Hello everyone, this will be my build thread for Benson my 1958 Fairlane. The build has taken about 9 months and is still not finished. The ol guy is not perfect and there are some things I would have done differently that I will go into but we are fairly happy with him non the less. Evey bit of work from mechanical, electrical, suspension, paint and body, even the stitching together of all the interior was done by my little family in my parents half used 2 car garage. I moved my family in with my elderly parents in florida during covid so my little one could not miss time with her grandparents and that worked out to a perfect time for a project for me before I moved into my new house that has no garage in Ky. My wife and I are opening a dinner and I was somehow able to convince her it needed to be 50's style and we needed a car to match. Don't know how I pulled that one off but I got the go ahead for the dinner style and a build from the boss. I found Benson on craiglist, the previous owner tried to do everything he could to destroy it. The hood release cable was frozen so he used a pry bar on the hood and managed to bend both the hood and the fender all up. The passenger side fender was made from 3 different fenders but they all were metal i guess lol. The drivers side fender was from a different nodel so it matched but not really. All the side trim had been removed with a hammer and screw driver so every mounting hole was either poked out or pushed in and the trim looked like they had wrapped it around the screwdriver like how you open the old style cans lol. At one point it had hit something hard so the front end was pointing up and down at the same time. The poor bumpers were beat and twisted. It did however have a fairly good running 332 and a good shifting trans and all the parts were there for me to work with so home he came.
I didn’t see that until you pointed it out. That’s custom. Thanks for sharing the build with us. I love to hear stories of how these old cars come to be and especially when it is at home with the family. I’ll be following along.
I forgot to mention that. The custom 5 piece wood headliner was what sealed the deal for me when I bought it lol. Luckily all the headliner bows except for 1 were up under that cool wood treatment.
They are different, from the factory they were color-coded. If all you have to do is replace one, it should be fairly easy to do. I have a set for my car, the color-coding is long gone.
They all were in behind the wood and in the correct spots except for the very front one. Luckly I had a set from another car that I had laying around that I was able to weld 2 together to make the missing 1. Not sure what they came out of or when I got them but thats why i dont get rid of anything metal, never know when it might come in handy right lol...
The Jalopy Journal
