Chevy Bel Air
Born: 1955 Died: 1975
If any car is a symbol of the original rock-and-roll generation, it has to be the 1957 Chevy Bel Air, with its chromed V on the front of a forward-looking bonnet (on the V8 version), two-colour paint scheme, and fins framing the boot.
The '57 was the ultimate evolution of a run of the nameplate that began in 1955 when GM changed totally the image of the post-war cars it had been building.
The extreme wraparound windscreen design was just one of the 'gee whiz' elements that caught the public imagination, and from its launch it was wildly successful.
Initially powered by a 115hp straight-six engine, the car also had the option of Chevrolet's small-block V8, previously introduced in the Corvette sports car, and this too added to its appeal. By the time the '57 added its fins to the mix, the 4.6-litre V8 offered a range of power options from 140-283hp, the latter with 'Ramjet' fuel injection.
The Bel Airs of this classic period were available in two-door hardtop and convertible formats. In all, something over two million of the cars were sold over these three years, making it the most popular American car of its time.
In 1958, Chevrolet introduced an option pack to the Bel Air called Impala. This included upgraded trim, and the availability of a 5.7-litre V8 with up to 315hp on tap.
The Impala option only lasted one model year, as it became so popular that the company floated it off as a top-line model in its own right, where it was to become one of the highlight nameplates for the brand during the first half of the 1960s.
The Impala name has endured in the GM line-up on and off ever since.
The Bel Air line, no longer the top-dog in the Chevrolet range of cars, continued nevertheless as a popular alternative to the Impala, in the early 1960s being powered mostly by a 135hp 3.9-litre six. It sold well during most of the decade with various revisions, but was never again to regain its iconic status. It was then pushed further down the lineup with the advent of the Caprice towards the end of the 1960s.
Eventually marketed mainly as a competitive and competent full-size car for fleet customers, the Bel Air was finally dropped in 1975.
It was the Bel Air that established a style trend which spread around the world very quickly, and was copied by many manufacturers including Simca and Ford in France, and the British Ford Consuls and Zephyr/Zodiacs of the late 1950s and early 1960s. One British copy was the original Vauxhall Victor F, something of a disaster because it was a pretty poorly-built car.
The 1957 Bel Air sold originally for less than $3,000 fully loaded. A fully restored one - and there are many still about - can be worth ten times that in today's money, indicating that occasionally a design will endure in attraction way beyond its time.
GM showed a concept Bel Air Convertible for the new millennium at the 2002 Detroit Auto Show. The car used many style cues from the mid-1950s ones, but there are no known plans for production. For the record, no V8 under the hood - just a 3.5-litre turbocharged inline five-cylinder engine based on one in GM's midsize SUVs. The all-aluminium engine delivers up to 315 horsepower.