With the more reliable 270 horsepower engine, this beast comes with factory correct three speed transmission.
A ‘57 Chevy is timeless. With the ability to fit in any setting in any condition, the car has somehow made it into the likes of Midnight Club as easily as it’s remained on the roads of Cuba for the last 60 years. The car featured here, offered by Sunnyside Classics, is perhaps the best of the best.
It’s trophy cabinet includes Antique Auto Club of America Senior First Prize Winner 2012 as well as Antique Auto Club of America Senior Grand National Winner 2014. That’s the kind of quality we’re dealing with here.
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This particular Bel Air sits proud with the vendor describing it as one of the finest examples out there with unsurpassable attention to detail. Whilst not worth the same numbers as the Fuelie model, this Dual Quad is widely regarded as the more robust of the two, and with just a 13 horsepower deficit, power differences are negligible too. Despite the Fuelies reputation for expensive parts and complexity, the net benefits of the Dual Quad raise further when looking at a more affordable price.
The car is pristine in every discernable way, from the interior to exterior and even underneath, you simply cannot find fault with this beast. Trim is as per the vehicle leaving the factory, with gleaming Matador Red paint complimenting the silver and red interior.
Chevrolet had lost its momentum following the second World War. It’s products were usually the choice of older generations, with high school car parks and colleges full of Ford products. Like cooking model Honda Civic’s from the nineties, Chevy’s just weren’t cool enough to win the hearts of the younger generations.
Things were about to change quite drastically, however. With Fords flathead V8 being the second star of the apparent Ford only show, things were made harder still for the bow tie brand. This was until Chevrolet unveiled their much needed V8. Chevrolet ramped up their engineering outputs by increasing their number of employees from approximately 850 staff members to a whopping 3000. They were determined to create an engine with the reliability and power of the Cadillac 331ci unit but with the frugality of their own in-house six cylinder engine.
After considerable time and money, it clearly paid off. For the engine they came up with, the Small-Block V8, is an engine that has stood the test of time with some of the all time greats, and lives on under licence in Mexico even today, where they are still being made as crate engines. The final production car with a Small Block Chevy ran off the line in 2003, and over 100,000,000 have been built to date. There are simply no words to describe what an impact this design had when it hit the streets in 1955.
Whilst the engineers at Chevrolet were maximising shared knowledge to come up with this beast of an engine, the product designers needed something flash to put it in. The Chevy 210 was born with a huge array of body styles, and by 1957 the creme de la creme had been honed to perfection. Known as simply the ‘57 Chevy amongst fans, the Belair is the one to have. With a line of symmetry that takes attention to detail and rewrites it. Even the fuel filler cap was hidden behind one of the iconic tail fins so the cars lines were unharmed.
For more information on this Belair, visit Sunnyside Classics.
