To master the Bonnewood project, Lou from Old Stillwater Garage added a roof vent and Bonne trim to Bob's Star Chief Safari wagon. |
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Inside, a '64 Grand Prix dash fits per-fectly around an ididit tilt telescoping column. Originally a three-speed column shift, Old Stillwater Garage swapped in a Turbo 350 with a Lokar shifter set into a custom console that also houses the stereo controls. |
Gauges by Hanline keep the driver in touch with the happenings going on inside the engine bay. On the dash are power window switches. (The cranks on the doors are still used for vent windows.) |
Under the hood, a '72 400 block, bored 0.030 over, sits between the framerails in the smoothed and body color-keyed engine bay. Edelbrock heads, intake, and carb add glitz to the top end, and a March serpentine pulley system does the same for the front of the engine. |
Bob Garacochea believes in the adage, "Good things come to those who wait." As the proprietor of the successful Bay Cities Italian Deli & Bakery in Santa Monica, California, and an authority in artesian bakery techniques, the owner of this "should have been" Pontiac has patience that may be unmatched. After all, patience is a learned virtue, and Bob has had plenty of time for lessons; if not from the 30 hours per session it takes for his bakery's bread to be finished, then perhaps from the amount of time it took him to get the Pontiac he always wanted.
He grew up during the California surfer craze of the '60s, the experience teaching him to love wagons-especially Woodies. "Everyone had them," he says. "It's just what we all used at the time." Living near, and on Venice Beach and viewing the parade of Woodies stuffed with suntanned beach-goers and surfboards each day influenced Bob to buy a '54 Ford station wagon at an early age. "I was 15 at the time, and too young to drive. So it sat in a vacant lot next to my home."
In 1967, Bob joined the service to fight for his country. While getting ready to leave for Vietnam, he happened to spot a '57 two-door Safari sitting in a lot. All through his tour of duty that '57 stayed in his mind, the soldier having decided that was the car for him. When Bob returned home, he found times tight and cash hard to come by. Forced to curb his enthusiasm, he had to wait until 1980 before his next chance at '50s Pontiac wagon ownership.
With a new decade started, things were changing. One day, Bob happened to be driving around town, taking the long way home, when his eye caught an unmistakable sight. Passing a fence, he saw just the hint of the beaded roof of a Safari. He remembers the moment clearly, "I pulled my truck up to the fence and used the cab to look over it. And there it was!" Not only was it a Safari, but it was the exact same one he had seen years earlier. "The owners of the lot didn't even know it was there," he says. "To get at it, we had to cut three or four tree limbs out of the way." With his car found, Bob tracked down the owner and explained his circumstances. A short story later, the car was his.
Joining the Pontiac Oakland Club International (POCI), was the next step, and it was through the club that he met Lou Callisabetta of Old Stillwater Garage in Stillwater, New Jersey. "I was contacting members while looking for parts for my '57," Bob says. "Lou had a nearly identical car on the East Coast, so I talked to him about it." Not only was Lou helpful in Bob's search, but he also didn't mind that the West Coast owner was building a replica of his own car on the opposite side of the United States. "We started talking and struck up what became a long-term friendship," Bob says.
Several years later, when Bob had a business under his belt and some pennies saved, he decided it was time for a wagon he's yearned for since his childhood. Problem being, Pontiac didn't build a Woodie wagon in the late '50s. "It's not like I could go out and buy one," he says. With that in mind, Bob decided what couldn't be had by normal means, he would build. His appetite previously whetted by his experience with the '57 wagon, the determined baker knew the perfect starting point for his dream machine. But this time it would be a '58 model, built to look like a Woodie and featuring upscale Bonneville trim to further differentiate it from the pack, since Pontiac didn't offer a Bonneville wagon in 1958.