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 Having bought a modern Chevy dayvan, it seemed only a matter of time before the lure of a more 'historic' piece of American metal would become irresistible. Like a number of Yank fans, my love of these cars was rooted in my youth. The taste of nostalgia is strong, especially as the years role by ! So the memory of a fella I used to know cruising the streets of Highams Park in London, where I used to live, came plainly to mind. He had a beautiful cherry red '57 Bel Air two door, with white roof. I can remember looking in absolute awe as he burbled past, arm resting on the open window, gleaming in the sun. I'm sure it was with this image in my sub-conscience, that I started looking. At first this was purely out of curiosity, but before long that 'deep desire' had surely bitten.
Like a good many people I'm sure, Ebay has always a constant source of fascination. Particularly fascinating was the US Ebay site. With dozens of amazing looking vehicles, all at a very tempting prices; trouble was waiting to happen.
It wasn't long before I spied a turquoise and white, four door pillarless '57. It had fresh paint and looked quite stunning. I watched the auction , as you do, and was suprised that when it ended that the car hadn't reached it's reserve. I had the sellers contact details, so I mailed him and asked what he was hoping to get for the car. It wasn't long before we had agreed in priciple a price.
Fortunately (and probably part of the reason I looked at the car in the first place) the car was located in Florida. A friend from Orlando offered to cast his eye over the car. Providing the car was as described, I would send the money. After a few days my friend Stan got back to me, "yeah it's just fine", he said and so the deal was done.
 Stan trailered the car back to his house to await collection by the shippers. I'd never done anything like this before, so thought it best to seek advice. After seeking a fair few opinions it seemed to me that the best way for me to do this thing was to just put it in the hands of experts, so I rang club sponsors Rybec Shipping. The guys at Rybec were just great. Naturally they do this kind of thing daily, so it's no big deal for them, in some ways it was just too easy!
Stan trailered the car to the docks at Brunswick (if I recall correctly). Actually in the event Rybec could have arranged this too. Then literally the next thing was the car was being unloaded on my front drive ! Sure there were the details to attend to, but it was all pretty painless. The secret I suspect is having the paperwork right in the first place.
She gleamed, she growled, she looked real fine... she then of course needed an MOT. Now people who know me know what an impetuous twerp I can be. Buying the car was the easy bit, but in all honesty I hadn't factored in the time necessary to do the work needed for the test.
My work involves a lot of early mornings, travelling and basically any and everything to try the patience of a judge. Combined with the fact that I had not all that long moved into my house and there where 'DIY expectations' from a certain un-named quarter, time for the work needed to prep the car was limited to say the least. A brief look around her one Saturday saw me determine that she need some new brake lines, a tweak here, a tweak there and she would be fine. However a problem occurred that threw a spanner in the works. She had started to make an extremely unpleasant noise on start-up. In short the ring gear and starter motor pinion were just not getting along at all well. I thought I'd have a closer look. Yep definitely the problem. Didn't do it when she first arrived, but is sure doing it now.
Anyone having experienced this problem will know it's not one you can live with for too long. I discovered that unlike starter motors I'd experienced before, these starters could be shimmed - in and out to adjust the engagement of gears. So duly armed with a pocketful of washers I got my spanners out. This exercise did achieve some success and for a few weeks she did start without putting my and my next door neighbours teeth completely on edge. However the noise came back and I kinda knew that more major surgery was going to be needed. The ring gear was in fact damaged too severely and would need to be replaced. With that fact established she stood in the garage for another 18 months !
For years I had always done my own mechanics. I had been interested in motorbikes and had done quite a bit of work tuning and modifying them. So it was a bit against my grain to let anyone else work on my car. It also had come to my attention that though pretty simple, these cars needed someone who knew their particular idiosyncrasies. Very fortunately but unknown to me, there was an extremely good American auto specialist living just 15 minutes from my house and eventually fate threw us together !
Now this chap has also provided me with considerable information and material for our own Torque magazine and has always insisted on remaining anonymous, so therefore I shall refer to him now as Tim. The car was trailered to Tim's workshop and I awaited his findings on what was necessary to get the car through the MOT. The list was actually quite a bit longer than I was expecting. He saw the surprise on my face and said "you've not done this before have you !" I told him of how I'd acquired the car and he smiled "Yeah I'm sure it looked fine to your pal he said, they all look fine to the Yanks !" He then reeled a list as long as your arm of stuff that needed doing. To be honest I was amazed how thorough he had been and what he had found.
 Most of it was trivial sounding stuff, but all needed doing. Most noteworthy was that the propshaft was the wrong length ! Apparently the car originally was a 210, the six cylinder model. A rather tired 350 small block had been slipped in, but without the proper propshaft modification. This was potentially bad news as it could cause considerable damage to the gearbox. Since I knew that I was very unlikely to find the time to do all this work myself and that I had found someone I was inclined to trust, I gave him the okay to proceed.
Now Tim's a busy fella and I found out a few things about him. Firstly his work is highly sought after. In other words you are lucky to find a slot in his workshop, so when you do you grab it. The next is that once he has your car you get it back when he says it's ready, not before. Fair enough. I'd waited this long, so need it to be right. I can't quite remember how long the work took, only that it seem like an eternity. Of course she shared the workshop with many other tasty Yanks (some of which are still in there today). Finally however the day arrived and the car was ready for collection. As he handed over the keys, what I thought had been a joke was revealed to be true, he said "right you can borrow her now, but she actually belongs to me !" And that's the way it is. All those beautiful cars he has through his shop he considers to be his children, to return home on a regular basis to see daddy!!
We laughed and off I went for my maiden voyage. It was a great experience. It still is to this day ! Over the following weeks I tootled the old girl around the country lanes, just to satisfy myself of her reliability. No problems. Then I got to take her on her first real run out. It was on this run where I became aware of how low-geared the car was. At 70mph she really screamed. Perhaps this may have had a bearing on why the engine was 'so tired' ! As long as I kept her to no more than 60, didn't cane her uphill, she seemed okay. I took her to the Springnationals at Billing without incident and we had a great time. The rest of the summer I just cruised around locally, nursing her along.
Towards the end of the summer Tim had a slot in the workshop again, so I took the opportunity to book her in again. I suppose I just have to accept that whilst I really would love to get 'down and dirty' again with the spanners, time constraints and business committments will continue to put pay to this for the time being. Anyhow, this time we were going to fix some of those niggling issues.
I had bought another 350 lump, which Tim had rebuilt already. The plan was to give her a fresh engine, tidy the engine bay, install a rear shock cross member, new exhaust and see to a number of annoying problems inside the car. It seemed that when she had been sprayed in the States, the car had been thrown back together. The glass had been removed from the doors and reinstalled minus much of the correct runners and stops etc. This had led to the glass cracking as it rattled about. So new glass was sourced and installed. The great thing about a '57 Chevy, in fact any Tri Chevy (55-57), is that virtually everything is available, brand new from Danchuk in the States. So she has also been treated to many nice new shiny bits too.
This coming season I hope to really get around in Belle (yep Christened by the missus) ,enjoy her whilst I have the chance and there's still oil in the ground !! I hope to see you around !!
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