Even as I start to type this, I realize that I’m about to dive into the deep end of a filthy, unchlorinated public pool of hypocrisy. And then I’m going to swim around a bit. I feel like I’m being hypocritical because one of the Founding Ideals of this site is that anyone and everyone is welcome, no matter how miserable or boring or obscure or perverse their car obsessions are. And I believe this, with every rusty nut in my soul. At the same time, I think it’s okay to express opinions about cars, even negative ones, because, well, that makes life interesting. Hell, I even let our crankiest, most acerbic writer lambast one of my favorite cars ever, and sure, I also wrote a rebuttal, but the point is sometimes it’s just cathartic to lambast a car, especially one with such a huge following. And that’s what I’m going to do right now, as I tell you that if I learned a drunk, hungry wizard appeared and turned every ’57 Chevy into a nice corned beef sandwich, I’d be just fine with that.
The 1957 Chevy – part of the “Tri-Five” series of cars from 1955 to 1957 – is arguably the most iconic “American” car. I have American in quotes there because it’s not really America – it’s the icon of this idealized 1950s America, the source for what people call Americana, and all of the hokey, overplayed, tired miasma that surrounds it. For a classic car pushing 70 years old, there’s still a shocking amount of them around. About 1.5 million of these were made, and to their credit, it feels like most of those are still kicking, taking up way too many spots at classic car shows, surrounded by those creepy upset kid dolls and with open trunks showing old window stickers and newspaper clippings.
It’s not like the ’57 Chevy was such a bad car – it wasn’t – but it wasn’t that great a car, either. Sure, they had the legendary 265 cubic inch V8 that was introduced in 1955, but the overall engineering was about as unimaginative as you can, ironically, imagine. They handled about as well as most 1950s big American cars, which is to say lousy, like moving a couch on a furniture dolly. You could get them in like 19 different body styles and literally hundreds of two-tone and solid color combinations, and while that’s great and all, I can’t fathom why these became the default 1950s car over any number of their contemporaries.
I mean, when you want a Hawaiian shirt with cars on it, for reasons maybe you don’t feel comfortable admitting, chances are you’ll get something like these:
They’re covered in ’57 Chevys (and maybe some ’56s?), Bel Airs, convertibles, the occasional (and more interesting) Nomad, but all still these same cars. Sure, you can find shirts with other cars, but the dominance of the ’57 Chevy can’t be denied. Or justified, as far as I’m concerned.
I just don’t get why this happened? How did this one particular car get to be so dominant, develop such a colossal fanbase, establish such a massive aftermarket industry, and just come to dominate the mainstream classic car community for so damn long? How did this car end up with its iconic status to the point that it’s become essentially synonymous with ’50s America, and almost the expected follow-up any time anyone even says the year 1957?
There’s certainly other cars with rabid followings and strong associations with a particular time and place and culture and representations in art and Hawaiian shirts and all that, of course. The Beetle comes to mind. But the difference there is that when the Beetle grew in popularity and became an automotive icon in the 1960s and 1970s, at that time, it was somewhat unique in the mainstream culture, at least in America. It was foreign, small, weird, technically strange, and an outlier amongst the mainstream cars around at the time. It stood out. It became popular as a reaction against mainstream culture, which sort of makes its eventual climb to fame more understandable.
But the ’57 Chevy? I mean, it was fine, but was it really all that different than its big competitors of the era? Why did this car:
…get so much more fame and notoriety and lasting legendary status over, say, this car:
Ford actually outsold Chevy in 1957, even. And sure, there’s plenty of love for these cars, but it doesn’t quite reach the ethereal status of the Chevrolet. Or what about one of these:
Dodge certainly had the same sort of over-exuberant jet-age styling as the Chevy, and was maybe even more exaggerated. Hell, even the Nash had a similar sort of dual-fuselage jet-type hood ornament as some of the Chevys:
But, of course, none of these cars reached the level of the Chevy. And they’re just not that different. I mean, sure, there’s plenty of differences, but we’re not talking differences like what the Volkswagen was to American cars of the time. There are differences in details and trim and specs, but if you had to describe all of the cars I showed here just now in general terms – big V8 heavily chromed two-tone sedans with Paleolithic chassis designs – it would apply equally well to any of them.
What’s also surprising is how much the designers of the ’57 Chevy seemed to, well, not like the car. The 1957 model was supposed to be all new, but the new design wasn’t ready, so Chevy’s design team had to tart up the ’56 as best they could to make it feel new and different. The roof and doors and rear deck are carryovers from ’56, but there was a lot of pressure to make the ’57 look different. This Hemmings article notes how the designers felt about the car:
One man who worked on designing the ’57 Chevy is Robert Cumberford, who today lives in France. He distinctly remembers that not a single person who worked on the 1957 car liked the design. He recalls working 84-hour weeks with others in a crash program to design the ’57 model and that Harley Earl wanted the car to look as big as possible. To accomplish that, stylists stretched the fender profile to an extreme length, pushed the headlamps as far apart as possible and took the grille across the entire front end.
You can see how widened everything is, the grille, the lights shoved as far to the edges as possible, all to make the car look as massive as possible. These changes seem sort of bonkers when you look at the ’56, which was already an incredibly wide-looking car:
The designer mentioned above, Robert Cumberford, actually once commented on a Dean’s Garage story, where he found an old sketch he did for the 1957 redesign – which he described as an “emergency re-style”:
He says directly that
“It was a thrash, none of us who worked on it liked the damn ’57, and now it’s the one people revere. Go figure.”
Again, this was one of the people who designed the damn car.
But I have to be honest – I don’t think the car is all that bad, really. And I like the two-door wagon Nomad version, especially.
But that said, I cannot fathom why this particular year and model ended up becoming so wildly dominant in the classic car scene. I remember so many local car shows that seemed to have rows and rows of these things, and I’ve seen them on so much bad art that romanticizes Route 66 and paints in James Dean and Marilyn Monroe in front of ’57 Bel Airs, and I’m just sick of them. I don’t get it! I never have, and I likely never will.
I feel like in recent years the saturation of ’57 Chevys is abating a bit, as the population that really latched onto them is getting older and less likely to take them out. I’m not exactly sure how the market is for these things still – it seems pretty steady, maybe with a slight decline – but I can’t help but think we’re only a few decades out from a time when the last of the people who genuinely give a crap about these cars has died off, and there will be a massive glut in the market of unwanted ’57 Chevys, complete with stacks of Hawaiian shirts and trunks full of award plaques.
Maybe then I’ll get interested, when they’re so cheap and undesired that you can buy one for pimples and cram in the drivetrain from a Nissan Leaf and use it as your electric around-town car, or something. Who knows.
What I do know is that if I never see another ’57 Chevy again, I think I’ll be just fine. I’m happy to hear all the arguments why I’m not just wrong, but wrong and ugly, and deep down I know I have the abuse coming. But I just couldn’t keep quiet any longer.
Top photo and all images: Chevrolet unless otherwise noted
I’m a boomer and couldn’t agree more.
Over rated, over exposed and hopefully just plain over.
Thank you for writing this.
For the trifecta, ’55, too.
I cannot hate the 57 as my dad has had one now for over 25 years if I am not mistaken and it should be handed down to me some day. I enjoy driving it and will always have memories of taking it on a road trip to a car show a few states over. Just a note my dads it is a 4 door in surf green and still has the original 283 and power glide so my dad has kept it as stock as possible. Oh and my dad was born in 65 so on the edge of boomer/gen X haha
Similar here. My grandfather had a red-on-white 4 door ’56 and I have pictures (as a diaper-equipped baby) sitting on the hood and taking trips in it. I don’t remember anything but those photos are treasures to me. I can’t hate the tri-5’s.
He sold it and bought an Opel, which was a piece of shit. This was early 80’s, mind you.
Every boomer of a certain age had a 55, 56, or 57 Chevy in the 1960s. They were GOOD cheap used cars back then, basic, very durable, easy to fix, very easy to hotrod/soup up/customise. Note that by 1965 or so a majority of the 1957 MOPARS and Fords had rusted away, were used up and crushed. The Chevies were just a much better built car.
Also I think they are more comfortable and the size is just right compared to the “lower/longer/wider” cars that came in for 1959. The Chevies are taller, you sit more upright, the space utilization is better, the Chevy is shorter, easier to park, no 2 feet hanging out the back of the parking space
Nope.
Mom came from a Ford family (grew up in Ford County, Illinois – insert joke here) – but she had a used Corvair when she worked for Studebaker – which Dad traded in for a new Chevy II wagon after they were married in spring ’65.
Meanwhile Dad came from a Studebaker family – but the car his Father owned when he died in 1960 was a Ford Fairlane, and when his brother came back from Korea in the Navy, he bought a used Cadillac.
Nobody in either families had any Tri-Fives.
Maybe that was bad wording and you are taking me too literally here. Every boomer of a certain age had one of these as a used car in the 1960s. Or had a friend/brother/sister/somebody they knew who had one.
Is that better:) They were VERY popular cars just used as transportation even 7, 10, 12 years later. Which was UNCOMMON for most cars back then.
I’m with you Torch. These always struck me as “fine” but I never understood why they were so revered. I guess I assumed they just made so many of them that people could get there hands on them pretty easily and cheaply?
I remember being really into these as a kid. Some of it was probably having a boomer dad who revered them, but I think one of the things for me was the idea that a car design could change every year like it did with the 55-56-57. Coming of age in the late 80s early 90s where a design stuck around for 5 or so years at least before a restyle thought that was exciting.
As I’ve gotten older I’ve realized these were basically an Accord or Camry of the day, and thats part of why boomers idolize them; they knew plenty of people who had them new and they’re comfort food in car form.
No disagreements here! I actually stopped going to most car shows in my area as it was rows upon rows of either ’57 Chevys, ’34 Ford hotrods, or ’67 Camaros. Every single one would have at least one Boomer board next to it with some guy sitting in a lawn chair and chatting about what’s wrong with the new generation. They all look exactly the same and if you’ve seen one, you’ve seen a thousand.
Unless you had one of those three cars, you could forget about any kind of award.
I’ve talked with other elder Millennials about my age, and all of them share the same sentiment. I fully expect the floor to drop out under 50s-60s classic cars in the next decade as that generation dies off. Pre-war cars like the Model A are already very affordable.
Living in Delco country we have a lot more Chevys than other brands to begin with. That being said I believe more GMs endure because of parts availability and broader compatibility that other brands. That being said I would like a Tri 5 at some point, but they are often just too expensive for their condition. Similar to Chevelles etc.
The last time I saw the name Mayfair was on a toilet.
Was it in one of the rooms at the Hotel Pennsylvania?
There’s a saying in fashion, that people tend to dress from the era of their first success.
I know that the 1950’s were not the greatest time for everyone, but for a huge swath of Americans, it was a pretty good time. WWII was over, GI Bill paid for college, more people entering the middle class than ever with decent union jobs.
Add to that the nostalgia of the baby boomers for their youth, and the answer is clear…
Another anti-GM article by Torch. Shocking! It sounds like he’s especially sour because it’s the 10 year anniversary for his beloved VW getting caught poisoning the planet.
What’s not to understand about the tri-5 Chevys? They were the Honda Accord or Toyota Camry of their time. They sold a boatload of them and for many it was their first car. These were either older Boomers first car, or Boomers had them in their families when they were a kid. The same way that Millennials heap on way too much praise onto late 80s/early 90s Camrys even though Camrys and Accord were generic family sedans.
Personally these are a little too old for my tastes. The 60s is when we reached peak car design, and it’s been a downward spiral since.
For the record, I love GM! They made the Corvair! And I genuinely believe there’s not greater engineering company, when they put their minds to something. And as far as Modern VW goes, I don’t have any special loyalty there. Also, car shows aren’t full of Accords or Camrys.
Not yet they aren’t; we can’t afford to restore them yet. But soon!
Hah, my parents are about to sell the family Camry – a 1999 model and their daily driver for the past 20+ years – and dad off-handedly said maybe they should keep it because it’ll be collectable in a few years. I still can’t picture it ever being desirable, but who knows?
Find a younger Millennial and they’ll be interested. Tell them you’ll throw in a Nirvana T-shirt and they’ll offer you top dollar.
I keep seeing teenagers in Nirvana and Sublime shirts. It’s weird.
I saw one of those on historic plates recently.
You guys haven’t been to Radwood?!? Maybe they aren’t full of Accords and Camrys but they are full of, what I would consider, generic JDM 90s shit boxes that the younger crowd is now fawning over.
And I’ve been to many car shows, and there might have been some tri-5s, but not really that many. But I’m East Coast, so the salt and cold weather might have rusted them all out by now.
I’ve never seen a beige ’94 Camry plastered all over a button down shirt.
While there are plenty of people who love their run of the mill ’90s sedans, I haven’t seen too many people opt to have their entire identity revolve around them. Certainly I haven’t seen too many Camry restorations, or car shows where people are saying things like “you can tell this is a genuine XLE by the gold logo on the trunk-lid”.
I think we have a winner for the next Autopian shirt design.
I would gladly take one, lol.
Some of you guys need to get out more often. There’s a whole demographic of 30-something dudes who live, breathe and eat everything JDM. Tattoos, clothing and everything in between. (No idea if that link below will work). Most of them have expanded beyond just JDM cars and into anything Japanese-culture, but they have indeed turned Japanese cars into their whole personality.
It’s funny how Millennials hate Boomers so much, and yet they are following right in their footsteps on so many things. Just a few decades behind and with their own spin.
https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/shopping?q=tbn:ANd9GcTRF33kJ4Pgzw0Yf0w6w1lk6jAQEfquhNnOOfHaqg8O0rYKyovP5rWlW90tuv_ExFwNILm1CRSyikMRx_wW0YCNhbmhCe2I4y23f_Pw8uBr9ezIfK3kd8_w0A
While this may be a subculture that certainly exists, its not quite as pervasive as 30 Chevys from the 50s parked at every single soft serve ice cream shop across all of rural America for 4 months a year.
I used to go to a LOT of classic car shows and take my ’64 for cruises all the time. I would see a whole hell of a lot more older Mustangs and Camaros than any tri-5s. I’m even tempted to look at my old show pics to see how many I’d notice. Then again, I don’t live in a warm retirement area, so maybe that might explain it. :shrug:
But I’m sure you’ve seen many whose entire identity revolve around a 4th-gen Civic or that fat whale they called the Supra Turbo. I have seen shirts filled with JDM.
In all honesty, Camrys and Accords will not be the dominant cars at future shows, it will be sport compacts. The reason you haven’t seen many restorations is because of the amount of plastic and vinyl in those cars is more difficult to reproduce than pot metal and cloth. But it will happen.
The reason that Chevelles, Tri-Fives and Mustangs are over-represented is simply because the restoration business has them covered. Try finding parts for a 1970 Ford Torino. There’s no question that Civics and Miatas will overwhelm Eclipses and MR2s at future shows.
The difference is you don’t have to walk past rows and rows of Camrys at car shows!
Go to Radwood. Maybe not exactly Camrys, but still a ton of JDM shitboxes that are now getting overly praised by clueless millennials. Rosecolored glasses – no different than Boomers and their Tri-5s.
This could be distilled down even further. I have a few old cars. A 1955 Mercury Monterey and a 1949 Plymouth SuperDeluxe. Occasionally in the past I used to go to car shows. But I stopped because I felt that 90% of the cars were the same 5 popular models over and over again: Belairs, Mustangs, Chargers, and Corverttes. Oh and of course shit tons of generic got rods.
The people at the shows are like the cars. Not particularly original and usually not very interesting people to talk to. And they’re probably some old white trump voting boomer on top of that so even less reasons to talk with those folks.
Why everyone fixates on the same damned cars when obviously there were so many others is beyond me. Maybe because most people are fuckin’ boring.
Amen brother. Show me a two tone Metropolitan. A Studebaker Hawk or that 25’ Imperial and I will be gobsmacked. The Hot Rods aren’t, maybe an old early early edition Corvette but the garish chrome crap. Nope. And I am that old Boomer, but then I lust after a Citroen DS. So who knows maybe a TR 3 or a 50’s MG?
+1 boring ass flattop-wearing racist in his ’57 that he didn’t actually lift a finger to restore
Things got worse in ’58, but the ’57 Chevy is very much on the path to the 50’s excess Bruce McCall parodied. The ’55 Chevy is a clean design and debuted an engine that democratized power, the ’57 is the best indicator that a recession was coming.
https://www.lambiek.net/artists/image/m/mccall_bruce/mccall_nl7204.jpg
That picture is amazing. I love it
I always preferred the 1956, myself. The ’55 is a little too plain, the ’57 is a little too overwrought, but the ’56 is quite literally the sweet middle ground
Of course, Plymouth had far and away the best looking (and best handling and best riding) of the Low Priced Three in 1957, its just a shame most of them turned into iron oxide by 1960
Tell me more about this Mayfair… That thing is beautiful!
I think in some part, this can be traced to the 1980s.
Back then, cars from the 60s or 70s were mostly perceived as old junk (seriously), but stuff from the 50s was already being viewed with nostalgia due to American Graffiti in the 70s turning out Happy Days which would run through the mid-80s.
Both helped invent the nostalgia-industrial complex, so it was only a matter of time before we’d get the now familiar cocktail of Elvis Presley, Marylin Monroe, and the 57 Chevy appearing as a pop culture thing.
I think this does have something to do with it. You add in the fact that the Tri-Five Chevies were basically the Toyota Camry of the 50’s, something that was considered cheap and reliable transportation, and because of this they seem to have stuck around longer than it’s competitors, allowing them to stay in the public’s eye better.
I swear by the early 90s, you’d see a poster of one on any random sitcom teenager’s bedroom wall. To your point, they’d become shorthand for old but cool car perhaps b/c it was one of the few old cars everyone knew.
I think their popularity is because of the whole SBC worship(the comparable Fords had the terrible Y-block with its exploding rocker arms) and the fact that most people found them more attractive that the Fords and Mopars. My father, who was a teenager during those years, said at one point “55-57 Chevies were always desirable, right from the get-go through the 60’s and up to the present day, nobody gave a crap about a ’56 Ford after 1957”.
Personally, I’m over the whole Boomer-musclecar worship entirely, I’ve driven damn near every musclecar ever made, including a race Hemi Sport Fury and Boss 302 Mustang, and they’re all ponderous, sloshy-handling and can’t stop for shit without $5K worth of suspension upgrades and another couple thousand for brakes. Plus a CTR will wax pretty much all of them at the dragstrip.
Tri-5 Chevys democratized the beginning of cheap GM V8s which eventually became legendary, and the ’57 democratized pointy tail fins. I think it’s a combination of that and the huge number of them produced. Kinda how Fox Body Mustangs have a similar legendary reputation for cheap speed when in reality they were objectively not that great.
This is my favorite movie scene involving a ’57 Chevy. Hella underrated movie.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXz6vrFwO_M
*separately, I’m looking forward to working the Butt with you next weekend, if you know what I mean.
Are you working that race? For the first time in quite a while I’ll be racing in it, or at least doing whatever you want to call our attempt to turn laps in Spank’s DAF 55.
Yep! I’ve retired The Homer from racing but I still want to be involved with Lemons. Can’t justify the price of an arrive and drive this time but I’ve been on their staff before so I’ll probably be performing the same duties you were at Thunderhill.
Torch and Sajeev Mehta are both going to be at this race! I met Torch briefly at the first Radwood L.A. Sajeev is a brother from another mother when it comes to our love of ’80s Fords and I actually stayed at his house years ago when we were racing a crapcan ’81 Ford Granada together. Stoked to spend some time with both of them.
Happy to see Spank is back at it! I was sad to see the DAF never hit the track last time, so I hope you guys have better luck this time. I oughta hit up Spank for an arrive and drive sometime. Being part of the OJ Bronco chase group was a lot of fun, and he only lives like 20 minutes from me.
I may, too. At last weekend’s Colorado race Kim was delighted to hear that I’ll be bringing along my staff t-shirt as a backup plan in the exceedingly unlikely event that the DAF renders itself irreparable. Again.
I’ve worked with Sajeev at a couple of races and we get along pretty well. It turns out he’s particularly keen on Triumph Acclaims, but really, who isn’t? I’ve never met this Torch guy, though, so we’ll just have to see how that goes.
The DAF is now equipped with the spare driveshaft out of my parts 66 GL (one of the disappointingly few 66 parts that will interchange into a 55, as we’re finding) instead of the field-expedient welded-together object of desperation from the last attempt. What could possibly go wrong?
I’m sure I’ll see you in the garage 🙂
Funnily enough having a Lemons car is allowing me to attend the race without said car. On Sunday here in San Diego there’s a big Euro car show and my company has a booth there. I offered up The Homer as a booth car (it is a BMW!) and they loved the idea and asked if I could officially work the booth at the show, which I agreed to. If I work on the weekend my company gives me a comp day to use in the next two weeks, and that’s how I’m taking off Friday to go to Lemons.
Next week is the start of classes here so I’ll be heading to the airport immediately after my Friday afternoon lecture. This should get me to the track at oh, around midnight, so I’ll probably instead just find a place to stay between LAX and the track, then show up Saturday morning. I’ll also have to leave early Sunday afternoon, before the race ends, to catch a flight that gets me home in time for at least some sleep before teaching again Monday morning. It’s not exactly an optimal Lemons weekend but hey, I couldn’t say no to the DAF.
Oof, that’s rough. I’m electing to get up hella butt early on Friday morning and drive 4 hours up there rather than spending another night at a mediocre roadside hotel, but that still sounds better than your arrangement. And better than the 36 hours awake at Thunderhill.
Remember the movie “Drive Angry”?
Yes, the person at the end introduces a Chevrolet from this era to Mr Milton.
I believe they were aspirational cars to that generation, in the same way that some more recent folks aspire to own a 2JZ Supra.
You are neither. You are correct and handsome in a Temu boy-band kind of way.
I dunno about that, back then you could get a stripped down Chevy 150 or a fully loaded Chevy Bel Air in the same body style. Maybe the Bel Airs were aspirational, but not all ’57 Chevys.
They were more like the 6th generation Honda Civic. Cheap, widely available and a bit better than they needed to be.
The 57 Chevrolet is not an attractive car and never has been. I have never been sure why it has remained as popular as it was.
Both the 55 and 56 were better looking, as was the 58. The 57 Ford is a far better-looking car. The only revered classic worse is the 59 Cad.
The 55 Chevy is the peak of the tri 5 era.
The 57 150 is not the worst but it is still falls far short of the 55
I always like the ’56 the best, a little less plain than the ’55 without all the gimcrackery of the 57, but like Torch, I’m over all them.
I’d like to see a styling analysis from Mr. Clarke or The Bishop. I had a ’55 210 four door post in green and white, just a thrifty six and powerglide. It had such perfect proportions to my untrained eye. I just loved looking at it, cruising, listening to the subtle whirr of the engine. In my mind they got the tri-years right.
I’m shocked to learn Jason doesn’t have a Rock ‘n’ Roll heart.
Apparently he doesn’t get off on 57 Chevies, he GOES of on them! 🙂
Maybe he gets off on screaming guitars?
Cars like many things. There are alot of them for a reason. Sure you may not like it but you would not yell at someone for liking it.
Maybe a struck a chord we were ready for in 1957?
Finally! Thanks!
I absolutely prefer the cleaner lines of the ’55. They weren’t great cars, but they *were* culturally significant. The first low-priced modern OHV V-8 for the masses. And they do represent their era, and the transition from the first post-war models to the (then) modern age. And they sold a LOT of them.
But are they good cars? Meh.
I think they aren’t really exciting.
I know people will rip me apart for this, but many people say that Toyota and Lexus make boring cars.
Well (let us ignore reliability for now), Chevrolet and Cadillac have and do make “boring” sedans too, none of which give you the excitement a German car will.
Until this article I didn’t know about design delay of the 58 style, necessitating the rush job on the 57. A lot makes sense now. 1) This story validates my opinion that the best cars are often refresh or facelift years, when an older model is extended. Usually the quaity is good because major issues are sorted out. Sometimes the reliable and less fashionable beats out the innnovative and flashy (see 57 Mopar lineup). 2) It also explains the 1 year-only 58. It was already dated when it finally arrived. Still fat, tall and bulky looked compared to competition. Then Chevy overreached with the hideous 59’s.