“PURE GOLD” Celebrates the 50th Anniversary of the 1957

Dale and Denise Bourgeois #10348025• Schriever, LA

As a young man, I owned a 1957 Chevy Bel Air. My uncle signed a note for me with his promise that if I missed a payment, the car was his. I promised to make every payment. I really did not appreciate the car at the time yet later I longed to own another 1957. I was encouraged by my wife to begin searching for my 1957 dream. We purchased the car in August, 1999 from Tony Dupuis in Raceland, LA. The car was a good driver with a straight body, and no obvious rust. The car was a pearl white with black interior.

After changing a few things on the car, I decided I wanted to restore the car. The little changes led to a complete off the frame restoration. Being a perfectionist, and very anxious to start on the restoration, I purchased all the parts to restore the car. I took the car off the frame and built a rotisserie to make working on the car easier and so that I could get to every detail. I purchased a 350 4-bolt main crate engine, a box tube frame, and paid a body shop a lump sum in advance to begin the restoration. After many delays and lack of attention, I found my car had not been cleaned properly and oily areas were bleeding through the paint. I picked up my car in five gallon buckets and trailered the body of the car home.

I called Pierre’s Restoration about finishing the car and he said that he could not take the car. I waited a year and a half before he was able to take the car as a restoration project. In the meantime, he told me how to preserve and prepare the car. I decided to redo what had been done and to take the car all the way down to bare metal. I wanted to know how solid the car was and what was underneath that pearl white paint. The car was soda blasted to remove the remaining paint.

In January, 2001, Pierre began the restoration. By this time, I had decided that I wanted to customize the car with modern features to make it more comfortable to drive. The first and most difficult decision was choosing the color of the car. I love black 1957’s and the cowl tag showed black as the original color; however, my wife said that we needed to choose a color that was different if we were customizing. Pierre painted three different colors of gold on the quarter panel and the color choice was “Pure Gold”, which we later named the car. Next, we picked color combinations for the interior.

The dash was painted two-tone light wheat and taupe with burl wood inserts. Pierre molded air vents in the dash to look like factory air. At this point, we couldn’t wait to see the car finished and each of the following steps became more and more detailed and exciting. We replaced the front bench seat with bucket seats; which meant we would need a console. The console is one-of-a-kind. Pierre made a console from sheet metal that is the replica of the ’57-complete with fender vents and taillights. The remote controlled stereo/10 CD changer is also hidden in the console and with the push of a button lifts to view the face of the radio. The seats are two-tone with leather and tweed to match the two-tone dash. The back seat has a raised letter “B” in the middle of the back seat and the interior door panels have a raised inscription – “’57 Belair.” NuRelic power windows were also installed.

The engine compartment is painted the same color as the frame. I purchased aluminum valve covers, air breather, radiator cap, and gas cap with engraved flame designs. We carried the flame theme throughout the car. Pierre painted the flames on the covers, caps, and the inserts on the console the same color. Next, we had flames molded into the headliner fabric, flames molded in the inside trunk panels, and a Grant mahogany steering wheel with flames.

Pierre’s restorations are unique and personal. The trunk is customized and personalized with a picture of me welding on a storage compartment cover. With the flip of a switch, a hidden strobe light strikes and sparks from the arc.

The wheels are Boyd Codington aluminum wheels. The stainless was refinished and polished and the chrome was re-chromed. Pure Gold has a 2-1/2” stainless steel exhaust system from front to back. I installed Williams’s headers on the heads. From the headers, I fabricated the crossmember and installed dual stainless 2-1/2” pipes. I also used a 1979 Trans Am positraction 10-bolt rear end

“Pure Gold” was completed June 1, 2006 and debuted for the first show on June 4th in Monroe, LA. Our plans are to show the car this year and to begin really enjoying “Pure Gold” next year as a driver.