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

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.

http://ford-y-block.com 

20 miles east of San Diego, 20 miles north of Mexico

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.

Frank/Rebop

Bristol, In ( by Elkhart) 

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

Y's guys rule!
Looking for McCullouch VS57 brackets and parts. Also looking for 28 Chrysler series 72 parts. And early Hemi parts.

MoonShadow, 292 w/McCulloch, 28 Chrysler Roadster, 354 Hemi)
Manchester, New Hampshire

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

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

What?

Indeed Dennis there were some special ones.

-Gary Burnette-

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.

  Dennis in Lititz PA

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 itso needless to say I'm still sad about that one.

-Gary Burnette-

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.

-Gary Burnette-