Thread: '57 Chevy gasser build

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Originally Posted by Dave Severson

Hadn't thought about it much before, but '57 was sort of the end for a styling era.... I think that whatever marque you care to talk about '57 was really the end of the "simplicity and functional" era, wasn't it???? So many way kewl things on the '57's, Chevy had the dual four 283, Ford had a supercharged 312, Olds had the J-2, and of course Chrysler was just beginning to tap the performance potential of the Hemi....!

Absolutely! I think the styling which was pretty simple and "utilitarian" through '53-'54, was staring to accelerate! The boxy look of the '53-'54s, and even some '55s, disappeared. Some of those same cars changed quickly from '55-'57, gaining "more highly stlyed" changes. In that "light", it is not a stretch to understand why the styling took another big jump... adding lots more "bling". Like so many things in life, once we humans get started, we often go too far!

A side note of interest... the sales advantage was held by Ford through '57, but Chevrolet took over after that. If you ever read Iacoca's bio, he was a sales manager for them at the time, and said Ford built a string of lemons during that era. He tells of driving '57-'60 models to sales eetings, and had things happen like doors popping open on a bump. I'm sure that, plus the styling of cars like the '57 Chevy, added to Ford's decline in sales.

One last observation. I have been obscessed with customs and rods since '58. What other car, besides the '57 BelAir, is almost never dechromed, or restyled??? It is almost a "stand alone" achievement, in the world of auto styling! (The '53 to '55 Studebaker might be one, of very few.) :-)

Originally Posted by HOTRODPAINT

One last observation. I have been obscessed with customs and rods since '58. What other car, besides the '57 BelAir, is almost never dechromed, or restyled??? It is almost a "stand alone" achievement, in the world of auto styling! (The '53 to '55 Studebaker might be one, of very few.) :-)

I would tend to agree with you Jay, it's hard to improve on the original style. Only a few have been successfully done. I lean a little more toward older stuff and would also throw the '40 Ford into that ring. With the exception of the El Matador (and only because it's such a well done radical custom that almost completely disguises the original), there just about isn't a single restyled '40 that is an improvement over the original.

During the same time the 57's where around,GM used to hold competitions for kids to build clay models of cars for the design teams to use for new ideas.It was more of a open door policy then ever before.They held clinic's for teams of high school kids to go and figure out what was wrong with a car that GM set a problem for them to solve.There was more support for kids to get involved.GM made it seem as a kid you could become anything you wanted to be.

Sorry Dave-I honestly don't want to hi-jack your thread.Just some memories.

Originally Posted by 1gary

During the same time the 57's where around,GM used to hold competitions for kids to build clay models of cars for the design teams to use for new ideas.

Let me momentarily highjack the thread.... This brings up something I noticed years ago. My own drawings that I did as a "highschooler" seemed to have more imagination, than I do now... after almost 40 years of custom painting!!!

The answer I came up with is that we all become conditioned to think alike, by reading the same magazines... building the same models... watching the same car movies... idolizing the same "hero cars"... and eventually tend to think "inside the box". Kids are fresh to the hobby, and tend to be more original!

This was all a culture shock, for me! {:-o

I agree with Jay on us losing some of our willingness or ability to do different/unexpected things to our cars as we age. I am on a couple of rat rod forums, mainly because I like the other members and have become friends with some of them. And even though some people knock rat rods as being crude, trashy, badly constructed, etc., there is a lot of that "thinking outside the box" that Jay mentions. They are willing to use unconventional components in unconventional ways, whereas us older guys would be hesitant to do the same things, perhaps.

We can argue that it is because we become smarter or wiser as we age, but maybe we also lose some of the excitement we once had for our creations. I have sat on a chair in my shop and thought "If I had owned the cars I now have when I was 21, I would have been beside myself with excitement......but at my age it is not quite the same level of excitement."

Kinda like the first few times you had the pleasure of being with a young lady............it was always more exciting when you were young.


Don

Originally Posted by HOTRODPAINT

Let me momentarily highjack the thread.... This brings up something I noticed years ago. My own drawings that I did as a "highschooler" seemed to have more imagination, than I do now... after almost 40 years of custom painting!!!

The answer I came up with is that we all become conditioned to think alike, by reading the same magazines... building the same models... watching the same car movies... idolizing the same "hero cars"... and eventually tend to think "inside the box". Kids are fresh to the hobby, and tend to be more original!

This was all a culture shock, for me! {:-o

40 years ago------

I found that to come up with something different was the most difficult thing to do, but to have to conform to a paint scheme that we had been identified with and even after a few companies that wanted to sponser us had hired some firms to do some drawings---they all pretty much returned the drawings they made with our old paint scheme on them---soooooo, blue it was---

These days I pretty much just look at building things so no matter what part of the car you are looking at, there is SOMETHING to see