some very cool old assembly line photos

[BlueOval Ralph]

If you check the records I think you will find the real black widows the Factory Race Cars were built at Southern Enginering in or near Atlanta, Ga. A sunk works operation.

Originally Posted by Bruce Noland

Happy New Year Bill,

Apparently people could buy the parts from Chevrolet and build their own Black Widows because Chevrolet did not produce them at the factory. It looks like the injected cars were around in many different colors. NASCAR quickly canned the injected cars. The Black Widow still won a NASCAR championship with a carburetor. A really neat car.

http://www.57chevyblackwidow.com/album.html

[BlueOval Ralph]

More info
What makes them special? They were Chevy "skunk works" NASCARs built by Southern Engineering and Design Company in Atlanta. They were Fuel injected 283s. Among other things, they had a lot of heavy duty parts including radiator (with steel, spiral wound rod fan guard to keep the blades out of the radiator core in case of accident), truck front spindles, truck rear axle, vented hood (home heater registers cut into the hood to allow trapped air to escape), roll bar and race harness, big extra bolster on the seat to keep the driver in place when he went around corners, and the seat back on the passenger side was removed.
In the trunk, the spare tire well was deleted from the factory, to fit a larger capacity gas tank in place of the stocker. I've seen pix of two extra gas tank straps added, going sideways instead of front-to-back.
The fuel tank would have been illegal if caught, so the story is that GM went to the place that stamped out the rubber trunk floor mats and took a bunch before they had the cut-out for the spare tire well die-cut in them. This hid the absence of the tire well, which would have tipped off tech inspectors. (It's have been obvious with the hole for the well in the rubber mat)
The frame was the lighter 1-pc box tubing frame (instead of two pieces of C-channel welded together), and one-piece California bumpers. (The one-piece frames are not unique to California; I've seen several cars made in Atlanta with the one-piece frame).
The exhaust was routed through a gusseted hole in the frame (both sides) and exited in front of the rear tires. The rocker was clearance for this.
Lower control arms were re-inforced with a piece of steel plate to complete box the control arm, and the spindles were reinforced as well, too (I think...I could look that up).
An extra shock was mounted to the front control arms, with a tab welded to the side of the lower arm, and the frame. In back, a tubular cross member was added above the housing, and dual shocks were on each side. (Unless rules dictated only one shock).
They also had an extension built on top of the single reservoir master cylinder, to increase the amount of fluid in the system, though it was still only a single reservoir.

Fenton made headers for them, but those are scarce because they don't clear the later side motor mounts, so they were '55-'57 Chevy only, and weren't long in production.

Originally Posted by BlueOval Ralph

If you check the records I think you will find the real black widows the Factory Race Cars were built at Southern Enginering in or near Atlanta, Ga. A sunk works operation.