More Perfect Than Ivory Soap

            Ivory soap use to advertise that it was 99 and 44/100ths pure soap. Now while that is pretty close to being perfect, Jim Obermeyer has something that’s even closer to perfection.

            Jim is the third owner of a classic 1957 Chevy Bel Air that he found sitting in a barn in West Texas.

            “Grandma and grandpa Upshaw used it as their farm car down in Plainview, Texas,” he said, adding that they put about 75,000 miles on it working around the farm and around town. When they passed away they left the car to their grandson who didn’t want anything to do with it.

            “He stuck it in a barn,” said Jim until in 2005 he contacted his cousin in Dallas to help him sell the car. “The cousin put an ad on the internet and that’s how I found it,” In December of that year Jim was visiting relatives in Texas and took a ride out to look at the car. He bought it.

            It took until May, 2008 for the car to be completely restored though, for the most part, sitting in West Texas, it was in good shape.

            “There wasn’t really any rust,” Jim said. The front floorboards had some rust under the carpets but that easily came off with a wire brush.

            “The cloth, rubber and plastic were all rotten. The back seat upholstery was ruined,” he said and added that it had never been wrecked. “It still has the original carpeting from when the car was built in St. Louis,” Jim said. “I had to beat it and use the Hoover then beat it some more but it came clean.”

            The car had been repainted in 1983 but, according to Jim, it wasn’t a very good job. When he was restoring the car he went to DuPont and got the original color code for the Sierra Gold over Adobe Beige that the car bore new and does so again.

            “It continues to be a perfectly reliable car,” said Jim who will jump into it and drive it “at the drop of a hat.” He drives it a great deal having put over 11,000 miles on it, including regular trips as far away as Tennessee. 

           The car has a 283 Power Pac Super Turbofire V 8 engine with four barrel carbs and dual exhaust along with a Powerglide two speed automatic transmission. All of which was meticulously restored.

            All of this attention to detail has paid off. The car has won over 60 first or best in show awards. And rightfully so. On a 1000 point scale to determine how close to perfect condition the car can be, his Bel Air was given 996 points. That’s more pure than Ivory Soap.