We still have that 3 window and have plans to get back at it soon. We are still open and operating at our shop in Monticello, but will be operating in our new facility in Osseo by mid summer.
A similar look for a friend's 51 Pontiac Sedan...his first car in high school. Hello, Back in 1962, one of our friends was happy to have purchased a 1951 Pontiac Sedan as his first car. Since all of his friends had two door sedans, this one just fit the bill. We had never seen a 51 Pontiac before. There were Chevy coupes/sedans and Ford Coupes/Sedans, but not a Pontiac. We were all impressed as the one he bought was pretty nice to start. As most teenagers go, our friend was limited as to what he could afford to modify to make a hot rod sedan. So, he opted to keep it stock, make it run like a top, and just use it like a freedom-giving car for unnamed jaunts all over So Cal. One of his claim to fame quotes: “Well, Mickey Thompson uses Pontiacs…” Yes, he does… Most of us were in fun classes in high school, such as PE or sports teams. (also, Auto Shop, Metal Shops, Crafts, etc.) There were classes that allowed us to have fun, hang out together, and make stuff we normally could not do at home. We had access to do most mechanical things for our cars. Make a plastic layered shift knob or dash/radio knobs, the crafts class supplied the stuff, but, we had to make it for a grade. Or fix a broken lever for a support bracket? The metal shop provided plenty of supplies and big machines to get the job done. So, what did the Pontiac get in the Auto Shop? A one of a kind shift lever and bracket to make the column shift into a floor shift. The bracket on the transmission was made in the metal shop, the car floor torn apart in the auto shop and the whole unit installed with some fine adjustments. I needed a project to boost my grade back up to an “A.” So, this Pontiac project was going to be a grade booster. It was our first try at something like this. There was no money to go out and buy a ready-made shift lever to fit this old Pontiac. (besides, there weren’t any commercially available ones on the market for this conversion.) The complexity of the project would boost our grades, if it was done correctly. Doing final researching in magazines and talking to old hot rod guys helped. Even words of wisdom from our neighborhood welding shop expert helped make a cool, functional, all metal, transmission shift lever and arms work perfectly. Before we put the carpet back in, we had to make the last modifications to the tall, curved, shift lever that was as high as the top of the dash. Jnaki Luckily, we made the main transmission lever base with an internal thread-tapped hole just above the tunnel. It was handy as any lever with threads would fit this transmission shift unit. (We made a short curved one like a standard 4 speed unit from the factory…it looked awful.) The first tall lever worked perfectly, but hit the dash. Then we got smart and used thin welding rods for practice clearance models. The second, slightly curved model cleared the dash, while still being as tall as the top of the dash. It was the ONLY hot rod in our area with such a tall lever. If it wasn’t fast, (the 51 Pontiac wasn’t), then make it look like a custom cruiser, which it was in droves. The 1951 Pontiac was fun to drive with the shift lever so high inside. We felt rather proud of our accomplishment. The car was not the fastest or had the most custom/race stuff on it, but it was a great version of a local, reliable So Cal cruiser. It was a completely fun car to drive and hang out, quite a different experience from my 58 Impala or our other friend's 57 Bel-Air 4 speed, hardtop. The owner was proud of his Pontiac, as were we. But, it was just a fun place to be with friends, without a care in the world at the time. That reality would hit us in the face several years down the road.
I'm for keeping the engine and attending swap meets where I'm certain you'll find Tennessee-go-fast parts for that straight eight. If you join Inliners International, you'd find a lot of help from their members.
This black Pontiac had been seen in our last drive to the bank and gas station run during this locked in place/social distancing era. It is a very nicely done sedan and stands out from the other more modern cars parked in the same industrial park area. Hello, When we were teenagers, my friend with 57 Chevy had a family of fun cars. His mom and dad bought a new 4 door hardtop sedan in 1962. It was a luxurious big family sedan and had all of the accessories that we don’t usually see in our own hot rod sedans and station wagons. Despite the fact that it was a huge family sedan, when cruising around in the summer, or going to the drive in theaters, those 4 windows down gave the ultimate open air feeling. There was plenty of room inside for a fun double dating scene. (on super hot days, there was A/C, too.) Jnaki The only other teenager that we knew had a blue 2 door Pontiac hardtop with a 389/260+ hp. At the time, he did not have enough money to get the biggest motor available. This one was sitting on the showroom floor of the Pontiac dealership just down the street from our high school in 1961. It was a fixture at the Bixby Knolls Texaco Gas Station as that was his envied, after school job.
As I remember 1960 was the last year for the true Hydro, 1961 was the first year for the "Slim-Jim" that was hated by many.
Bonnevilles and Star Chiefs used the super hydramatic through 1964. The roto hydramatic or slim jim was used in Catalinas and Venturas, and starting in 1962 the Grand Prix.
There was a straight 8 Poncho around in the early 60s with a split exhaust & 3 on the tree. Ran pretty good & sounded awesome. Outran my 50 Ford.......... Love your car !!!! And i'm a Ford guy.
Isn't the fact that they're are less of them, less parts, more of a pain to deal with.... Doesn't that make them more cool? I know I appreciate a rare car, and especially drivetrain, even more. That str8 8 is awesome.
I like mine. I'm not trying to make it something it isn't, though. Fast? No. Easy, lazy torque for around town? Yup. Comfortable? Pretty much. If you're keeping within the limits of the design and engineering then it's not a bad car, even by today's standards. No, not top of the range tire shredding standards, but plain family sedan standards. It still does the job, makes people smile and tends to invite positive comment. As for serious, properly noticeable upgrades to the 8? Not really. The build quality of the inline 8 is what I'd call "adequate to good", meaning it's not a Model A lump where a small bit of work liberates a large improvement because the starting block was so poor; for a side-valve they're close to as good as you're going to get for a mass produced engine. Better carburetion and exhaust manifold, increase the CR and put different weights in the distributor for a more aggressive curve would be straightforward improvements, reducing the valve overlap and a few changes to the squash space in the head would see a little more but I don't think you'd eke out a great deal more, and all those changes have to be made still with low RPM use in mind. If you want a high performance I-8, go look at a Buick... they're a much better start. A lazy, slow putzing machine that's gonna get a grin no matter what (yesterday I was asked the 0-60 time and instead of a frown, I got a smile and a thumbs-up), keep your '51. $0.02 Phil
My '48, patiently waiting for other projects to get out of the way. Originally a flat six hydro car, I yanked that out and have a 302 GMC and a dual range hydro in the corner ready to drop in. Sent from my SM-G892A using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
I remember those cars back in the 60s, they showed them in the early sixties. They also had a 65 version...
The Jalopy Journal
