Heavily-optioned '57 Chevy

[electra225]

Yeah, I know. Another '57 Chevy, common as dirt. You can take your credit card and can build a new one from parts. I have never seen one this heavily-optioned. Must have ordered this thing in a Buick dealership......

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/1y90o_S0HoI

[Conelrad]

"A Buick dealership" is so funny.

That car has really great manners, tho.

[electra225]

Grandpa worked for Buick and always had a loaded Buick. He could buy the car at a discount, of course, but he was not charged extra for options. It was kinda expected that his cars would be loaded so he could show prospective buyers what all you could get on a Buick. Oldsmobiles, particularly the upper series cars, were commonly found with lots of goodies on them. Dual exhaust and Guidematic were common on Olds. I had never seen a '57 Chevy with factory air until the one I linked. There is a blue and white one that is at the local car shows that has power windows and power antenna. Finding a '57 Chevy with power steering and brakes is uncommon in itself, while nearly every Olds and Buick built in '57 are so equipped. If you look really close that "most loaded '57 Chevy ever" wasn't all that loaded. No mud guards behind the wheels. No "Dagmar" rubber titties on the ends of the bumper, no bumper guards, no spinner hubcaps. Okay it was a '57 Chevy with factory air. An uncommon option that did not mean it was a loaded Chevy....

In 1957, the Buick Roadmaster 75 had every option as standard with the exception of air conditioning. More 75's were built with air than without. It is fairly uncommon to see the lower-series 1957 Buicks equipped with AC. Lots of Olds 98's and Super 88's had air, but they also had J-2, something Buick never got.

[danrclem]

Could you get all of those options added on at the assembly line or were some of them be what a dealer or owner added to them? I always thought the 55 and 56 Chevys looked better than the 57 but beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

When I was a kid, my older brother had a 57 Chevy four door hardtop that he said was very fast but I'm sure it would be nothing when compared to today's cars or even most of the true muscle cars back then. It had a 283 with three deuces.

[electra225]

The "big options" were added at the factory. Air, power windows, antenna, seats, Guidematic, Twilight Sentinel things like that. Tissue dispenser, compass, floor mats, door edge guards, gas door guard, smaller options were typically added by the dealer. The wire wheels were shipped in the trunk without tires. The car ordered with a wire wheel option got "steelies", no hubcaps for shipping. The dealer put the wire wheels on with whitewall tires and tubes. The thing about a '57 Chevy is that the rear shocks were mounted to the trunk floor, rather than the frame. If the bushings on the shocks got worn out, it would hog out the holes in the body so the shocks just flapped in the breeze. I am more of a fan of the 1956 model.

Air conditioning until the 1960 models (on Buick) added a lot of plumbing and hardware under the hood.

[walyfd]

Most likely sold through a Cadillac/Chevy dealership. GM paired chevrolet and Olds with Cadillac to A: bolster traffic and B: to upsell options on the non-cadillac line. Not many Cadillac dealerships could survive without a companion car.

There were no buick/Cadillac dealers. GM would have shot themselves in the foot with that combo.

[William]

Buick and Pontiac where sold together and in some cases GMC trucks too. The small dealership in my hometown had all three.

Bill

[electra225]

Briggs sold Buick, Cadillac and Pontiac back in the day in Linton, IN. That is where I got my '68 Limited. He ordered it for his wife, but she wanted a Grand Prix, so I got the Buick. I loved that car! It was ultra-loaded even had front disc brakes that proved problematic. They were the four-piston version like was used on Corvette. My car was converted to drum brakes, never had another issue of any kind with that car. The calipers would seize whether you were on the brakes or not.

In fairness, Buick and Cadillac were close cousins. The four-hole Buicks shared a body with Cadillac. The Cadillac was finished better and nobody in his right mind would challenge a 429 Cadillac with any Buick.....

They were frightfully fast for a large car.....