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.
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