1957 CHEVY BEL AIR
MANY HANDS
A ’57 With a Give-and-Take History
BY ALAN PARADISE
PHOTOS BY GUY SPANGENBERG
Talent seems to cluster.
We see this is our sports teams, in movie casts and at schools and universities. The gifted attract others with the same skill sets, or at the very least, are able to inspire others to raise their game. In the county seat of Macomb, Michigan is a town where a gathering of talent comes together. Mount Clemens, a few hours of drive time on Interstate 94 north from Detroit, does not have a pro sports franchise, nor is it a motion picture capital, and although it’s close to Davenport University, it’s not a college town (although it does have a highly rated college of beauty).
Where Mt. Clemens excels is within the car community. In a shop behind Ron Schuman’s Auto-Tech business, seller of vintage car parts, is a 7,000-square-foot shop. It is here where local talents get together to work on their hobbies. “It happens every weekend. We have a large screen television and a refrigerator of beer. But most of all, we have a group of 15-20 guys that are all into building custom cars,” said Schuman. It’s been going on this way for close to 20 years.
One long-time member of the band is Paul Rider. One of the projects built in the shop was his near-perfect ’57 Chevy 210 Bel Air. As anyone else in the group will tell you, the car was built more than once. However, let’s not get too far ahead of the story.
Many years ago another Mt. Clemens Paul, that being Paul Reiter of Reiter’s Metal Crafters, prepared a body shell to show off at the famous Detroit Autorama. The ’57 210 Bel Air was taken down to bare metal, perfected and cleared. It was an impressive and risky display. If anything wasn’t 100%, it would stick out like the proverbial sore thumb, but for Reiter that was the point. Not too long after the event, and since the body shell had served its purpose, one Paul sold the roller to the other Paul. It was a Reiter to Rider transaction.