Donald Rohrbach thought it would take three years to restore this 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air. It ended up taking just 15 months. He purchased the car in March of 2021. By May of 2021 he had stripped out all the rusted parts and by August of 2022 the car was done.
WAPAKONETA – Donald Rohrbach had his sanity questioned when he brought home a beat up, rusted out, shell of a 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air to restore.
To say his wife, Sanna, was surprised by his choice of vehicles would be an understatement.
“She asked me if I lost my mind,” Rohrbach recalled. “She said it was a piece of … well, you know what, but I saw a blank art canvas.”
Sanna’s surprise came because this was to be a special restoration project for her husband. He had done 25 restorations in the past, but they were all for other people. It wasn’t until Covid hit that he finally decided to find a car of his own to restore.
“I asked her if I needed to go see a lawyer,” Rohrbach joked. “I did look at some other cars, but people wanted too much money for them. They’d be asking $8,000 for a car sitting in a patch of weeds with a tree growing up through the center of it.”
When Rohrbach took a wrench to the Bel Air for the first time in March of 2021, he knew he had plenty of work ahead of him to bring the car back to life. He figured it would take three years to finish the project.
He ended up getting it done in 15 months.
Every day, he would spend four hours on the car before going into work on second shift at the Joint Systems Manufacturing Center in Lima.
“There were only three weekends during that time when I didn’t touch the car,” he said.
Everything but the dashboard was replaced.
A friend, Paul Kraicinski, helped him from beginning to end on the project. They placed a 383 Stroker engine in the car.
Another friend, Tom Fischer, built a platform designed specifically for Rohrbach to work on the Bel Air. Rohrbach jokingly refers to it as his “toothpick structure.”
“It was the only way I could support the car and still work on it,” he said.
The interior work was done by Kirk Perry of Elite Customs & Fabrication of Ohio City.
Even Sanna got her hands dirty working on the car.
“She got excited when she saw it coming together. After 38 years of marriage, that didn’t surprise me.”
Rohrbach painted the vehicle with Sanna picking the color – orange crush. It was originally painted red.
They cannot wait for the weather to warm up so they can get the Bel Air on the road again.
“If the weather’s nice we’ll probably take a cruise on Mother’s Day,” Rohrbach said. “Sanna enjoys this car now as much as I do.”
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