Duane “Dewey” Stromberg’s 1954 Chevrolet Bel Air is just one of those “feel good” cars. It’s really hard not to smile when you see it. A 1950s beauty queen if ever there was one.

For Stromberg, a retired resident of Green Bay, Wis., the car came along at just the right time and has helped him get over a mourning period.

“A year and a half ago I had just got my ‘72 Chevelle redone. It was really nice,” he recalled. “I was about a half a block away from home going onto my service road and an EMT hit me in the rear end … I had my left turn signal on and was waiting to turn in, and she hit me and pushed me into a heavy-duty pickup truck. So I got hit on both ends …It was totaled. I’m a Chevy guy. We loved the Chevelle. I just about cried when that car got destroyed.”

Stromberg decided he’d replace the Chevelle with another one, but before he got on the trail of a Chevelle he came across a lovely 1954 Horizon Blue Bel Air two-door sedan for sale in a local newspaper. He figured it was at least worth the short drive to go check it out.

“[The seller’s] father had died and left the two cars to her,” Stromberg noted. “I know her father used to be the automotive repair man at NWTC [Northwest Wisconsin Technical College] and that’s where the car was repainted. He did all the paint and chrome work and the interior was done by some outfit in Appleton… Everything had been redone: chrome, interior, even the screws. The only thing that was wrong was the transmission didn’t work right. It wasn’t shifting right … It turns out it was just a little low on fluid!”

According to Stromberg, the 66,000-plus miles on the odometer are accurate. The Bel Air still has its original engine and original Powerglide transmission. The car was simply too stunning and well-put-together for him to pass up, and these days it looks great in his driveway sitting next to his ’57 Bel Air custom.

“I was 14 years old when this came out, and I had a friend that had a ’54 Chevy station wagon, so I thought this would be nice,” he chuckles. “I had a ’56 Chevy Bel Air at one time, too. I like them all, I thought having a ’54 and a ’57 would be nice! [laughs]”

1954: End of an Era

The Bel Air nameplate first appeared on Chevrolets in 1950 when the Bel Air Sport Coupe moniker was applied to the two-door hardtop models. In 1953, Chevrolet brought out new names and the Bel Air was placed at the top of the lineup, ahead of the 150 and 210. The cars were advertised as all-new, but in reality weren’t much different under the skin than 1949–1952 models.

For ’53, Chevrolet added a double molding on the rear fender pontoon to help identify its new luxury model. It enclosed a panel that was decorated with a short, wide-ribbed beauty molding, Bel Air script and Chevrolet crest on the leading edge above a chrome gravel shield. All Two-Ten trim features and equipment were incorporated, plus rear fender skirls; double windshield pillar moldings; extra wide window reveals on sedans; and saddle moldings on sport coupes and convertibles. Exposed bright metal roof bows and dashboard mounted rearview mirrors were standard in Bel Air sport coupes.

For 1954, the Bel Air was largely unchanged from ’53. It had the traditional assortment of extra equipment and features such as full genuine carpeting; newly designed full wheel discs; horizontally ebbed vinyl door panels and an electric clock. The sport coupe had special “fashion fiesta” two-tone upholstery; rear pillar courtesy lights; chrome-plated inside roof garnish moldings; and rear window frame and bright metal exposed roof bows. The convertible interior seemed even richer, with two-tone all-vinyl trims and snap-on boot cover. The rearview mirror was no longer mounted atop the dashboard. Identifying all Bel Airs externally were full-length sweepspear moldings with double moldings on rear fenders enclosing the name Bel Air and a Chevrolet crest; bright metal double windshield pillar moldings and window molding; body belt molding; rocker panel moldings; bright metal gravel guards; and rear wheel fender skirts.

There were five different Bel Airs in all for ’54: two-and four-door sedans, sport coupe, convertible and four-door station wagon. They ranged in price from $1,684 for the four-door sedan up to $2,263 for the eight-passenger wagon. A bench seat and three-speed manual were standard. Among the options were power steering and brakes, Guidematic headlight dimmer, two-way power front seat and power front windows. Propulsion came from the “Blue Flame” inline six-cylinder, which utilized hydraulic valve lifters and aluminum pistons. The 235-cid power plant produced 115 hp in stick shift cars and 125 with the Powerglide. A total of 486,240 Bel Airs were built in 1954, which was more than 42 percent of Chevrolet’s total production. Stromberg’s two-door sedan was one of 143,573 assembled for the model year — a whopping total but still well behind the even more popular four-door sedan (248,750 built). As successful as the 1949-54 run had been, the company was ready to move forward with a totally new car, featuring V-8 power, and the ’54 Bel Airs were the last of their breed. The bold reinvention of the entire lineup paid off in spades in Bowtieland, as sales soared when the “Hot One” ’55 models hit showrooms and the lovely ‘54s became yesterday’s news. The good news for collectors and enthusiasts is the ones that remain today are generally more affordable and considerable less common than their higher-profile successors.

A Cure for the Blues 

Stromberg hasn’t put many miles on his beautiful blue 1954 sedan in the short time he’s had it, but the car has made it to some shows and gotten plenty of attention. The short local trips have been made smoother by a new set of radial whitewall tires.

 “It runs great, and it drives great,” he says. “Before we put the radials on we had bias-ply tires, and with those if you hit a crack in the road you’d go like this [swerves] … It has the original AM radio, but we put a replica AM/FM in it. Otherwise, we didn’t have to do much of anything else.” 

Stromberg doesn’t know a lot about the car’s history prior to recent years, but the car had clearly been preserved and pampered by previous owners. With only 66,000 miles on the clock, it’s likely it endured a lengthy slumber somewhere along the line. It was the right car at the right time for Stromberg, however, and he’s hoping to continue to share it with the world as much as he can — and collect a few trophies along the way.

“I get more compliments on the color than anything,” he says. “Women really like that color of blue. I get a lot of comments… And the good thing about the shows, the classes are usually up to ’54. So it’s nice not to have to compete with ’55, ’56 and ‘57s … I have only seen one other ’54 at the shows I go to. “You know, I always loved the Chevelles, but there are a lot of Chevelles around. There aren’t many cars like these.”

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This old Bel Air was parked out in the pasture years ago, about 45 miles from where it was sold new! This was pretty much a basic car. It is a 6-cylinder without much for options. Someone knocked a couple of the windows out of it, but otherwise this old Bel Air pretty much looks like it just had the key shut off! The original selling dealer emblem is even still on the trunk!

Chad Ehrlich is always dragging cool, old iron in his salvage yard, Nobody Else’s Auto. Be sure to subscribe to the “Nobody’s Show” Channel on YouTube to keep up with all of the new inventory that Chad is hauling in! You can also follow him on Facebook under “Nobody Else’s Auto.”

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The post As found by Chad: 1965 Chevrolet Bel Air 4- Door appeared first on Old Cars Weekly.

When Paul Kammann heads out to car shows in one of his three stunning Packards, he frequently has his wife Melanie trailing him in a chase vehicle. The following rig in the Kammanns’ case is quite often an equally stunning 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air.

“One reason I like her following me is she has turn signals!” Paul laughs. “I swear people today don’t know what hand signals mean. I like her behind me to kind of protect my hind end.”

When the couple gets to shows, husband and wife generally duke it out for the best trophies. To rival any of Paul’s Packards, a ’57 Chevy would have to be a blue-chip specimen, and Melanie’s Matador Red Bel Air Sport Coupe definitely qualifies. It is a magnificent car in every way, and a birthday present she will never forget.

“I didn’t know I was going to get it,” Melanie says. “He went with his brother down to get it and when he brought it home I said, ‘Oh my god! I got a car for my birthday!’ I got it because I wanted to go to car shows and drive, and not many women like to drive cars to car shows.”

“We bought our ’34 Packard in December of 2009 and in spring we started taking it to car shows, and she started getting really interested in the shows and she was wishing she could have a car to drive,” recalls Paul. “She wanted an automatic; she doesn’t want to drive a stick. So I thought a ’57 Chevy would be nice, and we can get a Powerglide in it, so that’s what I started looking for.”

It wasn’t long before Paul found a lovely ’57 Bel Air for sale through Volo Auto Sales in Illinois. It belonged to a Janesville, Wis., man, who had given it a proper home after the car had changed hands a bunch of times over the years.

 “One of the things that really attracted me to the car, the guy I bought it from, Mike Frazier, [and] his dad Wilber, both of these guys worked at the Janesville factory where this car was built,” Paul noted. “This is a Janesville car. It turns out they went back and found out that his dad was on the line when this car went through. I said to him, ‘My God, how can you sell that car?’ But he said he wanted to buy a new Camaro with air conditioning and go out on Route 66!… He had the car about 12 years. He bought it at the Jefferson car show [in Jefferson, Wis.]. I’ve got records that go back and I have names of a number of previous owners. It stayed in Wisconsin, all the names I got are Wisconsin guys.”

All of Paul’s collector cars are No. 1 condition examples. If they aren’t nearly perfect when he buys them, he restores them to the best condition he can. The ’57 Bel Air turned out to be no exception. It was a nice car to start with, and it became a show-stopper by the time he was done with it. Not only was it in nice shape, the Bel Air was also equipped with the desirable “Power Pack” option — a combination of special high-compression heads, four-barrel carburetor and dual exhaust that bumped the horsepower up to 220.

“One of the really good things about it is it’s a numbers-matching car, totally numbers-matching,” he added. “The only thing was it did get painted and had a color change. It was originally gray with an ivory top and 20, 30, 40 years ago, somebody changed it to Matador Red which, of course, is also a Chevy color. And I personally like the solid, one-color cars rather than the two-tones they had back then.”

1957: Year 3 of the ‘Hot Ones’

For three years during its memorable “Tri-Five” run from 1955-’57, Chevrolet called its new lineup of flashier, bolder cars “The Hot Ones.” It was a fitting description.

The 1957 Chevys were in tune with the changing times. They had a more youthful, tail-finned look that was “radical” for a once-upon-a-time bread-and-butter car. “57 Chevrolet! Sweet, smooth and sassy,” said one ad.

Triple-Turbine automatic drive, a bigger V-8 and an option list of new ideas, including fuel injection, made the ’57 Chevy seem revolutionary and sexy. True, it was based on the body introduced in 1955, but the updated body seemed more modern and sportier. Its oval-shaped front bumper grille featured “bomb-type” bumper guards. A horizontal bar “floated” across the delicately cross-hatched grille. Windsplit bulges with bombsight ornaments ran up both sides of the flat hood panel. The headlamps had air intakes above them. The rear fenders were shaped into broad, flat tailfins.

Nearly all V-8 models carried the new 283, which offered up to 283 hp in “super” fuel-injected format. All Chevrolets with a V-8 had large, V-shaped hood and deck lid ornaments (which were gold on Bel Airs). Very few cars carried the new “fuel injection” nameplate.

Stylish in almost every detail, Bel Airs carried rocker sill, roof, window and tail fin outline moldings. “Chevrolet” scripts decorated the hood and trunks of V-8s, and gold “Bel Air” scripts and Chevrolet bow-tie crests were on the rear fenders of those models.

Inside were distinctive two-tone cloth-and-vinyl interiors. The dash featured a large, circular speedometer in the center with smaller circular fuel and temperature gauges on either side and a bright faceplate on the bottom half of the dash that stretched all the way to the glove box on the passenger side.

In addition to all its other appealing qualities, the 1957 Chevrolet was blessed with an option list that could interest almost any buyer — everything from air conditioning and fuel injection, to electric antennas, tissue dispensers and continental kits. There was even an electric shaver accessory.

A total of seven V-8s were available and some were quite rare. A four-barrel carburetor and dual exhausts gave the 220-hp Turbo-Fire 220 more muscle to flex. Dual four-barrel carbs were featured on the Turbo-Fire 245-hp V-8. Fitted with a Rochester mechanical fuel-injection setup, the Ramjet 250 version of the 283 engine was another choice. Next in horsepower was the Super Turbo-Fire 270, which combined dual Quadrajet carbs with a higher 9.5:1 compression ratio. Chevy’s legendary one-horsepower-per-cubic-inch Super Ramjet 283 was the top option combining the Rochester fuel injection system with a 10.5:1 compression ratio. It was awesome and Chevrolet promoted this solid-lifter fuel-injection V-8 as the first American production-car engine to provide one horsepower per cubic inch of displacement, even if Chrysler had actually beat it to the punch one year earlier.

Fit for a bride

To measure up to the rest of his fleet, Paul Kammann had to have the couple’s Bel Air restored to a very high standard. Luckily for him, Mike Freund’s Classics Plus shop is located not far away in Fond du Lac, Wis., and the business specializes in high-end Tri-Five Chevy restorations.

“It was in nice shape. I mean, it was really nice, but there were a couple spots where there was maybe dirt in the paint or whatever. We decided to put new glass in ’er because the glass was mismatched,” Paul says. “I decided to let them do it because they knew how to take a car like this apart and they knew where to get parts. We took it there in fall of 2010 and he had it until June, and he took ’er right down to bare metal and put it all back together. He replaced almost all the trim because it was cheaper almost to buy new trim for these things than to polish the old stuff. I re-chromed the bumpers, and got all new glass, new upholstery. There is an upholstery shop in Fond du Lac that has done four cars for me and they are just absolutely the best — United Auto Trim. They did all the upholstery and did a great job.”

A couple years later, Kammann had the Bel Air’s original 283 V-8 rebuilt by a friend who specializes in engine rebuilds. 

“He did a complete rebuild, top to bottom. The valve guides were getting a little bit wore and one of the biggest things is one of the frost plugs started weeping. And they are almost impossible to reach without pulling the motor… We bored it .60 over and it just runs great now. You can hardly hear it run!”

Along with the engine overhaul, Kammann also had the brakes, master cylinder and wheel cylinders replaced.

 “We changed everything over to stainless-steel lines and switched over to silicone DOT 5 brake fluid,” he added. “That just stops any brake problems.”

Kammann says he made a subtle change to the Bel Air that most observers won’t catch — he switched the steering wheel from a 18-inch stock size to a correct-looking 16-inch version.

 “It gives you a little more room with your legs, but of course it makes the steering a little harder with the smaller wheel.”

Kammann says he’s got fender skirts for the Bel Air, but he hasn’t put them on and doubts he will.

 “They are painted and everything,” he says. “But I’m just going to keep it this way. We like it the way it is.”

Kammann groans and jokes about being “so upside-down” with his substantial investment in the fabulous ’57, but he also knows it’s probably some of the best money he’s ever spent. It was probably a car guy that came up with the catch phrase “happy wife, happy life.”

“That’s the way I justified it — it’s my wife’s car, and nothing is too good for her!” he laughs. “I have to remind her about that, but it’s probably the reason we’ve lasted so long.

SHOW US YOUR WHEELS!

If you’ve got an old car you love, we want to hear about it. Email us at oldcars@aimmedia.com

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The post Car of the Week: 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air hardtop appeared first on Old Cars Weekly.

This old Bel Air is intact, just as they shut the key off. This car came out of an old field where the old equipment was parked after they quit using it. This old Bel Air was “grandma and grandpas” car. After they quit driving, it was also parked out in the middle of the field where the other old farm equipment was “retired.” It was basically parked and the key shut off, and that is how I found it!

Chad Ehrlich is always dragging cool, old iron in his salvage yard, Nobody Else’s Auto. Be sure to subscribe to the “Nobody’s Show” Channel on YouTube to keep up with all of the new inventory that Chad is hauling in! You can also follow him on Facebook under “Nobody Else’s Auto.”

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The post As found by Chad: 1953 Chevrolet Bel Air appeared first on Old Cars Weekly.

Joe Griffiths still has the ’57 Chevy that his grandpa gave him way back in 1963.

“This car was given to me by my grandpa in early 1963. I was stationed at Great Lakes Naval station in Illinois awaiting orders to report to Camp Pendleton California. After receiving my orders I drove the car to California and would drive up to L.A. on the weekends were I would show it off cruising Hollywood boulevard with some of my buddies from the base. After a couple of months I meet my wife to be and we dated driving around going to the beach and just enjoying each other’s company. We still drive around in it today after 60 years of marriage. So this car has a special place in our hearts as well as our two children and grand children.”

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The post Old Cars Reader Wheels: 1957 Chevy four-door appeared first on Old Cars Weekly.

“This is the first generation of the Chevy hardtop, which Chevy named Bel Air to make it different than the regular Deluxe.”

“When I bought the car in 1998, every piece of stainless was held onto the car with screws. I had to find used stainless pieces and taught myself to remove the dents and then file, sand and polish the pieces and find the clips to properly install them on the car. The clips for the small pieces of stainless between the rear and side window on the car had to be handmade. 

I enjoy driving the car and have put about 20,000 miles on it over the years I have owned it. At car shows it always draws attention and is fun to talk to young people who see the clutch but don’t know where the stick is located. Three on the tree is a past anomaly.”

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The post Old Cars Reader Wheels: 1952 Chevrolet Deluxe Bel Air appeared first on Old Cars Weekly.

This is what Vincent had to add about his Chevy…

“We bought our ’54 Chevy Bel-Air in June 2017. It has the original 235C.I. engine with the Powerglide trans. It had 58,000 original miles at the time of purchase and now has 64,000 miles. It was a frame on restoration when we bought it. It was repainted blue from the original dark green and the interior was redone in blue to match the exterior. It runs great after my mechanic and I did some minor work to make it fun and safe to drive.”

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The post Old Cars Reader Wheels: 1954 Chevrolet Bel Air appeared first on Old Cars Weekly.

“The car was restored several years ago by a gentleman living in Oregon. It is as close to the original as possible, including paint using GM code for the paint. It drives great with a six-cyl., std. shift, no air ( in Texas, no less ! ). Love it.”

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The post Old Cars Reader Wheels: 1950 Chevrolet Bel Air hardtop appeared first on Old Cars Weekly.

Howard Smith pays tribute to his father ever time he gets behind the wheel of his Bel Air. This is what he had to add about his Chevy…

“The Chevy is Matador red/ India ivory and restored to original for my dad. It has a 283 power pack with Powerglide transmission. The Interior is also restored to original. I added Foose wheels and BFG’s and began driving again this year after losing my dad to cancer 8 years ago. Building a 1956 Chevrolet sedan with my grandsons and sons is next on the list!”

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The post Old Cars Reader Wheels: 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air appeared first on Old Cars Weekly.

“Loved your Apache article. We have just bought a ’59 Bel air as my wife loved the fins Australian build in ’59. GM imported the raw panels and it was assembled in Sydney (RHD) It will be our weekend cruiser, but still needs a bit of work.”

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