1957 Chevrolet Corvette - Jay Leno's Garage

Welcome to another episode of Jay Leno's Garage. People seem to like it when I make my own cars and this is one of my favorites. This is a

1957

Corvette. This is a very special car because it was honored in

1957

by a young soldier who was stationed in Korea. I guess he went to the base and ordered this directly from Korea so it would be waiting for him when he got home and he wanted the fastest, most powerful, lightest Corvette he could get, so they took off the soft top, no heater, no there is no radio there is no courtesy lights there is nothing in this car that would have added weight at all ordered the 283 engine with two four barrel carburetors and the 4 speed transmission, you know a little about the history of the Corvette when they came out in '53, had that blue flame 6 that had about 155 horsepower and had the automatic transmission it wasn't really impressive 55 came out with the 265 v8 then in 56 it got a little more serious i think 57 at least my way of think was the first year.

They said, "I like it, we're going to race here because the only competitor was the Ford Thunderbird, but it was more of a personal luxury car that had a 312 v8 and most of them came with an automatic, there weren't many, they usually had a three overdrive gears and they weren't true sports cars there were personal luxury cars while this was a true sports car arkus-duntov about the genius behind the Corvette this is his baby this is when it really got serious most Corvettes came as standard a manual transmission that was three speeds the four speed was optional the gentleman who ordered this wanted the 283,270 horses with it for 11 years he wanted it to be the fastest on the road he asked for a hard top but not a soft top because I didn't want all the mechanical stuff, you know, I know how many pounds it could add just a few, but it was serious about racing and it really is a pretty fast car and for me one of the best Corvettes of all.

I think this is just pure classic design. The late '58 Corvettes were a great year for chrome at General Motors. They put that big toothy grille on the Corvette. They used double headlights. Most of the GM cars, '58, had huge amounts of chrome. Old Nabeel. and Buick this for me is the most European design and the cleanest and purest. He ordered this in this Inca silver color. I think only 65 cars were painted this color and with orange it doesn't sound like it would. attractive when you look at the author's sheet, but the guy must have a very good eye because I think it is really attractive the orange and silver, the only thing that is not available on this car at the moment, these mag wheels and of course the tires of this car. it was restored by mike.mccluskey he is our

corvette

restorer extraordinaire he is the gentleman that looked at my 63 split window and made it all right this was his baby everything here is 1957 from the windshield to the generator and every part this is exactly like came out of the factory once again, with the exception of the mag wheels, drum brakes all the way around the solid axle car, but a real sports car, you know, in '57, it was the first year of fuel injection and the young soldier who ordered this could have gotten it. fuel injection, but fuel injection at that time was people, what fuel injection, the only other fuel injected car on the market really was the Mercedes 300sl, which was the first production fuel injected car. and it seemed overly complicated, although the fuel-injected car had 280 horsepower and hospital per cubic inch, which was pretty good.

This with the guts too deep is what most people knew and understood. In fact, quite a few people who ordered fuel injection in '63 eventually came back and just had to convert it to two or four barrels because hot rodders didn't really like working with fuel injection, although you had to be very good with people, the new carburetors and the two grunt fours are pretty impressive when you open the hood, we do when you look at the Rochester fuel injection, what does that do, but two grunt fours, everyone knows what that means, the done, let's take a look at the engine right now, it appears on the other side, when you open the hood, you always want to open it from the center so as not to damage the hinges, here we go, as you can see, this compartment engine bomber is not pristine because This is a car that works, we use it a lot, there are your two four-guns, the other thing is not.

The original thing is that it has a clutch on the fan that disengages it at about 15 or 20 miles per hour and, of course, it has a modern battery because we drive this somewhat unusual thing. Note that the tachometer is disconnected from the generator in a ratio of two to one. and the cost of these pie plates, air clean, they look like something that would have come from JC Whitney, you know you put it on later, it's an accessory, normally GM would have a big giant or they are cleaner, sometimes the oil baths you know these little things, he's a factor that is The way they came, apparently the air was a lot cleaner in '57, so they didn't feel like they needed many restrictions.

You know, it's hard to imagine how impressive this car was back in the day, because most sports cars, your mgs, your triumphs, 65 horsepower, 70. 80 Jaguar, maybe 220, you could get this is 270 horsepower. strength, I mean, in power it's equal to any of the exotics, the Ferraris or anything of the time, and incredibly fast and to me, incredibly attractive, I mean, you had roll-up windows and you had all the amenities and you had that new and wonderful fiberglass material that no one understood well, except a car made of plastic. I don't know, Bob, what do you think it took a while for people to get used to that, but how can you?

Look, it certainly stood the test of time. They are wonderful cars and wonderful to drive. We haven't done anything here. There are no headers or anything. I wanted to keep it completely on staff. The only thing we did was change the render. We did? Put in this 350 four, I had four 11s that were a little whiny on the highway. These are just the perfect car for going down the coast on the Pacific Coast Highway or driving in the hills, I mean, and it's very fast, it's pretty light. car, I imagine it weighs less than 3000 pounds, probably 2,800 pounds, so with 270 horsepower and a torquey V8 it moves pretty well, nothing to be ashamed of, you know, when you go out for a run, I mean , Porsche didn't get that kind of horsepower until the 80's. something like that is very nice, okay, let's leave this again so we can appreciate the lines of a car, then press each side, look at the inside of the car, that's which is also pretty impressive.

I love that speedometer, 140 mile per hour speedometer, that was whoo. those are big numbers in the past the very European steering wheel with the holes in the warning there is no radio I said there is no heater the tachometer is a little funny it's right in the center of the dash which is like the worst place what is it? oh you know you're always doing that so I probably would have played it closer but you know a tachometer was a new thing on American cars back in the day because American cars had big lazy V8s and no one looked at the revs you felt until it was Time to shift and you shifted, while this one had a tachometer, which was unusual and especially so for American cars of the time.

You know, there are some cars that just don't hold up well. You already know. I like my 53 Hudson Hornet. You know that? It looks a little bit like the Audi TT now because it's very rounded and this is one of those cars where there's nothing in this car that doesn't need to be there, you know, it's got a proper trunk. I love the taillights. I love the way the exhaust system comes out through the bumpers, as you can see it's really kind of like a Motorama show car. When you saw a lot of the GM 50 dream cars, they always had the exhaust coming out this way, you know, they mimic the world.

World War II fighter planes and Korean fighter planes that were just coming into play, so that's pretty cool. I love this here. I mean, these bumpers. You don't really want to hit them. They're not really bumpers, but they really are. attractive and has just the right amount of chrome on this car, it really to me is one of the most attractive Corvettes of all time and as I said before the first year, the Corvette took racing very seriously because you know that a horse of force per cubic inch was Incredible, it was a milestone and a four speed transmission instead of three speed, they raced at Sebring and ran a lot of races with these.

Duntov was very serious about taking the car out and pitting it against the best in Europe and they did a lot of it. Well you know it wasn't until the cobra came out that there was any kind of competitor for the

corvette

and even when the cobra came out it didn't have the amenities of the corvette. Did you know about roll-up windows and everything? that kind of thing is easy to put on top and everything else, you can drive it like a modern car, you can move it around a little bit and it's actually a lot of fun to drive and people go crazy when they see it because it's surprisingly good. -It looks like a car especially in this combination.

I'm surprised that only 65 were ordered in this silver color, but that's what it was. This was a car from late 1957. I know that if it was the fastest car you could buy, a kid's 57 American, that's what it was. It was close, it was close, this car in 1957 cost $4,600, which is a lot of money. Well, I remember my dad and I had seen a mid-to-late '60s Cadillac that also cost $4,600, so it was top-notch. the money down the line this is right up there with the cadillac field so once you stop putting some of these options on it it's obviously going to go up but the fuel filler door is here the right gas cap you know that Mike was a real stickler for that Mike once told me he went, took him to a car show, got a guide trying to steal the gas cap, hey, you know, but it's cool, your soft top was here, it would be underneath, you press this button and this opens like this and the soft top would come out of there, as you can see, there is no mechanism for a soft top.

None of that is here because the original owner didn't want the weight of what it was. I know you skipped a couple of lunches you could have had. the top part I don't know, but anyway I thought this is very clever, how does this all go together and close like this, what else can we show you? Let's show you the trunk. Actually, it has to be a proper trunk where you can carry things and carry things inside. You know, this is something I always admired about Corvette. It's the fact that it's practical. Look, you have a full-size trunk.

You can fit a couple of bags in there. You know, try that on your Lamborghini or NSX. McLaren there's no room at all, you know, that's all there is behind the Corvette. You could use it like a real car. In fact, you can say honey, it's very practical. Look, we can take trips. You know, you can do everything you can't do, of course. and a lot of monitor cards, but look, it's a pretty good sized trunk and, of course, your spare and everything else down here. An interesting fact about the Corvette, you know it was 1952 and the Cold War and spies are everywhere and Chevrolet heard that the flow was they were going to build something called the Thunderbird and they didn't, they wouldn't have something for the Motorama show and, Of course, steel is very difficult to work with and requires a lot of planning.

I thought, why don't we manufacture? some fiberglass and then they came up with the 453 Corvette and that's why they heard that Ford was coming out with a Thunderbird and they realized we can't do much that fast, let's see we can do something in fiberglass, let's place it. and of course you have all these curves and everything that would be difficult to achieve with steel and the rest is history, so it's an interesting story, it's cool, that's why I always believe that competition makes things better, you know ? Think about what the other guys are doing. You're so afraid that you're going to come up with something incredible to blow them out of the water and they did it, they did it.

I'm talking about the '53 Corvette, which is not a performance car, but it certainly caught the eye. Everybody, surprise, you know, a two-seater sports car, wow, that's cool and then it's going to be 55 for the 265 v8 and of course the 283 327 and of course where we are today, what else can we show you? Don't know. I think it's time to take a ride, that's the original exhaust system, so they sounded great once they got outside. I read a little cold, so I put on my official Corvette jacket and drove a Corvette without a Corvette connector, you know.

I think it's fast even by modern standards. I can't imagine what it must have been like in 1957, when it had still caused 30 number threes in 57. I love that metallic rasp that comes to me here through the exhaust with the distant years of the lemon or the interesting original. He must have really screamed, these 350 guys give good higher acceleration, it's a little, but not much second is good for an easy 72 miles per hour, noyou can imagine too many faster cars, I mean Chrysler had the great 392 Hemi. but those are big cars for forty five hundred pounds, it's not something of a lifetime, this is what we think in this 1957, 270 horsepower, two four cylinder carburetors, no complicated Italian carburetors, you have to find a tune, none of that, Just pure reliability with good old fashioned American horsepower.

Well, the chassis is not the most sophisticated thing that would come later with the independent suspension and all that, but still the first honor can't be much better than 1957, my favorite year, the fifties because it really became excessive after '57 .I'm a huge finned 59 Cadillac and the 58 Corvette wasn't as nice as the 57 as I told myself before. This is just pure style. This was done by Toph trying to do the best he could to make a race car and I really think he succeeded. It is truly an impressive piece of machinery and was made of plastic.

When I was a kid, I thought people drove in plastic cars. Where is the world going? What are you going to do in case of an accident? They're all going to melt, is it going to fall? I mean, people are so paranoid, you know, the shock of the new is always, it's always surprising to me, hey, let me know in the comments section, do you think this is prettier than new cars? I mean, does it stand out more than any new car? I don't know what you think it means to me. I think it's a really impressive design that holds up well today, so I'd love to hear your feedback.

Let me know. I mentioned before that there's nothing on this car that does. It doesn't need to be there, really, if these scoops here look cool but they're not functional, although to be fair, they built several race cars where they were functional and a tube that ran from the scoop to the end. the rear brake doors, but other than that there is nothing, no scar doesn't need to be there, remember those cool little air filters that they judge was only a one year option on 5758, they went to a big plane like you had a most other GM stuff, so this is the first year of that or the only year of that.

You know, I was seven years old when this car was built and I still remember seeing one in a magazine. I never saw one in person until years later. I just didn't have them in my neighborhood but I was always impressed, in fact the same impression it leaves me today, it's still an amazing car to drive, an extremely powerful car, it's truly impressive, this was a classic example of the best that the United States could do in the past. the day and you know something that's actually true so I hope you enjoy this little trip down memory lane as they say and I'm going to drive this tomorrow see you later.