1958 Chevrolet Bel Air - Dare to be Different - 60

John Courtney’s beautiful low-slung ’58 Bel Air makes you ¨wonder why Chev needed all that head space in the first place
As custom car culture started to gain momentum in the mid 1950s, people were hacking, slashing and spraying all sorts of cars in an effort to make them unique. Some ideas failed miserably, but others, like the concept of lowering a roof via a chop, were very well received. By the late ’50s manufacturers started to take notice, so much so that in 1958 General Motors unveiled its brand new Chevrolet Bel Air with a far lower roofline than was usual at the time.
Compared to previous models, this new machine looked almost custom straight off the dealership floor. Half a century on, what was considered low then is now nothing of the sort, and enthusiasts like retired Aucklander John Courtney are re-chopping that first ‘factory chopped’ car. And dear God does it look fantastic.
Lucky Find
John didn’t actually do the roof chop himself, but rather purchased the Chev from the States as an unfinished project on eBay. Whoever started the car had done a great job of the chop, a task that is not for the faint-hearted. After getting that far though, it seems the fun went from the project, and the American owner left the rest of it in a poor state.
Once landed, the car spent 18 months going through a serious transformation, from ratty old bubble-top to low, sleek and sparkling. “My son Brad conned me into buying it,” John says, laughing. “Eighteen months later and the car is finished with not a whole lot of help from Brad. He still drives it all the time though.”
Starting with tidying up the body, John took the car to Darren at Glen Eden Panel Beaters, who began to painstakingly tidy the American workmanship and install the rear split window. John decided to add to the custom look by creating side exit exhausts, and knocked up the stainless surrounds himself.
From there, it was over to Phil Stokes Panel and Paint, where the car sat for the next few months being prepped and then painted in a beautiful two-tone copper and silver. Although both of Japanese vehicle origin. the colours work well, and the two-tone scheme really makes the Bel Air stand out from the crowd ” as if it didn’t already.
To finish off the look there has been plenty of rechroming, an expensive task, but on a car such as this it’s a necessary evil. With the chrome work re-fitted the car looks awesome, glistening in the sunshine and turning heads wherever it goes.
Healthy Rumble
The beautiful rumble emitted by those side exit exhausts comes from a tidy 383ci small block crate motor. The motor is no huge-power race donk, but sports around 425 horse at the crank ” plenty enough to get the Chev moving. Besides, John has a race car already, so he didn’t need to ruin a good cruiser with an enormous motor.
The 383 runs alloy heads and roller rockers sitting under a 650cfm carb. Custom headers dump waste gases into the twin exhaust system and out to the side of the car, while a Turbo 400 transmission transfers power back to a limited slip diff spinning 17-inch chrome rims wrapped in Toyo rubber. Lance from Arrow Wheels helped out with getting the rollers to suit the look and stud pattern of the old Chev. He didn’t do a half-bad job, either.
Lower Here, Lower there
With the roofline cut 3.5 inches, a newly lowered stance was also required. John kept it simple, dropping the Chev to the ground with new shocks and springs all around, which also improved the handling greatly when combined with the after- market sway bar up front. Next up: the brakes. Although acceptable at the time the car was built, the 50-year-old drums originally fitted to the car were not up to scratch, and were replaced with a set of discs up the front and rebuilt items out back.
With the car nearly finished, John went to see Peter at Waikumete Car Upholsterers in Auckland.
“Peter and the team were very patient with me and did a really good job on the interior,” John tells us. Now resplendent in a custom embroidered vinyl, the Chev’s interior also benefits from custom lowered seats to allow for more headroom in the reduced interior space.
With a very cool Dakota digital dash panel in place displaying speed, revs, water temp, oil pressure, voltage and fuel levels, plus the flame steering wheel that ties the interior into the rest of the build nicely (as seen on the rocker covers and air cleaner), all that was left to do was to install one hell of a stereo system.
Brad was the brains behind it, perhaps knowing all along that he’d steal the keys as soon as the car was completed.
“I just gave Brad a cheque and let him go for it,” John says. “I still don’t know how much it was, all I know is that it’s very nice and very loud.” If only all our parents were so easy to convince…
Powered by a pair of powerful Alpine amplifiers, the system is controlled by an Alpine DVD head unit mounted into the dash, and thumps out serious volume via two sets of Alpine interior speakers and a big dual voice coil Alpine 12-inch subwoofer mounted in a custom enclosure in the boot.
Cars like John’s ’68 Bel Air are great examples of hot rodding done right. Despite how drastically the car has been chopped, lowered, painted and modified, it only ever looks like an enhanced version of the original, completely following the lines and features of the donor vehicle. Combine that with a beautifully detailed, chromed and polished interior, exterior and engine bay, and you have a perfect cruiser.
It makes you wonder if the younger generation of car builders will be doing the same in 30 or 40 years time to vintage 2009 Camaros, Challengers or Mustangs.