The Tri-Five Chevrolet Page 4
A 1957 Chevy Bel Air hardtop was a Teenager’s first car!
October 4, 2024
As a 10-year-old used car, back in 1967, a ’57 Chevy was still a highly appealing choice and was sought after on the secondhand market. A teenager like 17-year-old Rich Ragone, then living in East Brunswick, New Jersey, and attending East Brunswick High School would have been thrilled to have such transportation. Suitably tweaked, a Tri-Five (1955-’57 Chevrolet) could be a real threat to the latest hot machinery from Detroit: Chevelles, GTOs, 4-4-2s, Fairlane GTs, Plymouth GTXs, etc. Even without modifications, the style and respectable power of a clean, stock Bel Air made for a desirable ride.
Part of it was size. The full-size automobiles of 1967 were noticeably larger than those of 1957. The growth trend had accelerated at Chevrolet with the introduction of the ’58 models and by ’64 it had gone so far that a gulf had opened up between full-size cars and the generation of compact cars introduced in 1960. When Chevrolet introduced the Chevelle line that model year, the proportions of the new intermediate range were noticeably reminiscent of the 1955-’57 design. A used ’57 Bel Air, while old, was nobody’s kid brother—something to consider where the psychology of car ownership is concerned.
Now, in full disclosure, Rich wasn’t actively seeking his own Tri-Five back then. If anything, he had his hopes pinned on something like a British sports car.
“I wanted a ’62 Austin-Healey 3000 but those cars in 1968 were like $2,000. You know how far out of reach that was? I made a dollar an hour working part time in my sophomore and junior years, and I had $350: That was 350 man-hours. I was kind of depressed about what I could buy. To put that in perspective today in 2024, at $15 an hour, you can’t buy too much of a nice car for $5,250 and it was about the same for me. Then, my mom said, ‘Old Man Hanson has a car for sale on his front lawn,’ and I remember this as clear as day: I said, ‘Why would I want Old Man Hanson’s car??’”
At this point, Rich laughs. “He was really old. He was 55. I’m 74 now, but I thought he was old as nails.”
That means “Old Man” Hanson, born around 1912, was 45 in 1957. Young Rich may not have believed it then, visualizing something stodgy and practical, but when Mr. Hanson sought out a new car for his wife to drive that year, he selected what you see on these pages.
Perhaps with visions of Studebakers and Ramblers in his head, Rich went to pay Mr. Hanson a visit immediately after learning about the opportunity.
“I rode my Schwinn down to his house and I didn’t see a car, so I knocked on his door and I asked him.” Mr. Hanson explained that he had just purchased his wife a 1967 Impala, saying he was in the habit of buying her a new car every ten years. If 35-year-old Mr. Hanson had similarly equipped Mrs. Hanson with a Chevrolet Fleetline in 1947, it would be interesting to know what she thought about the evolution of the Chevrolet driving experience over those 20 years. What we do know is that she’d put 2,800 miles per year on her Bel Air in the decade she’d owned it, and when Rich first saw it, it was still occupying its traditional space in the backyard garage.
“He walked me around to his one-car garage,” Rich recalls. “It was painted white, and you grabbed the handles and backed up to open the doors. The car was backed in and all I saw was a 10-year-old ’57 Chevy with 28,000 miles on it!” It’s still a powerful memory. “I got goosepimples all down my body just telling you this,” Rich says. “You go through life and just certain things stick with you. My garage here is built the same way so I can retain that memory.”
It would be nice to say that the deal was struck immediately and Rich’s relationship with his ’57 began at that moment, but it was not to be. Even if Mr. Hanson didn’t know what a hot commodity nice Tri-Fives had already become on the used market, he knew he had a good car and wasn’t going to give it away. He wanted $750.
“My heart sank,” Rich says. Depending on how you’re calculating, that’s between $8,300 and $11,250 today. Rich, you’ll recall, had only $350, which he duly offered. “He said ‘Oh no, Richard, I have to have $750. This is a nice car.’”
He wasn’t wrong and so Rich took his $350 home with him. The subject came back up over dinner.
“My parents asked, ‘Did you see the car?’ And I said ‘Yeah, it’s a ’57 Chevy!’”
Rich understood the value inherent in the ’57 Chevy, but to his father, the price seemed outrageous for a 10-year-old car. “Dad said, ‘That crook!’ and that it was worth only $500. We got into his ’62 Chevrolet Impala and we went down there, but Mr. Hanson wouldn’t negotiate.” The seller reiterated the low mileage and good condition, which Rich and his father were unable to refute, even going over the car with a fine-tooth comb. “I couldn’t find a stone chip,” Rich recalls. “That’s how meticulous he was.” Eventually, Rich’s father came around too, saying “We’re not going to find another car like that for $750.”
“He lent me $400,” Rich says, “and it took me two years to pay him back. That was May 15, 1968. Tax was $28 on the $750.”
The ’57 retains its 220-hp Power Pack 283 V-8 and Powerglide two-speed automatic, both still unrebuilt after 98,000 miles.
What Rich got for his money was a car not only well preserved but well equipped. “It was actually loaded well. It has the premium-fuel Power Pack engine with high-compression heads, dual exhausts, and a Carter four-barrel carburetor. It has power brakes which was a big deal at the time, and it has the power steering unit mounted on the back of the generator.”
Engine and transmission options for the 1957 Chevrolet were many, starting out with a 140-hp, 235-cu.in. straight-six; then a 162-hp, 265-cu.in. V-8 (a holdover from 1955-’56); and topped off by the new 283-cu.in. version of the Chevrolet V-8, which came in 185-hp two-barrel form, the 220-hp Power Pack, and dual four-barrel and fuel-injected engines rated as high as 283 hp. Transmission choices included the basic column-shifted three-speed manual, overdrive, Powerglide, and Turboglide. The Corvette’s T-10 four-speed wasn’t yet available as factory equipment, but it wasn’t hard to find a dealer willing to install one for you, and by the time Rich was in high school, the at-home floor-shift-conversion era for the Tri-Five Chevy was in full swing.
“Back then the kids in high school wanted them. The kids with ’55s were taking off the front bumpers. Kids with automatics were taking the transmissions out and replacing them with four-speeds…”
Rich credits retaining the Powerglide in his car as a major element in its preservation. “I would have blown up the rear,” he says, but for the two-speed automatic’s leisurely acceleration from a stop. The car really wakes up once it’s rolling, however. “Those two-speed transmissions, if you’re going 45 or less and you kick it down, the front end rises, and the carburetor just howls. From 55 before you know it, you’re doing 80. It only weighs something like 3,400 pounds. It’s not really a heavy car.”
Also at work was a heavy dose of luck. “Most of keeping the car was an accident: I was lucky I didn’t wreck it at 17 or 18. You’re with your first girlfriend, it’s Saturday night, you’re doing 100 mph down a dark road just to see if you can get up to 100. That’s pretty stupid. I never got a ticket in it. I’ve never been in an accident.
“Another thing that saved the car was that after I bought it, I had to find a better job. I got a job at the Goodyear dealer changing tires, so I had Goodyears on the car. The other guys that worked there all had cool cars: ’64 GTOs, Chevelles, Chevy IIs with 327s and stuff. I started learning how to take care of cars mechanically. They’d let me put it up on the lift, so I was always cleaning the undercarriage. Then I got a job at an auto parts store stocking shelves and stuff like that. I could get parts cheaply. Then when I was a junior, I found the best job: I went from $1.00 to $1.25 to $1.50 to $2.00 working at a car dealer where I waxed and detailed cars. They charged $25 per car, and I could do three in a day. I made that guy a lot of money. He couldn’t believe how fast and good I was. I learned how to detail cars, how to use polishing and rubbing compounds, Blue Coral wax, and I had access to the lift anytime I wanted. I’d work from 8 to 4, then I’d stay and clean the underneath of my car, use polishing compound to get the tar off or get blowby off. I knew how to clean glass, how to power steam engine compartments. I was meticulous and that car was clean all the time. My whole life, every car I’ve ever owned has been meticulously kept. I’m always out waxing one or cleaning one, doing stuff like that.”
Finally, the end of Rich’s high school days spelled a changed relationship with his ’57. “I drove it to high school for two years and then when I was a freshman in college, you weren’t allowed to have a car, so I stored it in the neighbor’s garage. It was $5 a month—five working hours! I kept it there all winter.” Being on campus also rekindled Rich’s love of little British sports cars. He was exposed to MGs and took keen notice of how the most desirable companions seemed to flock to the owners of MGs.
“So, I was determined to get myself an MG. When I came back from college after my freshman year, I bought a 1960 MGA for $200. I had two cars now and I was still in debt for the first one. I told my dad I didn’t want to get the ’57 wrecked, and he knew I was right. I took the MGA to college, thank God. I drove that sophomore and junior year, and, in the summers, I would pull out the ’57 for dates on Saturday nights. It was very impressive to pick your girlfriend up in ‘that’ car. That helped save it.”
So too did being in the habit of storing the car already. Rich’s early working years took him to Montana. The ’57 stayed in New Jersey, where Rich’s brother did him the favor of periodically starting it. After five years, Rich elected to move permanently to Peru, Vermont, where he lives today in a log home he constructed.
“I built the garage first with those swinging doors, put the car in the garage day number 1. Day number 2 we lived upstairs with wood heat only, no running water, oil lamps, on the river. I’d bring water up from the river. When you were sitting in the living room, the ’57 was sitting in the living room with you. It was pretty cool. It took me a full five years to actually move into the log house.”
Today, Rich still cruises the ’57 in nice weather, where it never fails to draw a crowd. He’ll be the first to tell you it’s not flawless, but it still is an extremely nice example of an original, unmolested Bel Air hardtop. Most importantly, it never fails to elicit the owner’s memories of “high school dates, trips to the drive in, coming back from track practice,” not to mention weddings, children’s proms, and all the other occasions of a lifetime blessed with a singularly cool example of automotive Americana.
GM 50 millionth car, a gold 1955 Chevy proudly paraded through the streets.
Gold All Over: 1955 Chevrolet Bel Air Hardtop
The thought of finding and restoring one of the three original, all-gold 1955 Chevrolet Bel Air Sport Coupes that celebrated the production of GM’s 50-millionth car—built on November 23, 1954—was quashed upon learning that two had simply vanished and the one remaining had been burned and strewn across a property in North Carolina some time ago.
1956 Chevrolet Bel Air
