Daily BrewEdmonton man posts ad to find long-lost love: His ’57 Chevy
I am a car guy (I write about cars elsewhere) and so I sympathize with Gary Smith's hunt to find the 1957 Chevrolet he let go more than four decades ago.
I wish I still had the '72 Datsun 240Z I owned in the late 1970s, though by now probably it's been recycled into kitchenware or something. I'd settle for another clean example of the marque but Smith is adamant. The Edmonton man doesn't want any '57 Chevy; he wants his '57 Chevy.
According to The Canadian Press, Smith bought the two-door sedan as a young man in the 1960s, planning to drag-race it. But needing money, he sold it in 1970 for $1,750 to a fellow from Red Deer, Alta., apparently with the understanding he could eventually buy it back.
He never did, though, and eventually lost track of the car's owner. Now Smith has placed an classified ad in the Red Deer Advocate.
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Smith said he sold the car, sans engine, to a man in his 20s. He estimates the owner now would be in his late 60s, according to the Globe and Mail.
If you're not into cars, any gearhead will gladly tell you the '57 Chevy is a classic.
Two years earlier, Chevrolet had introduced its famous small-block V-8 engine, of which more than 90 million have been produced over five decades.
The '57, with its modest tail fins, came with a base inline six-cylinder but for a little extra money, buyers could opt for the a 283-cubic-inch V-8. It produced 185 horsepower in basic trim but the strong, compact engine was capable of much more power. Stock versions were rated at up to 283 hp (the magic horsepower per cubic inch of displacement), and tuners of course got even more out of it.
(As a kid, I owned a 283-equipped '58 Pontiac Laurentian sedan for a while, a Canadian-market model based on the top-line Chevy Bel Air.)
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Hot-rodders were quickly attracted to the '57 Chev, especially the two-door, as a basis for racers.
Smith said his car was a low-mileage example.
“It was one of those cars that’s like a good-fitting pair of shoes," he said, according to CP. "It just felt right.”
If he can track it down, Smith said he'll never part with it this time.
"If I got it back, I would keep it until I died, and it would go on to somebody else. It would be in the will."
The odds seem long that Smith will be able to find his personal '57 Chev. But if he's willing to settle for a substitute, vintage auto insurer Hagerty says gives average values of '57s of between $9,000 and $25,000 depending on equipment and rarity.
