1957 Pontiac Chieftain - Longroof With A Long History

After letting the wagon sit for a year or so, Mitchel bit the bullet and had the engine rebuilt, the interior upholstered in black vinyl, and he swapped a highway-friendly 3.23 rear for the 4.56. He also replaced the missing trim items and switched the '56 front bumper for a correct '57 unit. It was driven occasionally over the next 20 years in this condition. He had a lot of fun with it and was very proud of his rare Pontiac.

Unfortunately, fate stepped in. Mitchel was diagnosed with a brain tumor in 2001 and passed away two years later at the age of 43. Brian inherited the Chieftain; in tribute to his brother, he set out to restore it to what he believed his brother would have wanted. Of course, it wasn't a simple task.

The Resurrection
"In 2003, I drove the car to a restoration shop where they disassembled it without taking any photos or labeling any of the parts," Brian recalled. "After that, a year passed without them working on it even though I was constantly assured that they would resume 'next week.' I realized that if the car remained there, it would never be finished. To make matters worse, the previous shop had 'misplaced' a few pieces, for which I had to track down replacements."

In 2005, he hauled the car, literally as a truckload of unlabelled parts, to Trick Works in Telford, Pennsylvania. It was a long process, but in the end, he was very pleased with the results.

The Outside
Continuing on a project that someone else began and botched is never a great way to start, but the Trick Works staff stepped up to the job and got busy. After removing the body from the frame, the main body shell was mounted on a dolly and mediablasted inside and out. The bolted sheetmetal was removed and chemically dipped to strip all the paint, body filler, and undercoating.

As one might expect from a 53-year-old Northeast car, rust was found, and as a result some sheetmetal needed replacing. Fortunately, the basic body shell was shared with Chevrolet, making replacement sheetmetal more easily obtainable. A set of reproduction '55 Chevy floorpans were welded in to replace the rusty originals. The inner door shell was also replaced on the driver side. The rest of the sheetmetal was cherried out with some small patches welded in various places, dings removed, and the panels straightened. A set of NOS front fenders replaced the rusty ones.

After all the welding and sanding was finished, two coats of PPG DP 90 LF were laid over the bare metal, then body filler was applied over the DP. Next, three coats of PPG poleyster primer were applied, then block-sanded with 100-, 180-, and 320-grit paper. After that, three coats of PPG K36 primer were sprayed on and block-sanded with 600-grit paper.

After the primer was perfect, Trick Works sprayed on 2003 Chrysler Deep Molten Red Pearl and Ice Silver Metalic in a PPG basecoat/clearcoat system. The car was painted totally apart so that there would be no tape lines. Four coats of the base colors and three coats of clear were used and color-sanded with 1,200-, 1,500-, and 2,000-grit 3M wet paper and polished with Perfect It compound, polish, and final glaze. All the polishing was done before the panels were bolted back on.

The engine compartment and other interior sheetmetal were painted in a semigloss black. At the same time, the bumpers and other brightwork were sent to Librandi's Metal Plating in Middletown, Pennsylvania, for rechroming and polishing.

The Inside
One area that didn't need a lot of attention was the interior. Mitchel had it reupholstered in black vinyl back in 1980, but Brian doesn't remember who did it. The seats and door panels were still in good condition, so they were retained for this buildup, though the carpet and headliner were replaced.

All the gauges where sent to Red Line Gaugeworks, in Santa Clarita, California, where they where rebuilt using modern mechanisms behind the factory faces. The sound system was also brought up to date with a Pioneer head unit in the glovebox, two 5.5-inch Pioneer speakers in the original speaker box mounted on the transmission tunnel, and two 6.5-inch Pioneer speakers mounted in the quarter-panel upholstery with custom speaker rings and factory speaker grille material. A Pioneer amp mounted under the front seat provides the power. The complete sound system was installed by Trick Works.