Alright, Im going to start my build thread for my 54 cadillac coupe deville. I picked this car up a few weeks ago from an ebay auction. Its a solid start (for a northeast car) and is going to be a fun, enjoyable build. The plan is to make a solid, driver and not get too carried away with the custom work just yet. Im going for the mild custom look, lowered, nosed & decked, stock 331 (maybe dress it up with some valve covers, tri-power, and headers, ect.) Im going to try my best to take pictures and update regularly. Heres a couple pics of the day I picked her up Heres a few from the auction listing and finally a quick photoshop of what I want it to look like (I know my photoshop skills arent that great)
Looks like a got a solid platform to start with. Instead of flat have you considered making it shiny????
The previous owner rebuilt the whole front end, media blasted, painted, new bushings, brakes rebuilt, ect. He also had the rotted portion of the floor cut out as well as part of the inner rocker and a couple body mounts. I took the time to sandblast the door jams, floor area, firewall, and cowl before I started the patch panels. Started mocking up the passenger floor panels and tacking them in. (I got the inner rocker and body mounts all welded in but forgot to take pics before the floor was tacked in)
Looks like a solid start...I have a few parts, (radiator, some trim, dash parts) if you need anything... Please paint it shiny again...flat black is so yesterday...and boring... R-
Idealy I want to make it shiny but to get it on the road for this year (hopefully by mid august) Im not going to have the time to make the body perfect). I plan on running it satin for a year or 2 then stripping the paint down, and going though it completely, shiny black with a pearl white roof.
I got a little tired of floor work so I started stripping some paint off the roof and trunk Also replaced a small rust spot on the corner of the trunk Still needs a little hammer and dolly work Also made some good progress on the floor yesterday and will get some pics of that up tonight
I can see already that Im going to be persuaded into painting it shiney You guys are twisting my arm!
Looking forward to seeing how this goes. You're making me want to strip my '60 Caddy down to bare metal and patch any spots I find too...in time, in time. Keep it up!
Awww we shouldn't have to twist your arm (but if you don't paint it shiny, I'm going to hunt you down and break your arm )... Cadillacs should be classy...and that means shiny paint. Lowered and looking sexy - yes...very cool interior - yes...tons of chrome and polished stainless- yes...flat black and looking like a turd - NO... (no reflection on your work, of course...!!!) ...LOL...!!! As I said, it looks like a good start...keep up the good work...BTW, black (and very dark colors) gets very hot in the eastern summers...black tends to make things look smaller and a black interior closes the interior up...I'd vote for any other color than black... R-
Rust, don't let it get you down... it looks like you got a good start on some of it and the car is not too bad. It looks like it's better than my Son's 54 Chevy when we started on it. But man, is that a BIG car. And I vote for shiny paint.
Haha Thanks Roger! I agree a Caddy does deserve a gloss finish, but I have to disagree with the color. I think black is beautiful on a Cadillac. I believe it shows ultimate class and makes all that polished stainless and chrome stand out like nothing else. Dont get me wrong, I like other colors, but my car will be black. I dream of someday my car being as beautiful as yours, and I can truely appreciate all the work, detail, and time you've put into your car!
Thanx for the compliment on mine...keep working on yours and it'll get there.... Here's a question I don't have an answer to...did Elvis ever own a black Cadillac...??? R-
look what I found Roger! Found on this website http://elviscadillacs.tripod.com/index.htm I dont have much of an arguement as he owned pretty much every color imaginable at some point in his life! 1958 Cadillac Limousine Elvis owned a black 1958 Cadillac Limousine (similar to the black one pictured) around 1958/1959. I have had emails from a couple of different people who think they may know of a 1958 Cadillac believed to be once owned by Elvis according to "local legend." All a bit vague and mysterious. Anyone with any further information and/or a photo please contact me.
LOL...so he owned only one black Cadillac...does that say anything about painting your car black...??? FWIW, Elvis bought several Cadillacs for his "friends" here in Denver...one (if I remember correctly) was the Chief of Police at the time...another was for a TV newsman that did a story on Elvis buying Cadillacs for friends...he wanted to know why he only bought for "friends" and asked Elvis, via the TV and story, to buy him one...a few days later a new one showed up at the station...I didn't see anything on the link about that tho... This thread sure took off in a different direction that you had envisioned, right...and I apologize for that...!!! R-
haha yea, it definately took a turn back there but no need to appologize! I'll get it back on track tonight with some more pics. Thanks for sharing that interesting story about Elvis, something I didnt know!
No work got done yesterday after work because I got side tracked by a local cruise night. Here are a few pics from the floor work I did on Sunday. And a few from the cruise night. Being a Caddy man, of course my favorite car there was this chopped custom 52, so nice!
Nice...even with the Merc rear window... I hope you straightened this guy out...he's a bit confused ...the coop isn't a truck...no matter what his sign sez and how much junk he's got crammed into his trunk...!!! You shouldn't let those cruise nites get you sidetracked...!!! R-
Lol, I knew as soon as I posted it someone would comment on the "truck" sign. The car is alright, but the damn sunroof is killing me!
OK...I'll quit hijacking your thread... The coop is...well, he's got a lot of things going on ...the sunroof, the moon tank, whitewalls on 5 spokes, decals and pinstripes, radials and sidepipes, the chromed band on the cowl and a radiator cap...he's mixing a lot of stuff... My mom told me if I didn't have anything nice to say about something to keep my mouth shut...I'm not saying anything negative, I'm just pointing out there's a lot of mixture there. R-
**Small Update - Last Tuesday and Thursday after work, I was able to get a little work done. I patched a few small holes that were above the drip rail on the passenger side of the roof (sorry, forgot to take before pics). The drivers side will also need to be done at some point but its a little worse on that side and may need a patch panel made. I also shaved the rear emblem on the trunk and with a little hammer and dolly work its looking really good. Not sure if Im going to shave the trunk lock or not(Im leaning towards shaving it). I also started patching the rear drivers side floor pan and got the new one tacked in but ran out of welding gas so I couldnt finish. Sunday my buddy Steve (toreadorxlt) came over for a few hours and we got the roof stripped to bare metal as well as the rest of the trunk. Also got the rear window out and cleaned up that area. Last night(Monday) I started to d/a the donor passenger door I got from a guy in Kansas. Its very solid but has a few dent to work out. I got it sanded down pretty good and decided to hang it really quick to see how gaps and such line up. Not too bad but will need some massaging to be perfect. After a couple hours of sanding and lining up I wanted something fun to do so I shaved the door handle. Today Im going to see if I can get some more blasting media (they were out of stock last week ). Hopefully they got some in so I can blast the drivers side door jam and finish the firewall. Sorry for the crappy cell phone pics, Its the only camera I own and the lighting in my garage sucks
I also had some small rusted areas on my 51's roof like yours when I had the car stripped down to bare metal and my car was a S. CA car. Sounds like it's a common issue?
Im thinking it is a common problem on the coupes, as I have a parts car that has the same exact issue. Its an odd spot to rust but they all seem to have that problem. Strange because my 4 doors roof is perfectly solid (slightly different design) but the bottom portion of that car had way more rot than the 2 door.
I guess these cars rot in some odd places. Looks like you got the rot under control on your car. Nice work.
No work done yesterday on the Caddy because I was at my old mans house helping him prime his 55 Merc. Hes been busting his ass on this car for the past year or so, and hes finally ready for primer. I was so happy to see how excited he was! This is the first time hes ever painted so he asked me to help him out. He did a great job! Some of you may have seen a few pics of this car on here, I'll try to keep this short and sweet. Heres a pic of the car when he got it (looks better than it really is). First thing he did was all the floor pans. This is the first car hes ever built (hes owned a few cars over the years but never one needing this much work). Hes learned to weld, fabricate, do body work, and now paint all on this car and he's done a great job. I am very proud of him! You can teach an old dog new tricks! Then we tackled the biggest part of this build. The rear quarter was rusted, dented, and filled with a lot of bondo. We found a donor panel and decided to make the plunge and replace thoe whole panel. Here it is cut off the car We then fitted in the new, rust free panel And welded and smoothed, hammered and dollied until it was perfect He then did a bunch of work on the other quarter, fixed some dents throughout the rest of the car, got some new rust free fenders, and a bunch more work! We also bought a 59 Edsel for a donor car for the motor and trans. He didnt want an automatic in the car so he decided to swap the whole Edsel 292 and 3 speed trans into the merc. Also didnt want the 3 on the tree either so we adapted and poked it tjrough the floor with a hurst shifter. The job came out great, unfortunately I dont have pics of the shifter conversion. I do have pics of the engine swap though. Pulling it out of the Edsel After its all detailed and installed in the Merc Then he did a ton of body work and finally the pics of the prime job last night Hes now going to block it out prime again, and be painting in a week or 2. Sorry for getting a little off track but I figured you guys might like to see these pics. Its great to see my old man so excited about his car, he really deserves it!
Ahhhh. Good to see another vintage Caddy being saved and not crushed for scrap metal. Keep up the pace and it should be running in no time
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