeking a larger Fifties American classic was partly down to Kev’s daughter, who was in her ‘prom’ year at school. Getting her, the boyfriend and Kev in the Corvette at one time wasn’t really possible… but it would work very well in a Bel Air. “It was nice, original and as clean as a whistle underneath,” says Kev. “I bought it and drove it home, and it went very well – it even returned 20 to the gallon on that trip.” With the prom happily concluded, Kev could address a few of the issues that any new-old car brings with it.
“The previous owner had rebuilt the engine with an original-type rope seal at the back of the crank, which was dripping oil,” he says. “I found a modern lip-seal that could be fitted without dropping the crankshaft, so I removed the sump and did just that. I also stopped the ATF getting out of the power steering control valve.” The next job grew legs in quite a significant manner.
“The engine bay was a bit scruffy, with some bits of hand-painting on the firewall. I wanted to smarten things up and before long I’d removed the wings, bonnet, front panel, the wheels and the suspension… the whole of the front of the car was bare. I sorted out some rust spots in the lower rear corner of the wings and got some paint matched to touch in the repairs, and I got the firewall looking better. The suspension components were cleaned, powder coated and re-bushed. Now it’s all much more presentable.” This year Kevin has been tidying up little bits around the rear bumper, but is leaving the bumpers themselves alone. “The chrome has a few age-related scratches and blemishes, so I was tempted to renew it or get it re-plated. But then I saw a car with new chrome at a show and it was pitting after only a couple of years… so I think I’ll leave it original.”
“THE PREVIOUS OWNER HAD REBUILT THE ENGINE WITH AN ORIGINAL-TYPE ROPE SEAL AT THE BACK OF THE CRANK, WHICH WAS DRIPPING OIL.”OIL”
Stepping into the Chevy’s exciting interior reveals some more of the work Kev has done. The car came with new material for the door cards, and new panels to attach it to. It’s an interesting tactile fabric – not quite velour but in that neighbourhood. There’s a little additional panel by the driver’s right knee, which has a switch for electric wipers (a conversion by the previous owner from vacuum operation), an ammeter that’s not currently connected and a little accessory plug. What for? “It’s connected to the inhibitor for the transmission,” explains Kev. “It adds a bit of security if I remove it… I just have to make sure I don’t lose it if I want to drive home again!”
The biggest change in here is one we didn’t even notice at first, because Kev has made it look so convincing. That centre console on the transmission tunnel – it’s just MDF, skilfully finished in all the right interior shades and materials. “It gives you somewhere to put your phone and a drink,” says Kev. “It’s been very useful.” The car gets used, you see – as well as a few weddings and proms that Kev’s done to pay for the insurance, it goes to shows and indeed anywhere else where the proud owner can find an excuse to use it.
“I’m not too precious about it, because it’s not a concours car. I wouldn’t want to be scared of using it, though I do tend to leave it in the garage if it’s going to be tipping with rain. It’s not quick, but it’s not meant to be, and it cruises at any speed you like. About the only thing I might do is fit a front anti-roll bar… if you dive into a corner too fast it does tend to dip and roll rather a lot. But then again, that’s the way it’s always been. I haven’t upgraded the non-servo brakes, I’ve just learned to push a bit harder. It’s a good, original Bel Air, and I like it that way.”
So do we, and so will many of you. Resto-mods and hot rods are great, but when we’re talking about one of the most famous American classics of all, it’s good to know there are some cars left that can show us exactly what you got for your money in 1957. The good people of Thrall, Texas must have stopped and stared when this one appeared… just like people do when Kevin rolls past today.