1957 CHEVROLET BEL AIR SPORT COUPE UNRESTORED FUEL INJECT5ION SURVIVOR

1957 CHEVROLET BEL AIR SPORT COUPE

UNRESTORED FUEL INJECTION SURVIVOR

Please note that this is a private party sale! I have owned this unrestored, factory-original survivor fuel-injected sport coupe Bel Air (one of 1530 passenger factory-built fuelies) since December 1999. It is in excellent original mostly unmolested condition. This is a 283 c.i., 250 H.P. Turboglide numbers-matching car. It was assembled In Kansas City, Missouri in May 1957. It has been driven 62,000+ miles up to the present time. The engine has never been rebuilt (hence the original patina in the engine compartment) and runs great. It has a black exterior with a red/black interior. The paint is mostly factory-original and the interior is still in excellent, beautiful original condition. This is a rust-free automobile and as far as I know the car has never been hit - as you can see in some of the pics it is very straight (as we all know a black exterior is not very forgiving as it will highlight flaws such as imperfect body work, waves, wrinkles, etc.). It still has the original rubber trunk mat with the embossed encircled “57”. The fellow that I bought it from, because it had gravel chips in the rocker panel area (the 2nd owner’s house [in Nebraska] was next to a gravel road), had it repainted below the side trim. However, the majority of the paint is shiny original because the car has always been garaged. There are a few minor wear spots (mainly primer showing through the original paint) in several places as a result of constant waxing. Also, there are some gravel chips on the front part of the hood and there are minor scratches here and there. Overall, the exterior paint is in beautiful original condition. Under the hood there are several factory assembly line yellow chalk X’s (see pic) on the hood latch cover. What these X’s refer to is a puzzle but I have been told by several Chevrolet experts that these were most likely an alert to the assembly line workers that a fuel injection system was to be installed in this car. One photo of the chassis (floorboards are solid) shows one of the rear spiral shock absorbers. Another photo shows the engine suffix pad which is F418GF and this translates to Flint, April 18, Turboglide fuel injection.

All of the fuel injection components are original to the car. As far as I know the Rochester 4520 fuel injection unit has never been rebuilt. It has always run well with minor tuning done every now and then. The 2nd owner, who bought it in late Fall 1957 (the first owner was a young man and for whatever reason his father made him return it to the dealership), told me when I first bought it that he was informed that this car was a factory demonstrator to promote the sales of fuel injection passenger cars and because of this they made sure that it had the best components installed to keep it running flawlessly. After the factory reps were done the car was sent to a dealership near Omaha, Nebraska where it was sold. I asked the 2nd owner if he had the original dealer paperwork for the car but it ended up getting lost or misplaced. I had him do a notarized “Certificate of Authenticity” for me regarding his history with the car. He had also written a note to the fellow that I had bought the car from detailing pretty much the same info.

This car still has all of the original peripheral FI components:

• Vacuum wiper motor with the Electro-vac switch.

• Metal clip (on the firewall) to hold the electric choke “pig tail” wire/connector for the air meter.

• Air intake hose bracket that is attached to the driver-side radiator support (toward the bottom – see pic). Most of these original brackets ended up missing or tossed aside in about 99.9% of the original passenger car fuelies so this is an extremely rare, very hard-to-find item and very, very expensive if ever available. This item is definitely NOT a repro.

• Electro-vac (with the original Trico string tag) affixed by clutch head screws to the radiator support.

• Passenger-side exhaust manifold with no vacuum tube hole drilled like the ones for cars with carburetors.

• Original metal band to attach the air intake hose to the air cleaner.

• The 3/8-inch fuel line.

• Original air cleaner with after-market air hose.

• Original fuel filter.

• Original 906 distributor.

• It has a later model fuel pump but I have a correct long-screw fuel pump that goes with the car.

Also, the 2nd owner took out the Turboglide many years ago and replaced it with an overdrive 3-speed manual trans. (the overdrive cable is disconnected and I don’t know if it ever was connected). However, he did keep the Turboglide and somehow it managed to go with the car from owner to owner. The Turboglide was recently rebuilt and will be included with all of its necessary components with the sale of the car. I succeeded in finding a fellow that rebuilds Turboglides in Oregon and between he and I managed to find many NOS parts.

A fellow that I know that lives in Vancouver, BC, Canada and who owns a restored factory-built ’57 BA sport coupe fuelie is doing a ’57 Chevy fuel injection factory-built survivor passenger cars directory. He has spent a few years trying to locate the real ones and needless to say he has come across many phony clones. He said that he’s come up with approx. 35 factory survivor fuelies (out of 1530 built) in various conditions. He said that 3 of these are very nice unrestored originals - one BA sport coupe (this one) and two BA sport sedans. So as far as he knows, mine is the only very nice unrestored survivor BA FI sport coupe known in existence.

Many times I have been asked by certain individuals as to why I don’t restore the car. I find it incredulous that anyone would ask that. My response to them is “If it ain’t broke why fix it?” Also, I tell them that this is an extremely rare car because of what it is and where are you going to find another one as nice as this unrestored original fuel-injected car? However, the ones that are “savvy” about fuelie cars appreciate the fact that it is, for all practical purposes, a very nice survivor with a nice patina. This is an excellent benchmark or reference car. Several years ago a fellow that lives near me was restoring his factory original BA fuelie sport coupe and he would come over from time to time to photograph, measure and take notes because his car was missing a lot of the FI items when he bought it many years ago. I was told at the place where I bought my car in Kansas that several individuals also used this car as a reference.

Again, let me stress that this car is a factory-built fuel injected survivor, NOT one of the many phony clones that are prevalent in various car auctions, car shows and/or for sale at various venues from time to time. Quite a few years ago a fellow from California, who had a brother residing near where I lived, learned that I had an original fuelie. It turned out that he’s a respected authority on factory fuel-injected ‘57 Chevys. He contacted me because he wanted to see for himself if this really was a factory fuelie and not a clone. He spent several hours inspecting the car from top to bottom and he told me that this car was definitely the real thing! For anyone that is truly interested in this car I will provide contact information for this gentleman.

The odds of finding an unrestored factory-original fuelie 1957 Chevrolet passenger car survivor such as this one is pretty much next to zero, especially one in this condition. So it is obviously an extremely rare car. I will include all paperwork and names that I have of previous owners of the car with the sale.

If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to email me. Also, if you are truly interested in buying this car you should try to view it in person or have a knowledgeable representative inspect it for you.