Brents 53 Buickand Anthonys castanedas last chop

Over the years, Brent Nightingale has owned lots of hot rods and customs, you know, like most of us , you turn and burn till you get
the project you really want, but Brent always owned this car.
For 20 years, it sat in Anthony's shop or stuffed away at Brent's back yard. With the help of Anthony, Brent built the car as a mild custom, but his dream was to go all the way and build the car as a full custom. Like alot of us, as the years go by, our standards have gone up so Brent brought the Buick back to Anthony and asked him to chop it.

History of custom Buick's
Buick's have always had their place in the custom world, due to the complexity of their chop, most were built as mild customs, the favorites have been the 49 to 53 models and ending with the buick rivieras of the mid sixties. Hopefully Rickster or some of you can help me by posting pictures or info regarding their history in the custom world or if you own one of these cars, please feel free to post it on this thread.

 

So the back story on my 53 Buick is.....
In the late 80's/early 90's, I like other young lads in Orange County saw this sweeping trend of "Rockabilly" revival taking place,with Hot Rods, Lead sleds, "Jakes" barber shop in the circle,James Intveld,Big Sandy,The Paladins,Social D,Greased back hair,Lindas Doll hut,Hootenanny,Paso Robles,and Mooneyes, you get the visual?
I found myself wanting that life style ,so soon I would be buying a primered black 53 buick super from the auto trader,remember this little newspaper ?, this was how you would find classics before the good ol web came around.
I drove this car around with my newly acquired buddys I met at the local watering hole.Buddys like Anthony from "The Shifters",whom already had a chopped down Hudson hornet,a chopped Model a coupe (which later came to be the infamous bubble top) "Brown Neck Bandito",and lots of other roadsters,trikes, and anything with a motor.
I ,like many living from pay check to pay check, could only fix my ride as money allowed.
After many endless problems with the powerless 322 nailhead and dyno flush trans it was time for a new mill.
At the time to do a motor and trans swap I would be faced with cost and another set of dilemmas, like enclosed drive line and suspension issues.So for the sake of cost and performance a late model oldsmobile donor car was found to do the frame swap with.Later came bags for lowering,56 packard taillights,and now the chop top which is Anthony Castanedas last chop done before his unfortunate death.Now the Buick has found the touches of a frame off restoration in the hands of Miguel "Magoozi" (to you on the Hamb) from San Diego car club The Lifters! Pictures to follow of this rides journey thru the years.

 

here are some pics

 

more

 

Back in those days, the goal was to grow the scene and get as many of these cars on the road, ya know infect your skate board buddies with old car syndrome , what mattered was to drive your car everywhere , expose your buddies to the greaser world. A place where the fifties was alive and
well, the customs and hot rods were crude, loud, and depicted a true image of what most youths back then drove around and not the homogenized poodle skirt version the gold chainers and street rodders were cruizesing around.
This was Anthony's legacy, cranking out as many hot rods and customs as he could, he was a practical man with alot of good ideas. he would make shit happen with the few resorces him and his buddies had. He was never afraid to try new ideas and always loved a challenge. He was a bohemian , a beatnick, and bored easy and was always ready to go on to the next project. With him a six pack and your friendship went alot further then some gold chainer with a wad of cash.
The hotbed for this new scene was Fullerton, Orange County, Long Beach, Riverside, San Diego and a few guys in Bakersfield.
If anybody has pictures of the early days of the scene , please post them.

 

Customs almost dyed out !

By the mid eighties, the popularity of customs had almost died out on the west coast and was more of a east coast thing , if not for guys like Dick Dean and big John in Riverside, Gene Winfield, Mercury Sam in Paramount , Bill Hines and a young grunt Brad Masterson, Mercury John in Norco, Rick dore and most importantly West Coast Kustoms that would do a show in Los Banos and Bill Papke in Huntington Beach that kept every one stocked with mercury and shoebox parts ,and kustom goodies he would bring from back east, the custom scene would have died out
In San Diego , the guys still building customs was John Guilmet sr. and Red, and in bakersfield , it was Squeek Bell and Auzi Pete.
Most streetrod magazines would hardly cover customs anymore and you had to track down a copy of a little mag called Rolls and Pleats to see any new customs being built. For tecnical advise , you went and hung out with the old timers and became their grunts and the books of choice were all the Tex Smith books that would show you how to chop a car and for inspiration, you hunted down all the old little books you could find at the swappmeets.

 

Frame swaps

If you want to blame anyone for frame swaps , it would be Dick Dean,
In the eighties, guys were grafting on Camaro and Volarie subframes
in an effort to improve front suspension , steering and end up with disc brakes on customs, ugg! . Then Dick Dean had a new idea, 1983 to 1987 Olds 98 frames had the same wheel base as a Merc, and in the early nighties , you could buy the whole car from 500 to a 1000 dollars.
Dick Dean would use the floorpan and the lower firewall from the Olds and cut out the Merc floor and chanel the whole Merc over the Olds chasis. He did this for two reasons, the first is that by the early nighties, they were very few Merc two door project cars around and most of them had rusted out floors, the second was that he could have a running driving Merc in less than a week. I am not personally a fan of this and by the late nighties, Fatman fabrications came to the rescue and started offering bolt on kits for merc frames and Gene Winfield started making mercury floor pans so guys could repair their Mercs.
Doing frame swaps on hot rods was a big no-no but Dick Dean did build two 32 full fendered five windows on a datsun chasis. they were channel and chopped but the idea never took off. My friend Buck owns one of these cars, Dean tried to team up with Datsun and mass produce these cars , kind of like the prowler , they were called The Dot Rod and did make the cover of several magazines. Again , I am really not fond of frame swaps but the car had some really cool art work and being full fendered , it did not look that bad.

In the case of Brent's Buick, I differ my opinion, here is were Anthony worked his magic, the 1985 Olds 98 chasis is very similar to the original 1953 Buick frame except for the length, so Anthony added a section in the middle, and did'nt have to touch the stock Buick floor or firewall.
Very little mods were needed to convert the chasis to air bags and the 98 drive train is very close to a Chevy 350 and the tranny is a turbo 350. The rear end is perfect for the car and you just replace the coils with the air bags and no mods are required on the front or rear suspension or the kick up on the frame to run an air bag suspension.
The stock Buick chasis on the 1949 to 53 Buick is big , heavy, and poorly engineered. This was due to Buick's stuborness to keep usesing their straight 8 engine.This motor had the same design since 1930, and was huge, heavy and had no horse power, the same goes for the rear end , it was still an enclosed drive shaft, the front and rear suspension was a carry over from the early forties and the brakes were bad for such a heavy car, the same goes for the steering box and the slushamatic trannys,they were a nightmare from their conception.
The 1983 to 1987 Olds 98 chasis is strong, lightweight, simple in design and had one of the best drive trains G.M. ever produced.
Years back, I owned a 1950 Buick Riviera, I loved the body style but the car drove like a 2 ton truck, the stock drive train is extremely expensive to restore and parts are hard to find, I sold the car a month later in disapointment
1953 was the first year for the beloved nail head, the 322 is great for a hot rod but is still too low on horse power to move the Buick.
For me , nailheads are the prettiest engine ever made , but they tend to run hot and they don't like high r.p.ms. but for a hot rod , I think they work great and look cool .

 

cant wait to see it back on the road.

 

Due to the complexity of the chop, most custom Buicks built in the fifties and sixties were not chopped and for the most part were mild customs.
The big problem is the rear wrap around glass, it's tempered glass and can't be chopped . The few that were used a different rear glass or sunk the glass into the package tray which always gave it a funky unfinished look. The last option is the most difficult, sliding the roof forward and changing the angle of the rear window surround. Anthony was never afraid to try difficult tasks and loved the challenge, so he picked the hardest option.

 

I feel Anthony got the inicial chop just right, more is not always better.
The mild chop works well because buicks are a long car and if you chop them too much, they end up looking funky and out of proportion .
The packard tail lights work well too, the stock tail lights are not very attractive on a custom.

 

Thanks for the info Magoozi. I love '53 Buicks as I own one now that we have been in the middle of a chop for a few years. Ended up using a '50 Merc rear window. I see the stock decklid was replaced with an Olds(?) from the same year? Was this done to give it a less of a crown?


Fryguy

 

Of the 4 years, the 53 is the best looking one except for the deck lid, it's kind of boxy looking like a 55 Chevy deck lid and does'ent flow with the rest of the car, Brent picked up a 49 buick deck lid, later on , we changed the 4 corners of trunk gutters and made it fit and is a huge improvement to the look of the car

 

And that's how the Buick looked when it got to Magoozis shop

 

Those Buicks are to G.M. are like Mercs are to Ford. They have alot of natural beauty which can be further massaged and exploited. Greasemachines pics are great!

 

A few months before Anthony passed away, Brent had asked me if I would be interested in finishing the car , Anthony was burn out on the project, and Brent had decided he wanted to go all the way with the car.
So Brent and Rocabilly Jesus delivered the car to my shop, Brent wanted the car black which meant we had our work cut out for us. The car had a lot of potential and a cool look and left me pretty excited of what could be done with it.

 

Excellent, thanks for clearing that up. There is also thoughts that a Olds decklid from the same body size, an 88 series for the smaller Special series for Buick works as well. The olds has less of a crown and smooths out the rear just like you did using the 49 Buick decklid. I think 52 and 53 Olds 88's will work for this?

 

Ya it should, we redid the 4 corners of the trunk gutters and the crown of the sail panel so it would fit properly

 

Thanks for the trip back in time. It was like waiting for X-mas until the next rolls´n´pleats came out...

 

We tore down the whole car and did a frame off , I've been waiting on my friends to post some pictures. The car is almost done and is gloss black, should have it ready for Santa Maria

 

Looking forward to seeing more progress pics

 

here is some updated pictures

 

We will try to recover some of the older pictures and post them

 

Here is some updated pictures.

 

The car is a super riviera and the olds chasis is a 98, I think the Buick special is more narrow so you would use a olds 88 chasis, these frames have coil suspesions front and rear so air bags drop right in , these frames are very simple and pretty much any engine or trans can be installed. we did have to lengthen the front cowl legs on the firewall and make some support brackets for the rear of the body, I'll try to post some pictures of the chasis underneath, i hope I answered your questions.

 

Wow, you never usually see custom '53 Buicks done in Black. Bold choice, I really dig it

 

Super Rivieras are big cars and I liked Brent's choice of going black, a dark color always makes these cars look a tad smaller and more sporty.

 

The car is almost done, I'll be posting some new pictures

 

nice, i had seen that car sitting, being pushed around Anthonys shop- looks great

 

Getting close

 

It's been 4 years since our friend Anthony past away. I thought it would be nice to repost this.