After getting off to a tenuous start in 1953, Corvette started improving in every measurable way, beginning with the installation of Chevrolet’s revolutionary small-block V-8 in 1955. The potent new engine, in concert with an exterior redesign for 1956, proved appealing to the sports-car-buying public, with ’56 production skyrocketing to 3,467, compared with only 700 in 1955. Though visually similar to the prior year’s model, the ’57 Corvette was further upgraded in several important ways, making this edition even more desirable to enthusiasts. For many, the most important of these were the changes Chevy made to the powertrain lineup.
Basic engine design remained virtually identical for ’57, but displacement was increased to 283 cubic inches by virtue of enlarging the bore from 3.750 to 3.875 inches. In addition to the extra cubes, the new engines benefited from higher compression ratios, revised camshaft profiles, and improved induction systems. The latter, in particular, is where the really big news was. Beyond the base engine’s four-barrel carburetor, buyers could have either a mild or a wilder dual-quad setup, or two different versions of Chevy’s innovative new mechanical fuel injection.
Fuel injection (FI) was already in common use for diesel engines in the early years of the 20th century, and the necessities of World War II greatly accelerated its development for gasoline-powered aircraft engines. Before Corvette came to market in 1953, Mercedes-Benz was already selling vehicles with an effective and reliable Bosch FI system. GM could have licensed the Bosch technology, but Ed Cole, never one to take the path of least resistance, decided that the company would benefit from developing its own system.
Cole, who was promoted from Chevrolet chief engineer to a vice president of General Motors and general manager of the Bowtie brand on July 1, 1956, leveraged the engineering resources of various GM divisions, including Rochester Products, Packard Electric, and Delco-Remy. New Chevy chief engineer Harry Barr played a prominent role, as did fellow engineers John Dolza and Zora Arkus-Duntov, who together did much of the hands-on design and development work. The task was made all the more difficult for Duntov, who was severely injured in a crash at the Milford Proving Ground in April of 1956. He was driving a Corvette, without wearing a helmet or seat belt, when he lost control, went into a ditch, and suffered a broken back after hitting his head on the car’s hard top. He had to wear a full torso cast for several months.
Despite Duntov’s injuries, and contrary to his doctor’s orders, he continued to work on FI throughout the summer of ’56. His efforts, combined with those of Barr, Dolza, and scores of others, yielded a reliable and efficient mechanical “Fuelie” system that was available for Corvette from 1957 through 1965. Though rarely seen, the Rochester FI option was also installed in a limited number of Chevrolet and Pontiac passenger cars in 1957 and ’58.
Chevrolet offered two different injected engines for Corvette beginning in 1957. The first, which was essentially the base engine with an FI setup instead of a single four-barrel carburetor, featured a modest compression ratio, hydraulic lifters, and a relatively sedate camshaft profile. This version of the Fuelie was rated at 250 horsepower.
At the other end of the spectrum was the RPO 579B engine that instantly made fuel-injected Corvettes legends in their own time. Similar to the optional 270-hp, dual-quad mill first made available in 1957, it utilized 11:1-compression forged pistons, large-valve cylinder heads, and an aggressive, solid-lifter camshaft to generate 283 horses. This output was particularly significant because it made the hotter FI Corvette engine the first mass-produced V-8 to deliver at least one horsepower for each cubic inch of displacement.
The 1957 579B engine’s landmark output made it very popular with buyers when new, and has kept it extraordinarily popular with collectors throughout the intervening decades. Adding to the car’s performance capabilities, customers could add a limited-slip differential, 5.5-inch-wide wheels (up a half-inch from the standard rims), heavy-duty brakes and suspension, a faster steering adapter, and, starting in April 1957, a four-speed manual transmission. Buyers focused on road racing could also specify option 579E (also sometimes referred to as 579D), which combined a special cold-air induction system with the FI mill.
Those less interested in competition and more interested in comfortable cruising also had plenty to choose from in 1957. The options menu included electric power windows, an AM signal-seeking Wonderbar radio, a power-operated folding soft top, an auxiliary hard top, windshield washers, and spiffy whitewall tires.
Whether outfitted with luxury features or set up for racing, the ’57 Corvette was regarded by many as marking the high point for first-generation styling. The body is perfectly proportioned and largely devoid of the excessive adornment that appeared in 1958. The paucity of chrome and stainless trim, and the sleeker single-headlight design, also offers the benefit of making the ’57 lighter than every Corvette that came afterward.
While many enthusiasts, from single Corvette owners to the fortunate few who possess multi-car collections, go to great lengths to find and acquire a high-quality example from 1957, the owner of our feature car stumbled across it entirely by happenstance. On a summer day in 2019, New Yorker Teddy Freund was on his usual route from home to his office when he spotted this car on the back of a flatbed hauler.
“I immediately turned around and followed it,” Freund recalls. “The truck brought it to a local repair shop. I happen to know the owner, so I went back the next day to take a closer look at the car and ask some questions.
“The car’s owner rarely drove it, so almost every time he got in it to go for a drive, the battery was dead,” Freund continues. “And after sitting for long stretches, the fuel-injection system would act up and the engine would run poorly. I told the shop owner I was interested in the car and asked him to check to see if it might be for sale.”
The car’s owner, who had been in possession of it for some 30 years, had grown weary of the frequent dead batteries and out-of-tune FI, so he was, in fact, willing to sell. He had purchased the car soon after the completion of a comprehensive restoration by a skilled shop in Wichita, Kansas.
“Fortunately,” recalls Freund, “he was not mechanically inclined, so he never did anything to the car. Whenever it had a dead battery or ran rough, it went to my friend’s shop for service—and he knew what he was doing, and respected the car.”
As a result of the high-quality resto, infrequent use thereafter, and occasional servicing by a qualified mechanic, the car was still in excellent overall condition three decades after it rolled out of that Wichita shop. But as is almost always the case when Freund buys a classic car, it wasn’t quite up to his lofty standards in several areas. First, he removed the engine in order to change all of the seals and gaskets, cosmetically refinish it, and detail the engine compartment. Once the powerplant was out, however, he decided to completely rebuild it.
“[I]t was the right time to make sure it was 100 percent,” he recalls. “When I bought the car, I didn’t carefully check the numbers on the engine block or its various parts. But once it was out and apart, I could really study all of the stampings, casting numbers, and casting dates, and I was very happy to discover that it did…still have its factory engine.”
While the engine was out and apart, Freund also thought it prudent to rebuild the car’s fuel-injection system, though that’s one task he didn’t perform with his own two hands. “I sent it to a man in Pennsylvania who really knows what he’s doing,” he says. “He even has a test engine that he puts the unit on to make sure it’s operating as it should, and to adjust it to run perfectly.”
Various other parts under the hood and throughout the car also got some love from Freund. He had the radiator re-cored, sent the original horns out to a specialist who restored them, and made sure all of the electrical components were working perfectly. He also restored one of the most complex and challenging systems sometimes found in C1 Corvettes: the optional power top. In a carefully choreographed sequence, the convertible deck opens and closes, and the folding top assembly goes up or down by virtue of an electric motor. This motor drives a hydraulic pump that moves cylinder rams in one direction or the other. Relays, switches, and a rather complicated wiring harness complete the arrangement.
“It’s a two-top car, and I almost always have the hard top on it,” Freund notes, “so the power soft top rarely gets used. But it came from the factory with [that] top, and though it hadn’t worked for decades, all of the parts were still there, so I thought it was worth restoring everything. I’m funny like that—I want everything in my cars to work, even if I don’t use some of the features.”
Though the car’s paint is now more than 35 years old, it is still holding up well. The gorgeous Arctic Blue lacquer has a wonderful patina and pretty accurately represents what the car looked like when it was new, a look that’s extremely difficult to replicate using modern, catalyzed urethane paint. Similarly, the exterior chrome and polished stainless look superb, with a soft glow that belies their age and presents the car as it was when new.
Since completing the work he performed, Freund has done the same thing with his ’57 Fuelie that he’s done with his other cars, which is to drive it regularly and show it occasionally. He’s added more than 2,000 miles to the odometer reading and, in addition to a few trophies from local shows, he has earned two Top Flight awards at local NCRS chapter meets.
Good fortune may have played a role when Freund first acquired the car, but performances like that take a lot more than luck.
