1957 Plymouth Belvedere Drop-Top Flaunts '58 Vibes and Surprise V8 Mods

204,000 examples of the Belvedere rolled off the assembly lines in 1957, pushed by innovative Flight-Sweep styling (Virgil Exner’s Forward Look was paying off) and a combination of low prices and reasonable options. The downside was questionable build quality – corrosion resistance was only as good as the weather. Otherwise, rust was very keen to eat through a Plymouth body from all (under)sides.

The Belvedere was available in various body styles: two- and four-door hardtops and sedans, two-door coupes, station wagons, and two-door convertibles. The former was positioned at the bottom of the production hierarchy, with 9,866 units assembled. By contrast, the other two-doors in the lineup, the hardtop and the sedan, were placed first (67,268) and second (55,590).

The 50s were not an era of mechanical exuberance – engine options were slim for Plymouth, with a V8 and a Six as the only choices presented by the sales literature. It wasn’t a sales forte – the piston section of the brochures – but the Belvedere, being a full-size cheap car, wasn’t aiming for performance. (That was Chrysler’s territory, with the newly introduced 300 series and the Firepower mills – the first-gen hemispherical heads engines).

The Belvedere convertibles weren’t among the most sought-after American cars in the mid-50s – the T-Bird was also new to the scene and grabbed everyone’s attention. That would explain the low production numbers of the model, making it a rare sight today. Finding a survivor is probably as likely as stumbling across an ice cream van nest to the ice-skating ring, but restored examples are not as shy.

Here’s one in the video below (an older shoot from last fall, but the YouTuber uploaded it only now): a restored ’57 with several ’58 touchups: the front lower valance panel is incorrect for the year. The 1957s came with wide vertical slats in the lower valance –a bad idea from the start and subject to recalls. The wide openings allowed pebbles and debris into the engine bay, so Plymouth addressed the issue by adding thinner slats between existing ones.

Also, the hood script is not present. In 1957, a Belvedere would have had ‘PLYMOUTH’ over the nose, with sharp-edged letters that attempted to draw blood from the fingers of whoever would have been in charge of polishing the car (with a thin cloth and limited time to get it done).

Also, any Mopar fan will quickly notice the preposterously incorrect carburation setup: no 301-cubic-inch V8 (4.9 liters) came with dual quads in the 1957 Belvedere. The twin four-barrels were available on the Fury (a Belvedere subseries in ‘57), but the standard equipment was a single four-barrel carburetor.

235 hp wasn’t the greatest of specs, but it got the job done, and the convertible was entitled to sport only a V8 engine. Interestingly, the eight-cylinder engines could be had with an 8.5:1 or 7:1 compression ratio, and only the bog powertrains were granted the Torque-Flite three-speed automatic tranny. The car in this video has that push-button gearbox.

The car is a restoration – started by previous owners and finished by the current – and it shows 58,000 miles on the clock (some 93,300 kilometers), believed to be original. It’s not a common sight at car shows, and the subtle mods on it are great conversation starters. After all, Plymouth’s slogan for the year was ‘Suddenly, it’s 1960!’