here is my young opinion on this: I think starting a project like a 55-57 is a great car to take on. Very easy cars to work with. Very solid parts to work with. One thing to consider is Bel-airs tend to be a pretty expensive build if a lot of the parts aren't already there. I agree with Scott. It is great to work with a full link chassis where you can seperate them from the car.
It sounds like you expect perfection out of any project and I believe that is a good project to work with. Things to look for when going to see the car:
check the sides on the trunk pan(the areas around the sides and the area closest to the rear bumper in the trunk pan tend to be the first spots to go. Rockers, and door jambs are another area rust/rot tends to be with these cars. Of course floor pans. I am guessing this is probably a coupe. Check areas around the lower quarter section and reach under and in the inside and check to see if the lower quarters had rust at one time or current. I might be missing something? Maybe a few others can chime in on a few important areas to check. a lot of the 4 door bel-air parts will swap. Sometimes even a little modification to the parts will still work with a coupe.
It is kinda hard to tell what the car would be worth: $1,000-4,000 I would say. Depends on interior parts, glass, chrome in good shape?-very important.
Hope this helps:
Andrew
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