Hot Rod magazine’s Flashback 57 Chevy

19/06/2024

A very young T Murphey in probably sometime in 1985 or 86 not long after the Flashback 57 became a Texas resident. I wish we had that show sign still. I keep hoping more early photos will show up.

11/06/2024

Flashback needs some exfoliating. So we are scrubbing everything with 000 steel wool. The body, windows , stainless and chrome all clean up with a lot of scrubbing. Just look at the difference on the fender. Now I need about a case of steel wool and about a month of free time.

08/06/2024

Good to hear it run. It’s quieter than I expected with the full exhaust . Just running it enough to burn what old gas was in the carbs and then gotta change the oil and do a little more maintenance before we get it out of the shop and moving.

07/06/2024

It’s alive. First startup on the Flashback 57. It had to have a new gas tank, lines and fuel pump. Once there was clean fuel it came to life. Still needs tuning but this is nice progress.

27/05/2024

Cool photo of Flashback that seems to be from 2013-2017 sitting at T Murphey’s place in Austin when he inherited the car after rediscovering it in a shed on his dads property.

21/05/2024

Thanks to my friend Shawn at TimeMachineRetroandRelics for the heads up on this book of Hot Rod magazine covers that features the Flashback 57 in nice clear images.

18/05/2024

The bottom 2 magazines I had and kept for 40 years just to remind me to keep looking for this car. I now have several copies of each one but these are the ones I’ve had since 84. Mission accomplished.

17/05/2024

This kid went through a whole pack of steel wool today cleaning up the rear bumper and stainless and then cleaned out the trunk while I laid on my back under the car with a bottle of degreaser and a scrub brush cleaning off 4 decades of axle grease.

13/05/2024

Well as with almost every old car I bring home they all seem to need the same things . New gas tank and all the fixings . The car was empty of fuel when we got it so I thought maybe someone had drained it to make it easy to get running later. That was not the case. When we added the first 5 gallons of gas I returned to my shop late that night to find most of it in the floor. The tank had a hole in it so we drained it and removed the tank and ordered all new tank, float, gaskets, o rings and gas line.
I got tons of loose rust from the tank. There was also a plastic fuel filter in line right beside the right exhaust manifold that cracked when I squeezed it so that was super dangerous. We certainly don’t want to catch this car on fire. So all new fuel system is in the works before we try and crank it. It’s so hard to be patient at this point.

11/05/2024

Rolled out of the parking garage into the street to load on a rollback. Covered in dust, driver window missing, tires rotten, battery dead, gas tank empty and rusty but I couldn’t be happier. There’s no mistaking this iconic car.

09/05/2024

I hope it can look like this again one day. I wonder if you can still get an Accell car battery.

07/05/2024

How does a magazine cover car wind up like this ? Life takes many turns over 4 decades.

04/05/2024

The original custom interior is still intact but well worn . At least the seats are. It has a 55 seat with custom orange seats covers done in a 2 door hardtop type seat pattern. Black carpet and a orange headliner all originally done by Ciadella interiors back in 84. The headliner is still nice, the driver door panel is worn and warped but the passenger side and both rears are nice. The carpet is pretty j***y of coarse.

01/05/2024

Early sketches of the style and design of the Flashback build. They were purposefully going for the American Graffiti era of of what would have been on the streets in 1962/63. Steve Swaja - artist who did the sketches.

30/04/2024

Still wearing its 1984 California license plate 40 years later. Apparently a dealer plate was used when it was driven.

29/04/2024

Thanks to my friend Howard Kelly jr. I just received these 2 framed photos that hung in Chuck Lombardo’s office at California Street Rods where the Flashback 57 was built 40 years ago. Nice additions to the collection.

28/04/2024

https://www.motortrend.com/features/hdrp-0702-the-icons/

Click on the link and scroll down to the story on the Flashback 57.

Celebrating The Birthdays Of Three Legends Of The Hot-Rodding World.

27/04/2024

The original feature from Hot Rod June 1984. The car had only been finished for a few hours at this point.

27/04/2024

Original 1984 Hot Rod Super Nationals event t shirt featuring the Flashback 57.

27/04/2024

Next generation getting the feel for some old school.

27/04/2024

The day we picked it up in the Tarrytown community of Austin, Tx.

27/04/2024

In its new home.

27/04/2024

Leaving Texas and heading to its new home in Tennessee.

27/04/2024

Hello friends and car enthusiasts. I’m creating this page to share and document the history of the Flashback 57 Chevy over the past 40 years.

27/04/2024

Flashback’s 3 magazine covers.

27/04/2024

The spot where the Flashback 57 was found in a basement parking garage of a apartment building in Austin, Texas. It had been in the area for 40 years since November 1984.