Thread: 57 Chevy Cruizer

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Are you looking for some ideas related to the appearance? ...or do you think you will be able to find history on the car, if in fact it was raced, and do a resto?

Of course appearance is of special interest to me, so I would love to toss a few unusual ideas at you, from the era. :-)

If that front bumper is a true one piece, I wouldn't trash it. It's my understanding that they were only available in California.

Originally Posted by NTFDAY

If that front bumper is a true one piece, I wouldn't trash it. It's my understanding that they were only available in California.

Ooops. too late...already started welding the bumper guards on! I'll do the bumper with metal finishing and no filler so that it could go out for rechroming if someone wanted it....


Yuppers, it is the one piece bumper!

Originally Posted by HOTRODPAINT

Are you looking for some ideas related to the appearance? ...or do you think you will be able to find history on the car, if in fact it was raced, and do a resto?

Of course appearance is of special interest to me, so I would love to toss a few unusual ideas at you, from the era. :-)

No real history on the car as of yet, still searching. A bit of scratching thru the primer shows the car to originally be white... Only plans so far are to fill all the trim holes and maybe a two tone split like the 150 sedans were done. Richard suggested the scheme---no ideas on color yet. But yeah!!! Always open to paint ideas from a pro---but caution, I'm certainly no artist and totally incapable of doing any kind of graphics!!!!!!

Actually I was going to start by asking things like:

...what kind of intake you want to use... and maybe a scoop idea or two.

...things like a Moon tank out front, like many early sixties gassers ran. Nowdays they use it as a radiator overflow tank... but it looks good out there.

...and other things that will come back to me. :-)

As far as graphics, a few things that were popular on gassers then would be pretty simple to do. A color from that era, plus a great name to give it personality.... and you would be "Rockin'!

Originally Posted by HOTRODPAINT

Actually I was going to start by asking things like:

...what kind of intake you want to use... and maybe a scoop idea or two.

...things like a Moon tank out front, like many early sixties gassers ran. Nowdays they use it as a radiator overflow tank... but it looks good out there.

...and other things that will come back to me. :-)

Got to be either a tunnel ram or a set of Hilborn's!!!! and definitely the cute little Moon tank, and of course fenderwell headers!!! Couldn't be a gasser without them!

I would like to do something mild to the hood....Any thoughts on what the guys did to the two little humps on the hood???? I doubt they left the chrome thingies on there?????

Probably the most common thing on '57s was to fill the front holes with a bullet shaped cap welded in.

As far as scoops... if your injector stacks aren't going to be tall enought to come through the hood... which I don't think the smallblocks ever did... one great scoop would be the aluminum ribbed scoop from the big Ford trucks. It had a little grill on the front, and was used on the Pontiac factory F/X cars from the early sixities. They often showed up on many other racers. Cal Custom made a similar scoop, but without the grill of course. (I'll see if I can find pictures.)

Fiberglass scoops that I recall were generally a half round shape, a little taller and wider in the front. Sometimes they were molded in... but more often just flanged and bolted on.

The early tunnel ram style scoops, with the concave sides would be neat...but didn't come until later in the sixties. I don't think I saw many on 55-57s, since they did not need that much height.

Another approach might be to use a wide early blower scoop... like on the Hawaiian... bolted to the top of your injectors... but only if they were tall enough to put it through the hood.

Of course you could create your own design... but might lose that nostalgic look.

I'll give that color choice some thought, and offer up some ideas. (I love the "design" phase of a project!) :-)~