‘57 Chevys
by Perry Cozzen
I
n the spring of 1956 Billy’s grandfa-
ther, Bill, leased the minerals and
drilling rights on their half-section,
dry land cotton farm in West Texas.
Gulf Oil paid him $50 per acre, bring-
ing him $16,000, and he made a fair
cotton crop that year too.
Billy lived with his mother and father
on his grandfather’s farm. Billy was 11
years old and was already obsessed with
cars. His grandfather had taught him to
drive at age five in his pickup on their
farm—first sitting in his lap, but as soon
as he could reach the pedals his grand-
dad moved over, and just let him have it.
His final driving test was backing down
the dirt road for a half a mile just using
the mirrors. His grandfather always said,
“This will be my gift to the great state of
Texas: one good driver.”
They spent most of their days togeth-
er because Billy’s mom had a job in
town, and his dad was busy working the
farm. His granddad picked him up every
morning before his mom went to work,
took him to school, and picked him up
in the afternoon. After Billy got old
enough to work with his dad, he still
spent most of his time off with his
granddad, just talking, driving around,
and playing dominos.
They enjoyed each other’s company
from the start.
One Sunday morning in that spring
of ‘56 his grandfather said to Billy, “You
know, Billy, I was at my sister Mona’s
house in Big Spring last week, and met
the fellow she’s going to marry. His
name is Ed Cole, and he’s chief engineer
for Chevrolet.
“We all went out to eat at Carlos’s,
and Ed told me the new 1957 Chevy
will be the last body style built on the
frame of the ‘55.
The ‘58 is going to be a newly-engi-
neered car from the ground up. They’re
going to try to do everything they can to
sell a few cars in a rebuilding year.
Chevrolet wasn’t going to build the
design at all, but they couldn’t tool up in
time to build the new model. They’re
going to offer air-conditioning, tubeless
tires, and even a factory-installed electric
shaver, of all things. I’m thinking about
buying one just for an investment.”
24
Billy, like all boys at the time, read
everything he could about cars, and his
favorite car around town was the ‘55
Chevy. He already knew a lot about
Chevys and had seen a picture of the ‘57
coming out in the fall. He told Bill,
“Yeah, I’ve read a little about them.
They’re going to offer a fuel injected
“Billy, this is what I intend to leave
you when I die, and I want you to help
me take care of them if something hap-
pens to me. Ed said he would ship them
to Texas on the train, then we can haul
them to the barn, and they won’t have a
mile on them.
“We can put them up on blocks, so
their wheels don’t touch the ground, and
throw a tarp over them so they never see
the sun.
“We’ll crank all of them once a
month, run them through their gears,
and change all the fluids once a year,
including the anti-freeze and the gaso-
line.
We’ll check the engine, treat all the
‘57 C hevy photo courtesy of Brian Snelson wikimedia commons
engine out of the Corvette, along with
the four-speed transmission that goes
with it if you special order it. They’re
going to make the 265 engine grow to
283 cubic inches, and it will have 283
horsepower. It ought to be the fastest
thing on the road by a long shot.”
His grandfather remarked, “Yeah,
and Cole told me they had also hired
Diana Shore to sing a song called “See
the USA in Your Chevrolet.”
A week or so went by, and one morn-
ing when Bill picked up his grandson he
told him, “I talked to Ed Cole last night,
and offered him a deal. If I could buy the
first three cars off the assembly line,
numbers one, two and three, I would pay
him an extra $1,000 apiece. I told him I
wanted every option available with the
fuel-injected engines and four-speed
transmissions, and I wanted a convert-
ible, a two-door hard top, and a Nomad
station wagon. All equipped the same,
and painted black with red interiors.
Cenizo
Fourth Quarter 2018
rubber, and clean the upholstery every
six months, plus keep records of every-
thing we do. I intend to live long enough
that maybe they’ll be worth something to
you as antiques, if nothing else.”
That September when the Chevys
got there, Billy and his grandfather took
a cotton trailer to town and hauled the
cars home one at a time.
They started all of them once, and
then put them up on blocks in the barn
with a tarp over them. Billy would go to
the barn on the first weekend of every
month and start each car. He let them
run forward one mile using all the gears,
and then backed them up a mile to zero
the speedometers.
The small block Chevy engine in the
‘57 Chevy became the next generation’s
favorite hot rod engine, replacing the
Flathead Ford. Racers cleaned up the
factory castings, polished the heads, bal-
anced the crank, rods, and pistons, and
increased the bore and stroke. They also
installed exhaust headers, used different
cams and different fuel systems. If you’ve
ever heard one winding 10,000 revolu-
tions per minute, you’ll never forget it.
Billy’s grandfather died in September
of 2000, 44 years and one day after he
got the Chevys delivered. His father,
mother, and grandmother had already
died, so Billy also inherited the farm
along with the Chevys. His grandfather
had made him swear he would sell the
cars, and the farm, if they came to him,
and to do something else besides farm.
Bill’s last words were, “Don’t bet on the
weather Billy. It’ll beat you every time,
especially around here. Now I’m going
to ride on ahead, and I’ll wait up for
you.”
The day his grandfather died Billy
went to town and stopped at Jim’s Chili
Parlor and Domino Hall. He stayed a
couple of hours playing dominos. He
told his grandfather’s friends that their
buddy had died.
Vic, another farmer and an old friend
of his granddad’s, told him, “I’m sure
you know your granddad bought a pick-
up with money he carried out of here.
He put his domino winnings in his gas
tank every time, which was almost
empty because he ran his pickup on
butane.
“When he took it to the Chevy deal-
er, they dropped the tank, and it had
$750 all in silver, which was enough to
trade for a new pickup in those days.”
Billy laughed and said, “Yeah, he told
me that story, but not until after it was
over. Guess he didn’t want to tempt me
with those quarters.”
In the year 2000 a perfectly restored
‘57 Chevy would bring $150,000, and it
was the most coveted classic car. Billy’s
cars didn’t have a mile on them, and still
had the price sticker on the left rear win-
dow. Brand new cars that had never seen
the sun, plus he had the first three serial
numbers that Chevrolet manufactured
that year, and the most expensive mod-
els they offered.
When they had the auction two
months later an anonymous bidder beat
the million-dollar reserve by $100,000
and sent word to Billy that the cars
would stay in Texas.
The auction house told Billy they’d
take the hundred thousand for their
commission and leave him with an even
million.
Billy put that check into his pocket
and stepped out into the Texas sunshine.
His Grandpa was right, cars were a
much better bet than the weather.