BORN IN THE GREY

CHEVROLET’S DOMINANT 1957 BLACK WIDOW WAS THE ORIGINAL NASCAR RULE BENDER

Here we are again, back in the tumultuous late 1950s and the self-imposed manufacturer’s gentleman’s agreement banning factory-backed racing. You’d think we’d be getting bored of this era in American motoring by now but much like the prohibition years of the 1920s, trying times and draconian rules tend to force people to get creative to keep doing what they love.

In the ’20s that meant shady speakeasies and bootleggers racing down dusty roads in Ford V8s, but in 1957 it meant companies such as General Motors searching out the grey space between the black and the white.

Immediately after the Automobile Manufacturers Association ban went into effect (which General Motors sponsored and endorsed, by the way), GM president Ed Cole sent his most promising engineer, Vince Piggins, to Atlanta to start an entirely new company that *cough* totally wasn’t anything to do with General Motors. Its name was Southern Engineering and Development Company (Sedco), and Piggins quickly sprang into action with a masterplan to dominate Nascar racing in the coming season.

First, he brought in a crowd of the company’s best engineers, mechanics, and drivers.

Once the crack team had all made their way down to Georgia, the approach was simple

— get hold of the lowest-spec, and therefore lightest, model available from Chevrolet, and throw every uprated part from the existing GM catalogue at it. Of course, being that Sedco was in a grey area between a private company and an arm of General Motors, Piggins was able to get whatever he wanted.

Six bare-bones 1957 Chevrolet 150 Utility Sedans were ordered and put on a train from Detroit to Atlanta. These models were as poverty pack as they come, not even being delivered with rear seats. Once stripped down to a bare shell, the six cars began to receive their new equipment — 170 substitutions were made to each car. Everything from a large Buick radiator, and a 75-litre fuel tank meant for taxis, to an obscure close-ratio three-speed transmission option to send power back to a 3.90:1 rear end intended for half-ton truck usage.

While lighter of course does mean faster, Piggins clearly understood the demands of Nascar racing of the time, and as such, most of the parts he chose weren’t about weight reduction, but extra strength — the added kilos from those heavy duty parts were a necessary evil. Everything imaginable was swapped out for tougher equipment, including a Hydrovac braking system, suspension with additional HD dampers on each corner, and even the wheels and hubs, which were changed from five-stud to six-stud.

Being a race car, the Black Widow needed a great engine, and it was found once again in the GM catalogue. For the ’57 model year, Chevrolet’s C1 Corvette had gained a new

V8, dropping the previous year’s 265ci for a new 283ci complete with the high-tech and expensive Rochester fuel injection system.

This combination is commonly referred to as the 283/283, as it was (arguably) the first production American engine to make 1hp per cubic inch. The Sedco team took things a step further, pulling down the motors for a blueprint and balance before dropping them into their new homes. With Fenton headers and exhaust, the set-up supposedly made somewhere in the

WHAT MAKES THE BLACK WIDOW SO INTERESTING IS ITS CLANDESTINE ORIGIN

region of 315hp. After a fresh lick of now-iconic black and white paint, the Black Widows were ready to race. During that year’s Grand National Series (what would become Nascar), the Sedco cars won 16 races — 10 with one driver, Buck Baker in No 87. It was also partly the reason fuel injection was banned in Nascar right up until 2012, because of the organiser’s attempts to rein in the Black Widows midway through the ’57 season. Regardless, with four-barrel carbs, the Chevs still absolutely dominated.

It’s always great when a fabled car has an amazing racing pedigree, but what makes the Black Widow so interesting is its clandestine origin. This was never officially a car Chevrolet offered or supported, but Piggins made sure other enthusiasts across the country could have one of their own if they were willing to put in the effort. All they had to do was pick up one of Piggins’ extremely detailed guidebooks that exhaustively listed each upgrade item and its part number for you to order yourself and create your own Black Widow.

This means that while there were six original Black Widows built by Sedco, there were many more “copies” built — making the modern collector’s market murky at best. Three of the original six still exist, with the last confirmed example, No 47, selling in 2016 for a little over USD$200,000. With a roster of surviving period customer-built versions and subsequent tribute cars built over the years still floating around, versions of these incredible vehicles are still obtainable — they just won’t be the ‘unofficially official’ Sedco Black Widow.

Well, not unless you get very lucky and find one that’s been hidden in a barn for 50 years, or you’re very wealthy, and patiently wait until the next time one of these fascinating cars rolls across the auction block.