Intrepidation

On the contrary, it's brilliance and originality. It's like no other `57 Chevy. I applaud him for doing something different and way, way out of the box...and it looks awesome.

Besides the air dam...how?

Jeff Mann's '57 Chevy runs a blown Hemi under its hood, and lots of unexpected details We've entered the era of the Stepford Chevys. Once upon a time, 1957 Chevys were nasty street racers driven by the socially maladjusted and feared by the decent citizenry. But those days are long gone. Today '57 Chevys are driven to the nostalgia diner by grandfathers in "Foose Design" T-shirts. You've seen the guy's ride. It's the monochrome red 1957 Chevy Bel Air with the 502 big-block crate engine parked next to five others just like it over by the D.A.R.E. car. Jeff Mann's '57 Chevy is a heretic in this Church Of Conventional Wisdom — Chevy Synod. There's not a single GM component in the entire drivetrain; nothing in or on the car came preassembled in a crate; it's defiantly multichromatic; it's more than a little dangerous; and any fuzzy dice that get near the car are likely to be sucked in and consumed by the blown, electronically fuel-injected early Chrysler Hemi under its hood. Professionally Creative Today Mann is a big-time motion picture production designer; the guy decides what a movie's on-screen world looks like. It was Mann who decreed that the Mustang Nicolas Cage drove in Gone in Sixty Seconds should be painted silver and black. And it's Mann who directed the design of the Autobots and Decepticons coming in this summer's Transformers. This is not a guy who gets paid to recycle the same old ideas. Jeff Mann's business is creativity and the fine art of the telling detail. But back in 1984, he was a 19-year-old working as a mechanic on offshore boats in San Diego. Back then, there was a faded blue '57 Bel Air coupe always parked in the same place along his commute. Every body panel was bashed in some way and the whole thing seemed to be sagging over its worn springs. "There wasn't a 'For Sale' sign in it," Mann recalls, "but I tracked the guy down and bought it anyhow. It was $2,400 and I had to take out a loan at 26 percent interest to get even that. I was deluded. The guy I bought it from had found it buried in an Oklahoma oil field." Cars once buried in oil fields not only demand a lot of attention, they need a bucketful of money, too — well beyond Mann's reach at the time. So the car went into hibernation at a relative's house while Mann's career improbably evolved from mechanic to production designer as he worked on friends' music videos. By the early '90s, Mann was working in show business full-time, living in Los Angeles, and he was accumulating restoration pieces and hot-rod parts for the eventual resurrection of his '57. Then he decided he had to have a Hemi. Chrysler's Finest In the pre-eBay world, Southern Californians had The Recycler (a cheaply printed weekly book of classified ads) around to get rid of their junk. "I was building a 327 Chevy small-block for the car," Mann remembers, "and I was already bored by the idea of another '57 with a small-block in it. Then I saw an ad in The Recycler that said ''58 Chrysler New Yorker, $500, runs good,' and suddenly I thought I really needed to own a Hemi." Mann found the New Yorker molting in one of L.A.'s funkier neighborhoods and, after buying the car, pulled its 392-cubic-inch Hemi V8 and Torqueflite automatic transmission out of it on the spot. The engine and tranny went home with Mann in his truck while a junkyard claimed the gutted New Yorker shell. Somewhere around 1993, while working on The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, the combination of his '57 Chevy and the ancient Hemi sitting in his garage came to Mann's mind. So the Chevy body went to Ellery Engel Restoration Specialties of Piru, California, where the floorpan, rear quarters and rockers were replaced with fresh steel. The frame went to Tierno's General Fabrication in Los Angeles to figure out the engine transplant. Getting the Hemi into the Chevy chassis wasn't particularly tough — all it took was a whole new front suspension. The Chrysler V8 is about the same length as a small-block Chevy and swapping the stock front suspension and recirculating-ball steering for a Jim Meyers Racing front suspension and rack-and-pinion steering provided the clearance for the additional width and crankcase depth. It got more complicated from there. Engine Development Program Early Hemis are very different beasts from the Hemi that comes in today's Chrysler products. Besides being physically much larger (and heavier), Chrysler never offered the early Hemi with any sort of fuel injection. So when Mann decided to equip his with modern electronic fuel injection, he was basically undertaking his very own engine development program. That's never cheap. With the body now pristine and perfect — and wearing Dupont Lime Gold paint on most of its surfaces with Metallic Charcoal on the roof — it was mated back with the now Hemi-powered chassis. Churning a Richmond five-speed manual transmission and a Lincoln Versailles rear axle, the naturally aspirated version of the injected Hemi produced a disappointing 350 horsepower at the rear wheels on a chassis dyno. This was more than disappointing in light of the stroker crank that upped total displacement to 450 cubic inches, the Hot Heads aluminum heads and all the other premium performance pieces stuffed into it. But while coming home from that dyno run, the engine chewed through the teeth on its aftermarket oil pump, causing it to seize and propel itself through the engine block's webbing. That was that for that block. Fight or Flight At that point, Mann could have heaved the whole thing aside in frustration. Instead, he got another Hemi block and stuffed the surviving parts from the first engine into it. Then he added to the engineering challenge by throwing a Vortech V7-YSi centrifugal supercharger into the mix. A few horrendous snafus later (at one point the blower had been accidentally engineered to run backward), the Hemi wound up with Kenny Duttweiler of Duttweiler Performance in Saticoy, California. Duttweiler rebuilt the fuel-injection system using wideband sensors, huge injectors, a Holley throttle body and an Accel DFI engine control computer. Now running a crank trigger ignition, Duttweiler made about 30 pulls on his engine dyno, tuning the Hemi to run both on pump gas and racing fuel. After some blown gaskets and another catastrophic failure, which necessitated the adoption of J.E. custom-built pistons, the Hemi produced 830 hp on pump gas and more than 900 hp on race fuel. Jeff Mann finally had his fast and beautiful, blown and injected Hemi-powered '57 Chevy. By the time he was done, it was late 2006. Details, Details, Details Jeff Mann has more than 20 years of blood, sweat and cold hard cash in this project. And only now is he getting to drive it regularly. With its snarling exhaust roar and distinctive blower whine, Mann's '57 is an undeniable beast. But the unique paint choices and accumulated details make it a visual feast. From the machine-turned panels along the car's flanks to the '68 Impala door fabric modified into a headliner, every element of Mann's car is subtly unique without turning the car clownish. It presents the classic lines of the '57 cleanly; there are no graphics or flames fighting for attention. It's immediately apparent that this '57 is something special, but it doesn't shout it out. It's a clean, beautiful car. But at its heart, it's one nasty street racer. http://www.edmunds.com/insideline/do/Featu...otopanel..1.*#2

Wow, I woulda thought someone would have posted.

Perhaps, but most people will associate black, unpainted strips with a cheap economy car or base model. I personally like the body color strips better, or better yet the SportCombi's lack of them. Does the sedan have them?

I bet the price of oil jumps a lot...right before teh road trip too...

Right handed, I couldn't draw with my left hand to save my life

I HATE that song in your sig with a burning passion. Everytime I hear it (because my girlfriend love it) I want to dismember someone. Anyway, the car would actually look pretty good if the wheels and ride hight were more normal in size.

So today I decided to finally swap and rewire stereos in the Prizm. The Pioneer unit in there actually has good sound adjustments but has a $h!ty, almost unreadable display and it's a cassette player. The Sony XPLOD is a cd player that can read CD/RWs too as well as having an AUX jack. With help from my friend we got it wired up..although I'm disappointed with sound quality...the bass is almost nonexistent. if I ever buy an aftermarket stereo I'll go for Pioneer. But that's not what this thread is about. While I had the hood up to disconnect the battery, my friend noticed that the exhaust manifold had a crack in it. Oh goodie. Apparently this is a common problem with Toyota Corollas and Prizms (or anything else that has the 1.6L). He's been through 2 of them in his Corolla. The questions I have now are: Is it fairly easy to replace? Would an aftermarket manifold be better than getting a Toyota manifold (would the quality be better)? Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Erm...no. Do you know what it looks like? The Aero X...a Saab! The 9-3 looks nothing like a Chrysler. My beef comes with GM slapping the corporate stereo in there...but if you opt for the Nav that problem goes away.

Most of the information is easy enough to find, however I no longer see the quick links to MyGig...also, what has long annoyed me about the Dodge site is that the top models /powertrains seem to be missing from things like vehicle comparisons and payload ratings. I can't check teh towing and payload capacity of a Nitro R/T for example, and when I go to compare trucks, I can't select the 5.7L Hemi.

There are some things they did that helped it, like adding some bright-work around the dash, vent knows and so on. I'm undecided about the HVAC knobs...they look cleaner but not unique like the previous controls, which were very easy to use. The worst offense is slapping the corporate stereo into the car.

FTW!!!1!

and perhaps most famous...

It could be better, but thens o could have Ford's and GM's minivans...but they aren't. And let's not bring in the Lambdas or Flex because I'm trickily referring to minivans.

I'd like an Intrepid 3.5L R/T with all the bells and whistles someday.

Dude, how many times are we going to beat this horse? It's a minivan not a Ferrari...function over form. Let's not forget a box is more space efficient than a sphere.

I won't argue with the integrated part...because I agree that they should be more integrated...if there's one thing to like about Honda/Toyota (and now Hyundai), it's the integrated center stacks. When I was referring to MyGig (Chrysler Nav system with HD and all that good stuff) I was referring to functionality and the HD and USB dock. He said they were good.

If you liek teh car but just want one with less miles why not?

Try belly landing one of those and have it stay in one piece It's too plain looking...yes it's capabilities and how it has stood the test of time and is still in service for the forseeable future is truely impressive...but it's not a thing of beauty like the B-17.

The new front end looks awesome, but I'm disappointed that the interior looks the same.

I like them design wise, and I like the fact that they make an effort on some models by color matching the center stack (silver, piano black). That being said, I like Chrysler's latest Stereo unit a lot. Very easy to use and, as Raven will attest, displays lots of info. I've never seen a Chrysler stereo withing that past 20 years wash out. MyGig destroys most of the GM systems except what Cadillac has, IMO.

Not my thing...at all. You swore that after you got your Buick this would stop...but we all knew better