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By 55ebird - 12 Years Ago
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First let me thank everyone who commented on my supercharger post a few weeks back. It is wonderful to have such a wealth of Y-block info so easily accessible.
I'm currently looking to buy a 1957 2-door custom 300, but i am wondering what the differences are between the 1957 custom and custom 300. I know the codes are 70a (custom) and 70b (custom 300). I also know that the original paint and trim were different. Were there other body or mechanical differences? I have been told the heaters were different and that the custom 300 had a clock. However, i can't find any info on such things.
Hoping you guys can help.
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By ecode ragtop - 12 Years Ago
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Steve, The 70A and the 70B have the same body,but the 70B has the gold inserts and side trim like a Fairlane 500, but the trim will not fit a 500. As far as heaters and clocks you could order any body style with out a heater or clock. The reason you see more 70a's with the small heater and no clock, is that this was the cheap base car. For more information go to 57 Fords forever or 1957 Ford .com. Hope this helps Tom
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By Hoosier Hurricane - 12 Years Ago
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The Custom had rubber floor mats, the 300 had carpet. I believe the seat covers on the 300 were a bit fancier than the Custom. My Dad bought a new Custom during a promo. 1957 Ford for $1957. Only had two tone paint and a heater for options. 6 cylinder, 3 speed. I hated that car. Wish I had it now.
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By pegleg - 12 Years Ago
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As John said there were some interior differences. That would only matter if you were going to do a an original restoration. I think John Gambell's 57 Ford site has all of the available interior colors shown. Actually it might even have pics of the different exterior trim. There seems to be a 50/50 split on who likes the cars. Half the folks love the Custom 300, the other half prefer the standard 300. I have a custom, but I really like the looks of the base car.
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By Doug T - 12 Years Ago
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I had a '57 custom stick 6 for about 6 months. It did have a back seat but was a very very plain salesman's car. It was a rusted out upstate NY car and driving it back to school one night the left headlight nearly fell out. It was tied back in place with a shoe lace through one of the rust holes. It ran really well and was remarkably quick from a standing start with a low 1st gear and 3.89 rear axle. I bought it for $175 and sold it when the shoe lace rotted out for $37.50. For the money it was a pretty good car!
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By slumlord444 - 12 Years Ago
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As I recall my 300 had rubber mats. Side trim was different as described. Not sure if there were any differences in the interior. Would love to have either one again. Preferably a Custom. Uncle had one that was a 2 door with a 6 stick. Another uncle had one that was an ex Illinois State police car. Custom 300 4 door as I recall. 312 stick. I drove that one when I was 15 or 16. Ran really good. Both were solid black. Love them in black.
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By jlb51 - 12 Years Ago
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Greetings everyone. New to y-blocks forever,excellent forum. When I saw this thread about 57 customs, I recalled the one my brother bought in the late 60's and still owns today. It has a stainless piece running forward from the rear towards the door, where it curved up and forward again. No rear seat, the windows did not role down. It had a 6cyl,3sp/od, radio, heater. Two of my uncles ran a wrecking yard and an engine rebuilding company in eastern Oklahoma. We wanted the 6cyl gone and replaced with a 390/406 to better compete with our friends scrubs. They offered to build a better engine if we drove it back in the early summer. In exchange, we were to work in the yard pulling parts. We arrived in the middle of June. Our first job was pulling the engine/trans from a 57 Merc. 312/3sp/od. THATS OUR NEW ENGINE? No 406? No 390? This will never do,(they don't know what their doing, a 312}? We knew they had built racing engines in the past, but a 312? If improved upon, what Ford started with was enough to run with the 327/348's. Just trust us!
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The engine was torn down, cleaned/hot tanked (remember that process?) They measured/checked everything. "Build it right, it'll run" (Trust us) Well really didn't have much of a choice, soooo,OK. I remember Jahns pistons, Engle cam, Michigan bearings, rings (?),balancing, checking clearances, head work, but i don't know what exactly,intake manifold work, a Ford 4100, later a Holly, (don't know CFM's, all this is by memory) They did it all. Next came a BW T-10. (Hey this is getting expensive, we could be here a long time).Then fenderwell headers, distributor work, back in the car. Broken in,tuned and retuned. They were right! That little 312 ran hard!
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We worked till the end of summer to pay for it all,and had a ball doing it. We probably still owe some, but both have passed away. I think they had even more fun than we did.Go home, race and beat some chevy's. On cool, cloudy evening at the old Irwindale drag strip in Irwindale, Ca, George (brother) ran mid 14's at 95mph,almost exactly what our friends 327/olds hydro 57 Bel Air ran. JUST TRUST US,IT'LL RUN. IT DID.
My car at the time was 55 Ranchwagon, 272,3sp/od. Now I had some plans for it, however the army's plans differed somewhat. I sold my 55 (what a mistake), he kept his 57.
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After being discharged I bought 56 f100,(Dec 1974).It is going to get a total rebuild (it needs it), I'm going to keep the 312 that came in it when I bought it. Thanks in advanced for some questions I'll have.
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By Lord Gaga - 12 Years Ago
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GREAT STORY jlb51! I really enjoy these.......Here's another;
I grew up in a neighborhood in NE Ohio where it seemed that every boy close to my age was a "gear head"!
In '63 or 4 one of them bought a completely stock '54 Ford business coupe (a Customline) from a local used car lot. It was a 239 V8, 3 speed O.D. with a 4.11 gear. I don't think it was a local car because really solid with no rust. He replaced the 239 with a used '57 312. He had the G heads milled slightly and put larger exh. valves (actually '56 intake valves) in them. He bought a new factory "C" cam for it but never installed it. ( I know because I bought the cam and heads when he sold the car and they are now in my '48 Tudor.) He ran the stock 256 deg. cam, exh. manifolds, "B" intake and '57 Holley carb. with a screw in the secondary slot. The short block was never apart being in good shape and nice and loose.
He replaced the O.D. with a T-10. He completely gutted the interior except for the front seat, it had no rear seat to begin with, and removed all the excess weight he could without cutting. He was a good tuner and driver. The car was FAST. He never had it at the strip....there was no need. Street racing was THE thing back then. There were several roads in the area where we knew the quarter mile landmarks and really had a ball. It's funny but the cops never were a problem.
That little '54 coupe would beat most of the muscle cars of the day i.e. Goats, 442s etc. Granted, some of those guys were probably bad drivers. But no matter, the '54 would haul the mail and was a local legend!
He next car was a '55 Mainline two door sedan with a low rise 427 410 Hp......but that's another story!
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By bird55 - 12 Years Ago
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Great stories. Have some myself, that's why these are special.
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By speedpro56 - 12 Years Ago
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I've owned two custom 300s, one 2dr. and one 4dr. and both had radios heaters and gold trim down the sides and both had rubber mats, and one custom 2dr. that was a salesman car. They all had 272s and the custom 300 2dr. was automatic and the others were stick shifts ( 3 on the tree). ALL were great cars and the 4dr. 300 three on the tree 272 would bust a 327 without hardly trying and beat 390 ford as well, have no answers as to why it ran like a BAT outta HELL!!! just one of those that came out on a lot steroids .
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By speedpro56 - 12 Years Ago
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I meant to say 390s plural, one was a 1961 375 horse 390 while the others were your basic 325 horse jobs. Thru my mistake I sold it to a friend who would go and beat up on Camaros an patton ave. After realizing my mistake I went to buy it back only to find he had sold it and sadly I could not run it down because the old man he sold it too couldn't remember what he did with it so needless to say I'm still sad about that one.
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By pintoplumber - 12 Years Ago
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Gary, I have a customer that was pretty much of a chevy guy, but he told me he had a 57 wagon with a 272 that he could beat almost anybody. There must have been some special ones.
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By speedpro56 - 12 Years Ago
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Indeed Dennis there were some special ones.
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By 312T85Bird - 12 Years Ago
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You hit on one thing with the heaters being different, actually the standard heater "Duct" feeding the defrost air to the windshield was the big difference, as the "Cheap" version that was sold to municipalities usually in a six cylinder version of the car and to State Police Departments both in '57 and '58 had a compressed card board (Similar to a Hardened egg carton) where as the better model as well as the one sold to the General Public used metal duct. I have owned cars with both types. It might be interesting to have you peek under the dash and see which you have.
312T85Bird
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By jlb51 - 12 Years Ago
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Greetings! This topic of 57 Customs really has me thinking of --- maybe --- but, NO, I have enough to keep me busy with my f100. Lord Gaga, great story also. I can just picture that 54 coupe. Your friend must have been serious about racing, that 55 must have been rocket. Street racing was big out here also, ( Clark St. straight, about 2 miles long, 1/4 mile marked off, nothing out there except cows) which is why the drag strip was open Wed nights. Race who ever you wanted to. To put the race between my brothers Ford and our friends Bel Air in better perspective, his was built as follows; 375 HP/327 fuel injection engine but instead of FI, two inline AFB's, Jardine headers, Olds hydro, (why Olds hydro's were ones of choice, I really don't know) 411 posie. This was my brother's first time on the strip. He lost! By about 1/2 of a fender length. Not bad. He had the car tuned with the collectors open this time. Ran just a little quicker. He needed practice shifting. Maybe some 411"s. The Bel Air was a no show from then on.
bird 55 - with a T-bird that looks as good as yours, I am sure you have some great stories also.
Ted - thanks for doing what ever you did to my post, made it easier to read. I'll get the hang of this eventually. Thanks, Jeff
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By MoonShadow - 12 Years Ago
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The Olds Hydros were the soon to be famous B&M transmissions before they started making them for the racing world. They were pretty stout. Chuck
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By pegleg - 12 Years Ago
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In that era, there were no effective torque converters. Therefore no initial torque multiplication. Pretty much the reason for the term "Slush-Box". The 4 speed Hydro's came with a very low first gear, effectively a "Granny" low. This allowed the car to leave much harder than the typical automatic with a mid 2's low gear and a fluid coupling. Until the late 50's Chrysler torqueflite and some Borg-Warner Automatics came along in the late 50's this was the state of the art for American automatics. B&M made early attempts at shift Kits before anybody else figured out how they even worked.
I drove a Scrub powered 40 Chevy Gasser with a "Hydro-Stick" at a local drag strip in Ohio that would pull the front wheels off the ground in the late '50's. They worked!
Think Chrysler Powerflites, Powerglides, Dynaflows, etc to compare.
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By John Mummert - 12 Years Ago
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Frank, I remember GM types being emphatic that the Hydromatics didn't have a torque converter, it was a torus wheel. I have no idea what the difference is.
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By jlb51 - 12 Years Ago
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On the topic Olds hydro's, all I know is that they had no torque multiplication , just a fluid coupling, hence the need for that low low 1st gear, AND they shifted very hard. No slush box here. Another friend and his dad built a rather unique car (even for those times)--a "51 Pontiac 2 dr hardtop with a "59 Cad engine and a (you guessed it) olds hydro. I don't know how the engine was built, but it had four glass pack mufflers, two on each side, side by side. Fun car! Each had their hydro's built at Art Carr's "Arcadia Automatic Transmission" in Arcadia, Ca. At the time I worked after school at a battery shop across the street. Every time Pomona drag strip would have big meet (Winter nationals) racers would be lined up down the street waiting to have Art Carr's shop service their trans. Very exciting; seeing and hearing all those cars. Art Carr's own personnel car - a beautiful '57 Ranchero running a 427 lowriser and (you guessed it) NO-wrong- a COM. As for Art Carr himself - a super good guy. Patient with us kids, questions/problems, never charged us full price when he worked those two cars. I wonder if kids today, in 20/30 years will have good stories and fond memories as WE all do. I for one hope so. Right now , for us it's off to the 10'oclock church service in our 51 club coupe-52 Merc engine and no Olds hydro. To everybody have a great Sunday! Jeff
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