I've got to start with the story of my introduction to 59 Pontiacs. I was 16 years old and driving a 65 chrysler 300 four door hard top. I was the second owner, rolling on 63,000 original miles. I had spent all summer doing body work, primed the car in WHITE, and put large 60's style red scallops on it. The final touch was lowering the ass end, so I drove down to Baxter Auto parts in Portland Oregon to buy 3" lower blocks. I park, bought my parts and upon leaving the store I realised the most amazing thing had parked next to me. Like most people, the concept of a 59 pontiac had never occured to me. All I knew is I was blinded by low slung quad fins and HUGE chrome stars on the quarter panels. I went home and searched the web and suddenly found myself staring at a 59 starchief.
That deal was done and sealed I had to have a 59 Pontiac.
Skip forward almost three years. I've graduated high school, I'm going to wyotech in Laramie Wyoming, I find out about url=wyomingclassiccars.com]wyomingclassiccars.com[/url]. It was three hours away and they had ONE 59 pontiac 2 door hardtop sport coupe. If you go to the site and hit inventory and go to the 45th page, you can see the first pictures I ever saw of my car (car numder 420).
Even though it was a lot worse than it looked I instantly fell in love. Parked in this yard in 1977, the car wasn't even 20 years old when someone gave up on it. I died. I bought the car the same damn day. I made $300. payments a month while I was making $6.15 an hour until it was paid off. I towed that car from Casper Wyoming to Laremie, I told my parents I wasn't coming back to washington without it. They towed the car from Laramie Wyoming to Vancouver washington.
It sat for a good 6 months until I got a job at Royal Kustoms in Ariel Washington and then the fun began. I replaced the rotted out floors, with new flat (hot rod) style floors. This gave the car a "channeled" feel, and allowed for 60's style swivel buckets. I replaced the entire passenger side lower quarter panel from the door jam to the bumper. Patched both front lower fenders, as well as at the hood seem. I put in a new trunk floor. Both rocker panels were hand built while I was at Wyotech.
I then moved on and created custom door buttons, to replace the handles. Lowered the lock cylinders into the side chrome. and of course, the entire point of this, chopped the car...
now it's said there are two ways to chop a 59/60 gm car. Either sink the glass into the cowl or chop the glass. I am highly against sinking the glass. Not only can you not sink it very far because of the windshield wiper motors, but also, when you open the door, you have exposed glass below the window trim. The surround winshield trim gets cut so it remains above the height of the doors, but the glass is still the orignal size, so it has to extend lower than trim in the door opening over hangs. this can cause chipping and cracking of the windshield corners. No fun when a new window is 500 bucks... So my glass will be cut.
The trick is.... You cut the lower corners of the window, so the window can lay down lower...
In order to ensure I could make the glass work, I actualy made a round rod template and chopped that first. I compared it to the windshield before and after. When I was convinced that the shape I wanted could be cut from factory glass, I then cut the car and made it match my templated.
You can see the entire process on my cardomain site at [img][/img]
http://cardomain.com/ride/793569....
also, you can see some of the orignal junk yard pictures, pick up day pictures, and lots of in progess shots.
It's easy to say that this car has become my life over the last 4 years and I won't rest until she gets what she deserves.[
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