58 Pontiac Drag Car

This would look so cool at the Meltdown Drags, next month.

 

x2, make a couple runs and enjoy your hard work. Put in a for sale sign in the window and try to gather some interest in the car. Should also be a 55,56 possibly a 57 also so we can line them up for a photo op.

 

I agree guy's. Meltdown is the perfect place for this car.
We just need to find the new owner who'll take it there.

 

Had a guy come look at the car the other day. He spent about 2 hours crawling in, around,under the car, all while it was running for about a 1/2 hour to prove it didn't run hot. Finally he steps back, shrugs his shoulders and says, "Huh!, it looks exactly like it does in the pictures".

I just laughed. Yeah, I'm not trying to hide anything, or cover anything up.

 

Heading to the bank monday to make arrangements to accept a wire transfer of funds, and if all goes well, this ole girl is going to a new owner....in Germany.

 

Sold, and on a slow boat to Germany.

 

Congrats Tom now on to the next project.

 

It really makes me happy when I see an old Stock Eliminator car brought back to it's rightful glory.

These cars seem to get overshadowed by the rails, altereds, gassers ... etc.

Many Stockers and their drivers had big followings back in the day, and were the launching pad for many famous
drivers that went on to higher classes.

Folks could easily relate these cars to their own daily drivers, and the brand loyalty was intense to say the least.

We all know how much work it takes to knock 3 or more seconds off a quarter mile time. I don't know if many people can fully appreciate what it takes to do that within the tight confines of the Stock Eliminator rules.

I was always amused to see some kid that brought his street car to the track for the first time thinking he could win in Stock Eliminator just because he had a car title and a pair of glass packs ... LOL !! It was a common sight in time trials to see something like a lowly 2bbl small block 4 door wagon with an automatic transmission hand a totally stock big block 4 speed
muscle car his butt in a heads up situation.

Good to see this beautiful classic old Poncho coming back to life.
Hope you have a blast with it 58Pontiac.

--- Steve ---

 

The Pontiac finally arrived on the other side of the ocean... I could pick it up at Rotterdam yesterday and brought it safely home. Hope to get it on some tracks over here during the next season. Some work still required until i can take her out but Tom already did a load of good quality work on the car! Will post here once the car is back on a track...

 

Thanks Helge, keep us posted.

 

Where did you find rear end parts?



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Finally the promised update:

After doing some additional work on the car over the last months (front end alignment, polishing/protecting the remaining paintwork, installing a period tach and other small stuff) the car was finally brought out into the daylight and back on a track after all those years at the Race 61 event in Finowfurt, Germany on the last June weekend.
It is a 1/8 mile race for cars and bikes built prior to 1961.
What shall I say - the Pontiac ran great and is an absolute blast to drive. I was put in the big block class (they have Flathead, SB an BB classes) and won 1st place in this class straight away
The final run was against a 1957 Buick with a built 500 cui Cadillac engine, wide slicks and all the trimmings (perfect paint and body condition too) and the Pontiac beat the Buick by 0.36 seconds...
The best ET was 8.65s on the 1/8 mile with 126.4 km/h topspeed and 1.85s at 60ft.
This was done without any fine tuning or any real racing experience from my side, so I guess there is still room for improvement.
The 1st things I have to improve are the brakes though...I really had to step on the brake to get the car to stop within the (admittedly quite short) brake zone. Maybe I just have to adjust them better as all the componenets are new...
Furthermore I noted only 1 day before the race that the car has no front shock absorbers installed...I do not know if this is how these cars were raced back in the day, but I will definitely install some shocks as the front tires started wobbling quite a bit towards the finish line.

So, all in all a really great car that I plan to keep and continue to gently improve in the future. Unfortunately the options to race the car over here are few and far between but I am hooked now and look forward to race the old Pontiac again as soon as possible.


1st race after more than 40 years




There she goes...

Pontiac vs Buick

 

I found video of the final round Helge. Nice job, and congrats on winning big block class.

 

From Detroit to Germany.....

 

Tell the guy in the pretty,shiney 57 Buick, that Raggedy old 58 Pontiac is what we call a sleeper over on this side of the pond.