Occasionally a classic car will appear on our desks here at Barn Finds, and we struggle to decide what its strongest attribute is. That is the case with this 1957 Bel Air. This 1950s icon not only wears most of its original paint, but it has a genuine and documented 26,000 miles showing on its odometer. The owner has decided that the time has come for the Bel Air to find its way to a new owner, so he has listed it for sale here on Craigslist. It is located in Christiana, Tennessee, and while the owner has set the price at $35,000, he may entertain the idea of a partial trade. I have to say a big thank you to Barn Finder Rocco B for spotting this fantastic survivor for us.
The Bel Air is finished in Imperial Ivory over Inca Silver, and while the paint is looking tired, it’s worth remembering that we are talking about a 64-year-old car here. Silver paint is renowned for deteriorating, so I believe that it is forgivable in this case. Some buyers might be tempted to treat it to a refresh, but I probably wouldn’t touch it. However, the owner does say that the top has received a repaint at some point. It appears that the chrome and trim have also received some recent TLC because it all looks to be in as-new condition. This provides a stunning contrast to the aged paint, and I believe it has been money well spent. The owner mentions no rust issues, and there are no problems visible in the supplied photos. It looks like the Bel Air has been slammed because it seems to be sitting far lower than normal. It probably helps the car in the handling department, but I find the change out of character with the rest of the vehicle. I would probably reverse this if I were to park this Chevy in my garage. The panels look clean and free from all but a few minor blemishes. As an original survivor, this is a classic that is guaranteed to attract its share of attention.
Some readers will probably be disappointed to discover that the engine bay doesn’t house a V8, but the purists will be overjoyed to learn that the Bel Air is a numbers-matching classic. Behind the 235ci Blue Flame 6-cylinder engine is a 2-speed Powerglide automatic transmission. This provides more of a relaxed stroll than a sprint down the ¼ mile, with the journey taking 21 seconds. However, outright performance is not the key with this car, but originality is. The owner says that the Chevy runs and drives well, and the claim of 26,000 miles is no idle boast. There is a good collection of documentation and service records included in the sale, and these trace the history and mileage of the Bel Air since new.
The owner says that the Bel Air’s seats look like they have never been sat in, and while this might be stretching things slightly, the original Black and Silver upholstery still looks pretty incredible. There is some slight age discoloring, but there is no wear and no evidence of tears. The bright-work on the dash is beginning to show its age, and it would benefit from some care and attention. The carpet has also started to fade, but there isn’t any noticeable wear. However, the interior could be left untouched if the buyer wants to continue presenting the car as an original survivor.
I do not doubt that we will have many readers who will like this 1957 Bel Air. It has so many positive attributes that it will tick the right boxes for a lot of people. We will also have readers who would like nothing more than to slide a more potent drivetrain under this classic, and I get where those people are coming from. I hope that someone buys it and preserves it largely untouched. It has managed to survive with dignity for decades, and I suspect that it still has plenty of life left in it. The Beatles once famously asked, “Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I’m sixty-four?” Are you going to be the person who needs and feeds this 64-year-old icon?
Nice car just like it is.Only thing I’d do to it would be a dual exhaust system. The 6s have the greatest sound going and trolling through the gears in the automatic enhances it even further. And as usual, love the slight lowering job…
A really good polish and buff should bring the paint back to life. The only thing BAD is it had some period as a LowRider, and that cannot be good.
Should have been on cover of Lowrider Mag!
This car is a real Pleasure to drive!
It’s nice to see a ’57 2 door post for a change. But $35,000? Really?
Very Nice, I’m with you $35,000 No way, might be a different story if the engine was detailed and the car was Concourse ready.
I just sold a 70 Nova 8 time Concourse winner and The Center Fold of the 2010 Collectable Automobile Magazine. Asking $35,000, Sold for $28.500.00, Appraised at $40,500.00.
Wish Him well !
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If this car was completely frame off restored it wouldn’t be 35k. This is a 57 2dr Bel-Air we’re talking about!
Agreed. For that price, hardtop and power pack heads should be included.
Add another 10k to it
The gear indicator suggests Hydra-matic transmission. That pattern (PNDLR) was one of the many things Nader crusaded against. In the early seventies the DOT mandated the PRNDL pattern.
Yeah, but a PiNDLeR works great to “rock that sucker” out of an icy hole…
I believe PNDLR is the pattern for the powerglide. Don’t know what the hydromatic shift pattern is.
In sixty-five Powerglide was PRNDL
Hydramatic ? What would make you think that? The first Hydramatic transmission that Chevrolet used in a car was the TH400.
The old Powerglides had the PNDLR pattern. Not a good idea, if you want to pull it down into low to get some acceleration out of it, it is pretty easy to put it in reverse at speed. Ask me how I know this!
The engine compartment indicates a minimum of 126,000 miles. Clue to sellers, if you’re trying to pass off low mileage vehicles, make the whole vehicle match the supposed mileage.
John L
Been a gear head my whole life but never been mechanically skilled whatsoever
That being said
I can dam sure unhook that cable down below there
Ya feel me?
Mitch, you’re probably just that dishonest from the sounds of it….you think everyone’s like you? Thank goodness they’re not…..
What was you saying buddy? I have all records from NY and state of North Carolina backing up the miles! The car is what it is! Don’t be a Hater!
My 4th grade teacher, had a ’57 this color. Her husband kept it in showroom condition. I remember how I loved that car back in 1963-64. I think hers was a 4-door, but don’t remember for sure.
Strange, this is a post Bel Air with a 6 and PG. That’s ok, but it is showing almost every trim goodie available and they all look new. ??
I’m with you Charles, this car doesn’t quite meet the sniff test for what it’s advertised as. The paint is not good, all the chrome looks new. The seats look new, the carpets show age. As I said before, the engine compartment is the giveaway that this car is not what it seems. I’m amazed at how many people overlook these things, and throw their money at these cars, then find out after awhile they’ve been swindled.
I’d agree, except the ad shows a picture of the 5 digit speedometer. Everyone knows that’s considered “proof” nowadays. It’s up to the seller to lay out their evidence, there is no better place than in the ad.
Steve R
Haters gonna hate! Like has been said multiple time! Non. Of this is hear say! I have ever single shred of documentation backing up the miles. And all that stuff looks good cause of the low miles. duh! And the paint is 64 years old! Do I need to say that again? 64 years old!!
I have every vigorous North Carolina inspection checklist from over years stating the miles are correct! Up until car was parked in 2004. Say what you guys want! But I have all the proof on this one! I also have recite from where car cover was purchase in 1986 from Chevrolet. Car was kept inside with a cover. Is it perfect no! It’s 64 years old! But has perfect patina! And is the real deal Class C 1011-D Bel-Air. All numbers on car match exactly what it is! Car was purchased from Estate of 2nd owner just as it sits a year ago! He purchased from original owner in 1982. None of this is heresay. Can back it up with documentation and pictures from over years!
This car Is a real C Code 1011D Bel-Air! All numbers back it up! What strange about that?
If it looks to good to be true it usually is. Looking at the firewall sets off the spidy senses right away. Tell me if you see what I see or rather done see. My parents had a 57 Bel Air back many years ago. Second look at the emblem even just sitting those tend to dull in the colors this one doesn’t show any this tells me it has been redone. The close up of the headlight in the Craigslist ad again shows something odd bright chrome but a rust stain in the paint. Let’s look at the location and the paint on the front of the car. No bug or stone marks. That part of the country back in 57 had majority gravel roads. I call BS on this one.
Sorry But your spidy senses are wrong on this one! And believe it or not there were very few gravel roads in New York City in the 50’s . They actually had pavement then! And I have all records to back up miles from New York and the state of North Carolina. Like a bunch of them!
Steve R, did you not read what the man wrote?
“I have all records from NY and state of North Carolina backing up the miles! ”
Duuuh….
The rubber gasket seal on top of the firewall is rotting away but the chrome looks brand new. The wiring in the engine compartment is in bad condition, the roof is freshly painted. The dash is is tarnished but the poorly fit glove box door looks new? Caveat Emptor
So the guy gets out a 1-800 build a car catalog and buys new chinese reproduction chrome to enhance the cars originality. He also slammed the front suspension to make it his own. Not the end of the world.
He could have done much worse and install an LS or any host of non original engines but he left the original in place.
There is nothing Chinese about this car!
Front and rear bumpers do not look like I remember on my parents 1957 BelAir cream and bronze 8 cylinder car.
I agree with some of the comments, something is wrong, I don’t think its what the seller says it is, but without actually seeing it, I don’t know what it is. Like someone said “It doesn’t smell right” I will pass.
I would say that the hood & trunk emblems have been replaced plus the bumpers & some of the stainless trim has been replaced. Under the hood looks awful-primer overspray & the windshield wiper motor is missing. I had a 55 Chevy Belair with 6 cyl & P.G. that only had between 60-70K miles on it when I bought it and it looked a whole lot better than this car under the hood. I don’t believe the mileage is correct unless he has a TN title showing that the mileage is low as advertised. Price is too high.
I actually have a bunch of records backing up the miles on the car!
i looked at the pictures on Craig’s list and I see a few more things that doesn’t look right to me: the hood doesn’t align up good with the chrome bars on each side at the front. Door trim does not align up good on right door with fender & Qtr panel mldg. Ignition coil is upside down. The 55 I had with a 235 the coil wire & other wires were facing down. That firewall & radiator is awful and the wiper motor is missing still. If this is being sold as a matching numbers car then the VIN numbers on the frame needs to be checked. They are located on top of the left frame rail in front of the front seat and behind the front seat a short distance. If these numbers don’t match the VIN number on the door post then you don’t have a matching numbers car. I had heard about this over the years but had never checked any of my tri-5’s I had until a 56 hardtop I am now working on. It was supposed to be a 56 210 hardtop which is a rare car. I checked my frame numbers and I do have a 56 210 hardtop-the frame numbers matched the VIN number. I just wanted to make sure what I had before I built the car. Just passing this information along for what its worth to you tri-5 guys.
Car is 100% coded and checked! No one cars about what kind of car you have!
….. and I forgot to mention that the price is way too high.
Man, for 26K miles, this car has had a rough life. Low mileage is only a plus if it reflects the condition that a car would have in 3 or 4 years from brand new. This one looks aged like 126K and I don’t see the value added. I’d say it is overpriced, perhaps a 20K car, and go the restoration route 350/4 speed with it as it is a nice starting point. I’d paint it Matador Red/Ivory. Too bad it is a powerglide post car. My 80K original mile 57 is in far better condition than this one.
Oh noooo, another 57 Chevy on BF, what will the haters say?
Sweet looking 57 Chevy. Since when does one have to have a V8 engine powering it? Unless you’re towing a caravan, or drag racing down a strip somewhere, you don’t need it. Sometimes a straight six gives you all the power you need for most driving.
This car is much more than a little over priced! A 6 cylinder 2 door post in terms of desirability, come in just ahead of a 4 door sedan 6 cylinder. That being said one look at the engine bay gives readers some insight that there likely is more going on here that meets the eye. I wholeheartedly agree with the comment about the odometer being much higher than stated, by a factor of 100K. A car is only worth what people are willing to pay for it, and by people I mean those with money in hand.
You would be wholeheartedly wrong Bro!! I have all records and yearly inspections checklist from state of North Carolina backing up the miles! And much more documentation!
I was looking at the pics on the Craigslist ad. It appears to me that the speedo needle is broken. The short end is pointed at about 110 mph. The missing long end would be aimed at just under 20mph. I don’t see the broken part anywhere
in the speedo housing. I would think that broken or not the needle should be pointing to 0.
Speedo still works like it should on car!
This car reaches a soft spot in my heart. My dad had an almost identical one. His was the same color in and out but it was a 210, not a BA. That’s the car I learned to drive on. It was traded in during 1964 with 32K on it and a lot of rust. The engine compartment didn’t look any different than this photo. The paint was shot, but the chrome shone like brand new. I wished I could have gotten that car from him but the trade in was necessary to get a replacement. I ended up with a $10 1956 Olds as my first car.
Cool story man! Car is fun to drive for sure!
Surprised that no one has mentioned how odd that someone who has kept a car for 64 years averaging 400 miles a year suddenly gets the urge to sell or trade? Means the person is probably upper 80s or son/grandson.
It’s not odd at all. The owner isn’t actually the owner. He is it’s caretaker. Just like we can’t take everything with us. There will always be a time when we will have to part ways.
Best to sell now so you can pick the best direction for the car and your family. Put the money in a safe IRA so your family won’t have to do it.
If that is the real case here. Props to the old guy that gets it and doing what’s right. I want to pick where all my stuff goes and meet the people. Not much fun when you are in the ground and have no control when the flippers and bottom feeders swoop in on your family.
Car was bought new by a lady right outside New York City! She kept it till 82 and sold it to a Major in Air Force who kept car till he passed, car was auctioned off with his Esate a little over a year ago! This is not hear say! I have all records to back this up!
Jonathan I totally get it. It is a very nice car. At auction I bet you paid very well to win the chance to own it. Don’t let the comments get you down. It will take the right buyer. Good luck with the sale.
I have a 56 BA sp cp that I bought new, July 56. Mine has about 175K on the clock. So, I feel like I KNOW what a 65-year-old Chevy BA SHOULD look like. As others have posted before me, this one does not pass the sniff test. Numerous flags here. Not that this may not be a good car.
When I was a teen, you could buy these all day for $250. I remember taking a 2 dr. post 55 roller to the dump. No rust anywhere. Fortunately, someone retrieved it. But they were just cars in the day. Drove like crap.
RH, do you call that an intelligent post? Who cares what you could do when you were a teen? It’s irrelevant….just like the rest of that post….sheesh…
Why question the mileage when, according to the description, there is documentation of the mileage, service, etc. since new. What am I missing?
Keep in mind that I’m someone who, too frequently, have been questioning the mileage of cars on this site.
Thanks for not being a hater! I do have all records to back up miles on car!
Have any of you ever driven a 57 Chevy. I did a few times. What a total POS they are to drive. An American icon yes. Not a good car for today’s super speedways full of idiots texting while driving 90 mph because they have to get to Wal-Mart. Not safe. Way over priced. Potential buyers for Tri Five Chevys now in their 80s. Prices on these will drop like the Titanic in the next 10 years because not many folks will want them. I am 65 years young and don’t want one.
Well, George I beg to differ, I’m 67 and have always wanted one and still do. But to get one I’d have to give up one of my other cars, the 69 Camaro that I’ve had for 16 years or my 32 ford roadster that I built myself, I don’t think I want one quite that badly. Still you never know.
Man that radiator has led a tough life and any yellow’d receipts in that pile ?
Well the radiator is 64 years old! Should I say that again? 64 years old! And it’s also a crazy thing but when you take a piece of paper wrap it in plastic, put it in a binder keep it out of the sun it will actually be preserved pretty good! People should try this concept with family photos. It may just work!
Someone posted about the condition of the speedo… Jonathan, would you care to elaborate on what YOU see with the speedo. Is the needle really broken, as one poster suggested? And, if that is the case, have you verified that the odo is working, or not? Just curious, that’s all.
Odometer is still working and keeping up with miles on car. Drove it for about 6 hrs around town the other day!
Guys, I ran a large antique car restoration and repair shop for 30+ years, this is not the first time I’ve seen Tri-5 Chevys with firewalls that were not fully painted with the color coat. That’s what I’m seeing on this car. I’ve seen photos of Fisher Body assembly line cars, being assembled with poorly painted firewalls.
99% of 1957 Chevrolet buyers didn’t really care if the firewall was not 100% painted, as long as no rust was showing. Most people here probably don’t know there were 2 employment levels for Fisher Body painters. The first line guys painted the outer panels. The second line guys painted the inner door, firewall and trunk panels. The second line guys often didn’t get full coverage, and Fisher Body didn’t care, as they actually saved more money by not ‘wasting’ paint! Watch some old Fisher Body black & white films, and eventually you will see some of the mistakes!
This looks like a well cared for automobile that’s 64 years old. The owner says it was a garage kept car, always under a cover as well. So it’s no surprise the plastic emblems are not faded.
And let’s just say for a moment it has some replaced chrome trim. All the ’57 Chevy chrome trim I’ve bought as “modern manufactured” was not made in China, they were made by Danchuck Manufacturing, from the original molds, as Danchuck was the original 1957 supplier of these parts to Fisher Body. Good luck in telling a new Danchuck piece from an original in its 1957 package. If both the first & second owners passed away before selling, who knows exactly what parts were replaced and at what time & date. The current owner only knows it’s a low mileage, mostly original car.
When the owner says over & over again he has all the paperwork showing the progression of the mileage during the 64 years of ownership, I tend to believe him, as the last thing he will want to have happen, is for a new buyer to show up and claim the papers are not real, & walk away.
I once bought a 1935 Rolls-Royce 20/25 limousine with less than 7,500 genuine miles. Problem was, it sat outside for 40+ years. It was an ultra low mileage example in abysmal condition. The doors had fallen off!
I owned a 1948 Packard with over 100,000 miles on it, and it looked great, because the original owner [I was the second owner], was meticulous in it’s care, and it never spent a night outside. He kept wool blankets on the seats, so they were beautiful. Towels on the floor. He put tin foil on the brake & clutch pedals, they had no wear showing! He was 100% OCD, and wore white gloves to drive it!
Those are some very astute observations, Bill. Another thing that was common back then, as my dad did to his car, was to put seat covers on it when brand new. Then pull them off when you went to trade it in yielding better trade in value.
Bill, THANK YOU. And, I partly say that as myself being an original owner of a tri-five.
ACZ,
Yep, seat covers were very popular well into the late 1960s, Sears sold several hundred thousand sets of seat covers every year, in part because the factory automotive upholstery wasn’t well-made, and would often begin rapid deterioration after only 40,000 miles.
I worked for a Ford dealer in the early 1970s, and one of my jobs was to ferry used cars to/from a local upholstery shop, as many of the late-model trade-in cars, only a few years old, already needed seats & carpets.