What would you do to it? '52 Pontiac

Hey all,

I've had my '52 Pontiac for a few years now and I'm about a year or so away from getting into a rebuild of it. When I first bought it, my intention was to just restore it mostly original as it already has a kind of custom look to it. This also isn't a very common car as I've only seen a few others in person, and most of those were in the junk yard or 4 dr's. The more I look at it though, I'm starting to think it would be fun and a lot cooler to make a custom out of the car.

I'm just looking for some ideas here, so, if this were your car, what would you do with it?

 

That is a great looking car.Please keep her has original has you can.Go out and find you a project you can rod out,chop up or whatever your interest would be.Not a whole lot of complete nice cars like yours out there...my 2 cents

 

Dechrome it and lower it. Then drive it and enjoy.....

 

Simple shaving of door handles and lower it, oh and some custom rear skirts would be nice too.

Need Wide whites too

 

Lose the sunvisor cromereverse rims pontiac 389-400
muncie 4spd and junk the skirts. Thats what i would do

 

I'd just ride it

 

nice car.. just needs wide whites and lower. Id keep all the chrome and visor on.

 

What BuickBorracho said, whidewhites and a altitude ajustment, nice original car!!!!

 

I'm just not feeling the custom thing with that car. Hard to find one in that nice stock shape. Being I'm a sleeper kinda guy I can see a 400/455 Pontiac/4sp or 700r4/rearend swap and leave the outside just the way it is. Some subtle sounding exhaust and you've got a fun stoplight car and a reliable long distance cruiser. Can you say "win/win"

Frank

 

Agree.

 

Rusty52; If it were mine I wouldn't change a thing. I would pull the wheels, check the brakes and steering linkages and drive it.

 

I´d just lower her, not radically, just enough to be noticed, add a set of wide whites and enjoy driving!
You´ve got a beautiful car there.

 

I have a 52 hardtop and it isn't half as clean as your post.

(I think 52 pontiacs look alot cleaner with a side trim change, IMHO the trim on the front quarters makes them look heavy in the front)

I am making mine exactly what I want, screw the restorers and the leave it be crowd.

I am building it for myself NOT for the next owner or resale value, besides my "regret/shoulda done it" list is all full at the moment.

Someone (or many) may be disappointed in your choice but that doesn't mean you should be.

Wonder how the "grapevine" would have turned out if Watson was concerned what others thought.

 

RUSTY...man that old car is WAY to nice and complete to custom. please don't, but if you do i'll NUKE your freaking house! HA! if nothing else sale her to somebody who realizes what is there. hell brother there are plenty of cars that need paint and body work, that you could customize. YOU KNOW?...POP.

 

PERFECTION X 10
Rod

 

Drop the nose, cruise it. Way back when ('50's) there were PLENTY of cherry car's to kustomize. Today any fool can 'cut-one-up'. Restraint is never easy.

 

It's good to go...but if you have to do something I'd go with the wide whites first. Then maybe do a 2" lowering.

 

to nice to customize...i like the original style of it, theres plenty of "projects" out there that need saving...those are the cars your customize

 

WWW, '56 Poncho caps, color match skirts, drop the rear, cut a coil, swap out to a 53/4 steering column and brakes for an upgrade, split manifold, dual pots, drive shit out of it.

 

Fix the headlight first.

 

PERFECT..... Wide whites, skirts and dropped. ( Easy to undo for the purists )

Whoever that was above that said de-chrome it needs to be slapped.

 

You live in Minnesota, you only have like 5 good driving months, just leave that beautiful example close to how she is or at least reversible. Wish it was mine; I'm a dd year 'round only vehicle. Good luck.

 

Ditto to that, the older I get the better I like them stock.

 

I'm working on a friends 54 Pontiac (sedan delivery) right now. We decided to leave it looking completely stock appearing as far as the exterior/ interior goes. Only exception will be radial WWW instead of bias plys as this one will see considerble highway time. Underhood however is a nice mild sbc, auto, P/S, disc brakes, A/C. I'm getting real good response on how it's coming out.
I made a career cutting up and customizing cars but now days I have started to appreciate the beauty of these old cars just as they were originally. Your car is beautiful right now, do you really think you can make it better?
Like some one else said, lots of rougher, less complete cars out there to cut up. Cut up yours and there is one less nice stocker in the world, not too many of them left.

 

I prefer to drive than ride Once I rode upon a car when I was younger. I had an old clunker, put it in 2nd gear, and then laid on the roof with my hand through the window riding the car

If it was my car I would hop in it and drive around with a big smile.

 

REALLY nice car!

I have to tell you. After going to GNRS this weekend, it really dawned on me how FEW Pontiacs of this era are on the road or for that matter done well. There are quite a few done really nice right here on the HAMB, but if you do a search on-line, you'll find a ton of CRAP builds.

I'm a huge Pontiac fan. I have a '53 2-door Sedan that is the next project. I agree, they have a nice custom look to them right out of the gate. My plan for mine is to basically do a "restored custom", for lack of a better term. I'm actually putting all the trim BACK ON mine and looking for a stock grille. The car will essentially have all the stock items that really made it look like a Pontiac and then I'll adjust the stand and make mechanical imrovements where needed. Mine will be daily driver worthy and will be a road trip car for the lady and I, so no plans for bags or any of that stuff. Just a low, clean, and SHINEY!

I personally don't think Pontiacs need a lot to make a great looking "custom", but I guess I just have my own vision.

Going to be a great car! Can't wait to see what you do!

Here's Buzz Bomb's car. This car has been pretty inspirational for me...

 

The only thing I would do that car is drive the wheels off of it. That thing is too classy to cut up. Customize something that is not as nice......... Just my 2 cents.

 

Great looking car !!!

I've done a few things with my 51 - mostly around updating the driveline and braking system. Everything I've done I can replace back to stock if I ever chose to down the road. Make it great for driving and other than that I'm planning on keeping the body stock - its got a great body line, and you don't see too many ponchos running around.

My 2 cents (thats 1.75 American)

 

OK....so I think I've just been fooling myself and over thinking things. That tends to happen around these parts during the winter! I do like the car as it is, and I just rebuilt the hydramatic and the Straight 8 still only has 58,000 original miles and the head was freshened a few years back. I'm going to take the advice the majority seemed to give and just fix it up to original, minus some brake upgrades to make it ride nicer. I'll just use this as my driver and find something else to cut up and play with.

Thanks for the input and to the guy that did the photoshop for me, I really like the look of that too!

Rusty

 

Just lower it a few inches. Cut a coil and add blocs in the back, and away ya go....