Ryan Gertner got his first 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air when he was 10. He built it himself — a Flintstones sort of convertible he hung over his shoulders with suspenders and drove to school for Halloween. He’d already been drawing ’57 Chevys and dreaming of the real thing. Over 30 years and hundreds of pieces of memorabilia later, Gertner’s fixation applies only to ’57 Bel Airs, and usually red ones. It hasn’t abated.
By day, Gertner is a relatively normal applications engineer at a tier one automotive supplier in Southfield, Michigan. His daily driver is a Mazda 6, and his wife drives a Subaru Outback. He’s an accomplished car shooter and the official photographer for his club: the Woodward Tri Five Cruisers. But in his free time, and often these days with his 9-year-old son, Gertner indulges his medium-red obsession for ’57 Chevys.
“I’m not sure why it’s red, except that I like the car best in red,” Gertner says.
Now 41, Gertner moved to Michigan from his childhood home in Baltimore to pursue a mechanical engineering degree at the General Motors Institute in Flint (GMI’s name changed to Kettering University while Gertner was enrolled, so he was issued degrees from both institutions when he graduated). Yet his thing for ’57 Bel Airs has nothing to do with the fact they were built near where he grew up in Maryland. Gertner had no idea that was true when he was afflicted. Rather, his fascination with ’57 Chevys started with an animated television show called “M.A.S.K.”
“M.A.S.K.” was essentially a vehicle to sell Kenner and Hasbro toys, and its broadcast first ran in the mid-1980s. Gertner was tuned into episode 29 in November 1985 when crime-fighting M.A.S.K member Hondo traded his melted dually pickup for a flamed-out, Transformer-style ’57 Bel Air coupe named Hurricane. Eight-year-old Gertner had never seen anything quite like the beauty that was Hurricane.
And so it began. Young Gertner started learning about ’57 Chevys and drawing them. Before long, he built the suspender car and started collecting ’57 Chevy-themed stuff. Three decades beyond, his quest continues.
It’s not limited to die-cast models, though Gertner has accumulated more than 100 of those. There are the 210 carefully curated photos that regale his desk at work. He has books, posters, T-shirts, wood carvings, drag cars, monster trucks, RC cars, slot cars, Jim Beam decanters, night lights, puzzles, a rug hook kit, a business card holder, a videotape rewinder and a phone. Gertner actually used the Bel Air phone as his phone for years. He’s even acquired a pair of ’57 Chevy earrings, which his amazingly understanding and respectful wife has actually worn.
The quest isn’t indiscriminate, either. Gertner passes on far more bits of memorabilia than he grabs. If there’s something that’s caught his fancy but isn’t necessarily an accurate representation of a Bel Air, even in some stylized sense, he fixes it. He paints roofs, applies foil applique and even alters wood models with Plastic Wood.
There’s the Lego car he built during a 21-month company assignment in England. Gertner found a CAD form someone had posted online to build a ‘57 Bel Air from standard Lego blocks, but he didn’t like it much. So he spent weeks adjusting the plan and pondering how he could put a 283 Lego fuelie under the hood. He spent another nine months sourcing the 2,700 Lego bricks. He found a guy in Poland who could plate the chrome pieces. He made his own decals. And when he finally got back to the States and compared the Lego car to his precisely accurate Danbury Mint die-cast, he wasn’t entirely pleased. So he redid the Lego car again.
Then there’s his 94-by-43-inch Bel Air bead painting. The graphic below speaks for itself.
Until roughly two years ago, Gertner didn’t own a real, full-size ’57 Chevy. He wasn’t that worried about it, though he heard all the time from friends and co-workers: When are you just going to get a damn car? He wanted what he wanted, and he couldn’t afford what he wanted: a red convertible with a white top and a fuelie, preferably concours-grade. He wasn’t even sure a ’57 Bel Air would fit in his suburban Detroit garage. Then a serious health scare knocked Gertner down (he’s fine now) and got him thinking.
“You sort of reassess things in that circumstance, as you might expect,” Gertner says. “At that point, I’d seen some of the world. I’d been to Le Mans and Goodwood — things I never expected to do — but I still didn’t have the car I’d wanted since I was a kid. That played into my assessment. And at some point, I realized I’d never owned an American car or a V8.”
Gertner also realized that if he lowered his standards a bit, his then-current play car — a first-gen Subaru STi with U.K.-market wheels he’d acquired in England– could get him a long way toward the right Bel Air. So he auctioned the STi at bringatrailer.com, got what he needed and started Bel Air shopping. He bought the first one he looked at, from a Corvette restoration shop in Old Forge, Pennsylvania: a clean red coupe with a white top and a carbureted 283.
It did fit in his garage. Gertner spent the summer of 2017 sorting his Bel Air to his liking and fitting it with disc brakes, an improved Edelbrock carb and a modern stereo under a period-correct faceplate. Yet one of the first things he did when he got the Bel Air in his garage will surprise no one with his kind of affliction: He grabbed a tablet, sat in the driver’s seat and watched episode 29 of “M.A.S.K.” on YouTube.
Standards are relative, of course, and it doesn’t appear Gertner had to lower his too much. His white-over-red Bel Air coupe is meticulously clean, and it's both a crowd favorite and regular plaque winner at local meets. But it’s no trailer queen. Gertner accumulated 4,000 miles over the summer of 2018. There are few things he and his son like better than putting miles down in their big red Chevy.
You might be wondering if Gertner has car interests beyond ‘57 Chevys. Like, if he wins a lottery jackpot, what he’s going to buy?
“Easy,” he says. “I’d get a pristine (’57 Bel Air) convertible with a fuelie. Then I do a full restomod on another to drive. After that, I’d think about a Corvette, though I wouldn’t be sure what to get — a classic that’s really special or a new one. If it’s a new one, I’d probably just lease and replace whenever there’s a significant update.
“It would be great to be a Jay Leno and get everything. I appreciate a lot of cars, and I’d want to have them all, but I’ll never be that. I don’t have the wherewithal, so I focus on one thing. There is never going to be a better ’57 Chevy. Really, I’m pretty happy with where I’m at.”
OK, but are you really obsessed?
“Of course I am,” Gertner says. “Ever since I was little, it’s all I ever wanted. People from high school I reconnect with remember me as the guy who was passionate about ’57 Chevys. I’m still that guy, and I like that. I stuck to it.
“A little obsession never hurt anyone. When I shoot a car meet, I want to be the first one there so I can shoot every car coming in, or the last to leave if the light is good. I’m OK with it. My wife is very understanding, and my son enjoys it, and it certainly has its upside.”
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