navysooner

Question for the forum but first I'll give my back story:
Growing up I was not into Corvettes, I thought they were cool, but my desires were always a 57 Cameo and 57 Bel Air (though I certainly have the Corvette bug now). My dad is the Vette man and he had a 60 that he restored in the early 80’s that he later sold (the car he always wanted was a 57 vette). He came on a basket case 57 in the early 90’s and it sat in the yard with a tarp over it for many years until he retired and by this time I was in the Navy, but being in Cali I was able to go to swap meets to look for parts.
In order to find them, I had to know what I was looking for so I bought a lot of the restoration books which sowed the seed for my Corvette desire. While checking out a part for him, I came on a guy with a drag car that had a chopped up but otherwise solid 57 frame. He also had C1 front and rear suspension. The price was right (It would cost more to drive there today than what I paid) so I took a stab. Got it with a bill of sale but was able get a title, registration and tag (it was way easier than I thought). It sat in the garage for several years but it’s been visually inspected and I have title in hand with the 57 Corvette VIN. Now the question:
What should I do with this thing? My guess is the frame will take several hundred hours to properly restore (roll cage is already cut off but lots left to fix) and the body had very little corvette left….basically just scrap for fixing other stuff. I do have several 548 blocks and a 58 3 speed plus some other odd and ends. Options:
1. Franken body. Take scraps I have and combine scraps from other bodys/new components. Lot and lots of work but not impossible.
2. Find a restorable 56 or 57 body (I have seen a few and the asking price has always been a bit on the steep side for a body only and the amount of work it would take to fix them).
3. The Corvette Central factory assembled Clone body. Costly but easy. Anyone have a scouting report on this thing?
4. Forget the whole thing and move on to my Bel Air HT (that has languished for several years) now that I’ve finished the Cameo. Wait for a better C1 project to present itself.
I’ve had so much fun working with my Dad on his project and helping him locate parts that I wouldn’t mind keeping up the work look for all the same stuff all over again. Thoughts?

wmf62

my understanding of the CC clone is that it doesn't have the metal support pieces that support the dash/firewall/windshield (the C1 equivalent of a birdcage). maybe i have misunderstood this or it has been changed.

but, seeing that you have a 'donor car', then i would think you have all the necessary parts you need even to build a 'clone'. that is about the only way i can see to easily tackle your basket case.

piecing together your basket case with new body panels is an option, but would be a LOT of work.
Bill

Frankie the Fink

Either option 4 in your list above or a new option (number 5)....find a nice restored driver and gather up enough money to buy it. It will be less money in the long run and FAR more enjoyment in the hours you are driving vice restoring. From where I feel you are starting you are many 10's of thousands of dollars away from a driveable C1.

Sell off those other "cat and dog" bits and pieces for gas to put in the vette.

wmf62

but Frank, some of us find the fun in the 'doing' AND the 'driving'...

Bill

Frankie the Fink

AND the 'overspending' I guess...

wmf62

have you checked your wallet lately...


Bill

Frankie the Fink

I don't have to -- the wife retired this April 1st so she checks the wallet (and empties it) at least once a day.

Viking427

Common sense dictates you shelf or sell the vette frame/title and concentrate your efforts on "your" dream car, the Bel Air. However, our interests are usually governed by emotion, not common sense. If you're dad is still around (you didn't say what happened to his 57), and funds allow, searching for parts for, and restoring your vette would allow him to continue participating in "his" hobby through you (advice, ideas, solutions, etc.), for the time he has left on terra firma, especially if he never had the chance to finish his 57. If he's no longer with us, or funds are limited, then i'd move on to the Bel Air.

92GTA

I'll chime in as I was going down this road exactly 1 year ago....

I'm 31, don't make much money, work hard, pay child support, yada yada. My dream car since I was 6yrs old has been a 56/57 vette. At 30 I decided that if I didn't get one soon, they will get ever more expensive and I risk being too old to enjoy by the time I did get one, so I started looking for a project. I sold my new Ducati and took money I had saved combined with a fat check from insurance from an accident that totaled my Trans Am. All of this was still short of what it would really take for a budget restored or good driver quality car.

I looked for basket cases, I looked at the CC Concept '57, and I even considered just buying a frame with a VIN or a Concept '57 body and doing a custom frame. I also had people message me on the forum and offer legit VIN tags with titles if I bought a Conecpt '57 body and wanted to make a clone. Thanks to this forum, I was shown that by the time I bought all of the reproduction parts needed to have a complete car, I would be way into it for more than what a real one would cost. Not to mention it would have taken me years.

As luck would have it, I found a complete running original '56 for $38.5K in June of 2010. It needed everything gone through, brakes, trans, clutch, engine, and the top, interior, etc needed replacement. All of the hardware was there though and it did drive onto a trailer, nothing missing. I figured screw it, and pulled the trigger. After about 4 months of going through everything but the engine, I had a driving project car. Over the last 2 months I've been rebuilding the engine, I fire it up this next weekend. I used all my funds as a down payment through my local CU and financed the rest. I have a great paid off driver and have since repaired my Trans Am so this is my only car payment, and well worth it!

A running project car is perfect for me and I'm happier than could be. I'm glad I didn't try to piece something together, it would have cost a fortune and taken too many years. I do almost all the work myself and it always take twice the time and cost twice as much as I think, but still worth it!

It really depends what other parts you have besides a frame and buying a Conecpt '57 body. It's all the other things that will break you. An alternative however, would be a resto-mod. Then you could use whatever parts you wanted to and keep costs down from not using original or reproduction parts. That wasn't an option for me because I wanted an original experience. If a resto-mod will suit you, you can certainly do it and save allot.

Frankie the Fink

92GTA -- you are wise beyond your years.

GreaseMonkey

I wish I was that smart when I bought my '64.. Going on 14 years and still not finished. We won't talk about the $$$ issue...

navysooner

You are so right about the common sense....but the funny thing about emotion is precisely why the Bel Air has been sitting around for 7 years (I said 5 but now that I really think about it, I got in in 2004......time does fly)! It doesn't need anything.....I got wrapped up in the hunt for Corvette and Cameo stuff and it kinda faded into the background. As it sets right now, it's a 98.9% original car. It needed a radio and I change the carburetor from a quadra jet to a WCFB 1271. It runs and drives....but it still needs a full frame off...but it feels more exciting to fix that Vette Frame and cobble together a body for it...and I know it’s dumb, but you must have noticed I'm on a Corvette forum not a Tri 5 Chevy forum.

Cost, from my experience really comes down to patience....if it costs too much, let it go until next time....If you want to be done now, now, now that is when you pay a premium. My Dads basket case was not really that much better than what I have now....major difference: his fame needed little work beyond blasting and painting, his body was really bad but not total scrap (basically complete from the firewall back) and his car had complete doors and a windshield frame. That was about it (the engine he already had). Everything that was missing, I got over the years when they presented themselves. As his car sets right now it would be a stretch to say that he has 20K in it (it always helps when you do your own work) and he is at the point where everything he needs comes out of a book (new wiring harness, interior kit, etc) only another 5 or 6K to the finish line.
Oh, my Dad is still kicking (it is his vette pictured in my Gallery) and hopefully, God willing; he has many, many long years ahead to enjoy the car before it’s mine.

navysooner

Makes me think of my one that got away.....I passed on a complete 58 with NOM and Transmission for 13.5K in 2003 in Pleasanton, CA. Opening Price was 16K and he came down to 13.5K, poor guy needed cash now, now, now (but after looking at the car I was thinking 12.5 was best price I would pay). The body had one minor front end customization that would be an easy fix, but I didn't really have the vette bug then, I was on the lookout for a nice Cameo and a Bel Air HT. That 13.5K was a bargin even in 2003, what an idiot (referring to me). He got his 16K from the next guy.

CorvetteCentral.com

This is incorrect. Our Concept 57 body has steel supports that are similar to the supports used in the 1959-up C1's.

Click here for more information.

wmf62

thank you for the correction.
Bill

navysooner

Time for an update! Not long after I started this thread, I got orders to Japan. That ended any car work for a little while. Now I’m back in the good ole USA! Pictures on photobucket
http://s1223.photobucket.com/user/re...ette%20Project
The frame was solid but pretty rough. Drag racing was not kind. My Dad said he could envision the kid getting out of shop and welding on it in the barn standing in cow paddies after school. We cut all that extra crap off including the roll cage. The worst thing done to the frame were the “horns” had be trimmed back a few inches to support some kind of flip nose contraption that was bolted on. I got some “new” ones from a guy that had posted something on ebay and I saw scap frame parts in the background.
We fitted them, measured and leveled everything a million times. It was very helpful to have my dad’s corvette handy. They are sleeved in with additional holes drilled down to the outer part of the sleeved area. My cousin, who is a professional welder, did the honor on welding everything up. It should be plenty strong. This is also the area were the x-brace reinforcement comes to the frame. The frame is straight, true and level!
I was sure it could be done but it was still plenty shocking how well it came out…just a little more work and it will be a completely invisible major surgery.
I also de-scaled the whole thing and put some primer and stop rust on it. I still intend to blast the final product prior to paint. The bottom of the X-brace is a little pitty but I think a good filling primer can take care of that.
Next step will be to fully weld in the X-brace, brace reinforment and all the missing original brackets. It’ll be a roller again for sure! I have to take a little brake as I move into a new house and get set-up, but maybe February I can get rolling again.

jimh_1962

Good to see another corvette project! Good luck and always ask questions here if you run into any problems. Hopefully, you have a lot the small parts especially the interior parts.

lots of helpful folks here!

ricott

I'm also glad to see you stuck with it. If it looks anything like your Cameo, it will be a show stopper. And a lot of us enjoy the build just as much (if not more), than driving the cars.

Railroadman

There is another measure of whether something is "worth it" besides money, and that's fun and satisfaction. There are a lot of Vettes out there which look like a million bucks which at one time could easily have been scrapped or parted out. Some of us actually enjoy taking a POS and making something nice and the hell with the cost.

Good luck and keep us updated.

navysooner

I wish. I have what you see in the picture plus doors, hood, a windshield and frame and engine and transmission with shifter.