For the readers of Mac’s Motor City Garage: A digital reprint of the rare factory racing booklet, the 1957 Chevrolet Stock Car Competition Guide. 

In April of 1957, Chevrolet distributed a 24-page book called the 1957 Chevrolet Stock Car Competition Guide to to 411 of its new car dealerships around the country. Written with the assistance of SEDCO (Southern Engineering and Development Company), Chevy’s factory NASCAR race shop in Atlanta, the book described, in satisfying detail, how to convert a 1957 Chevy production car into a successful stock car racer.

As such, the book is essentially an assembly manual for the famed ’57 Chevy Black Widow NASCAR racer, as driven by Buck Baker, Jack Smith, and others. It’s all here: heavy-duty part numbers, safety equipment installation, chassis and engine modifications. The material is fascinating, showing just how it was done in 1957, from roll bar construction to fuel injection tuning. Want to see the method used to bolt the doors shut? See page 16. Lower control arm reinforcement? Page 13. This is great stuff.

See above—there’s a rather famous camshaft part number. You can see how a book like this could become a cult classic. An indispensable resource for auto historians, vintage racers, and model builders, it’s been reprinted periodically and floats around the World Wide Web now and then. Now we’re making it available to you. Thank you for reading Mac’s Motor City Garage.

Each image in the gallery below is a booklet page. To ensure you’re getting maximum size images: Click any image to launch a slide show; click right on “view full size” at lower right to enlarge the image to reading size; right click to save or print.