balthazar

Saw that new mercedes SUV get rear-ended at a merge... by a ferrari (don't ask me which one it was). '75 Gran Ville convertible, powder blue, perfect '54 Buick Century 4-dr sedan, charcoal, perfect Was at a private collection auction, saw some things I never have before, may never see again. '46 Cadillac flower car a '58 Lincoln turned into a T-bird-esque 3-seater.... but the car was still 18 feet long. You should've seen the 6 evenly-spaced headlights... '29 Cadillac Armored car plus a few hundred more impossible projects...

Yea- the po-po should know where the VINs are... some of the suggestions above sounds really unlikely to me...

Original rails were tossed. I still have the 'K' section that was also cut out; it's leaning against a tree next to my shop : My brother just took the body off the frame on his '71 GTO- the differences in the puny '71 C-channel frame, and the truck-sized B-59 frame is amazing, esp considering the cars are within 350 lbs of each other.

Curious: Do blacks in the U.K. refer to themselves as 'African-European'?

Now I was at the restoration zenith of the process: to pull the body or not. Well, you can't paint the top of the frame with the body there (nor that portion of the floorpan), so off it came. After unbolting everything, I used 3 guys to lift the front of the shell and my engine hoist to lift the back, setting the shell on two 4x4s on top of 35-gallon steel drums, which allowed me to roll the chassis out from underneath it. I left the doors on & latched, but with the extra rails inside the rockers, the shell didn't flex at all (the general consensus is you should weld angle-iron in an 'X' in the door openings when lifting it off the frame, especially on a hardtop). I sandblasted the frame all over (fully boxed from the engine crossmember to the rear bumper). I used a drop-in syphon blaster, worked very well, but my frame was naturally nothing like a new toyota frame even tho it's nearly 50 years old & lived it's life in PA (DIG!!), and there was almost no heavy scale and zero rot. Then I painted it with POR-15. Here it is (upsidedown) prior to painting, and after rewelding a few factory seams, and modifying a few items (there were no provisions left underneath for exhaust (car is going to have 3" duals), so I added in the 2 quarter-round notches in the middle area, using steel tubing from a big dump truck hydraulic lift cylinder. I built a body dolly out of 2x3" steel tubing, with 4 large pneumatic swivel tires. Now I could roll underneath and scrape & wirewheel the underside, seam-seal all the cracks, then brush-paint it in 2 coats of POR-15. One night I fell asleep for a while under the car at about 1AM- my creeper must be more comfortable than I thought. I breathed vast quanities of rust dust under there, but the body is a vault now. My buddy Joe is a great welder, but he was not a bodyman at that point (he since has done numerous cars for others & is pretty good). I discovered while longboarding that the fiberglas filler he put over the quarters was on smooth sheetmetal, a no-no for adhesion. It all had to come off. After digging around, I met up with a guy who did painting for a living in a body shop, and also did custom paintwork for cars in his own home down-draft paint booth. The cars I saw he did that looked brand new were 8 and 10-yr old jobs, and a number had been in magazines. I like what I saw, so I trucked the shell (plus fenders, doors & hood) to his house, where he & his father swore they'd never do such a large car again. They stripped all the fiberglas out, redid everything, sanded & sanded & sanded, then shot the car with epoxy-primer/sealer. It's in this stage now, all ready for paint. Here it is in the booth, still on it's dolly, ready for her first shot of primer. Look at the width of that firewall! :

>>"Duesenberg offered a DOHC 32V 8-cylinder in 1921"<< ...and it was still a feature of their engines thru '37.

Now that we can all see examples of the nature & extent of the damage, "doing the right thing" would be to immediately issue a nationwide recall, not slog thru a hush-hush snail-mail postcard campaign; there a real potential for dangerous accidents & fatalities here!

>>"Here's what I said: a significant flaw in design or manufacture in the use of steel in a vehicle will be seized upon and exascerbated by excessive amounts of road salt. I didn't say road salt is the root cause, or is the overriding factor. However, as bad a flaw as it is, I give Toyota kudos for taking the issue seriously."<< I know what you said, I read the original & the restatement of it on pg 1. Nor did I claim you said salt was the root cause. Once again, to even mention salt here as a contributor on a new vehicle is irrelevant since we agree: it's not even as much as an 'overrriding factor'. I just don't see the point of mentioning it at all WRT to the topic here... unless it's toyota that's the source.... chris :>>"I've seen Body on Frame cars split in half because of body rust here...including very sadly a red on red 66 GTO..."<< Was the Goat only 3 years old when you saw it split in half?

ahh- this is what you're after- very nice!! Go git 'er! I wonder why Pontiac didn't offer a 2-dr Tempest wagon?

Granted, but minor contributing factors such as road salt and the 'treatment' of the truck (& by extension it's frame) are distantly secondary to the main issue here. There are a thousand possible atmospheric factors that all road vehicles potentially and/or actually face in use......... but the VAST majority of them do not break in half doing so. Mentioning road salt comes off as defensive. I only wish when it happens to General Motors, the media/public at large treated the issue the same way you are, above. 'Inexcusable' would be a far more appropriate assessment.

waitaminnit... 'something on ebay'.... ':wink:'.... 'B-59 fans'.... You're scopin' that Invicta flattop, aren't you?!?!

Oh great! Thanks, now I have to come up with reasons NOT to get this....

Trunk is finished, metal-wise... tho the pan is square-edged, making laying a mat in there over the contours a bit difficult. I was thinking of spatter-painting it, but that's later, year-wise (for Buick at least). Factory had lots of 'beauty panels' to the sides & back that hid everything but the wheelwells, and my originals are toast and no one makes repros. Don't think they'd fit the new contours, anyway. Still contemplating the trunk cosmetics.

Technically, I quit smoking after 1.5 cigarettes. Tho all my friends smoked, I had the foresight to see that starting something that nearly everyone tries desperately to quit at some point... was pointless. My grandfather smoked when young, got a tough bout of bronchitsis around age 18 and threw them away, never smoked again. He'll be 93 this year.

Although it's executed better than any other wagon that uses this treatment, I pray Cadillac will not follow suit by running the taillights all the way up to the roof. Pointless & too 'me-too'.

Agree with Croc; a vehicle's frame is the strongest (after the engine block) component of a vehicle- no manner of abuse short of purposely grinding on a well-engineered frame is going to cause it rot thru/break in half within a reasonable span of years, and by that for a BOF vehicle, I am talking about 30 years minimum. And salt is not the cultprit either, or there would be widespread examples of this on a wide range of BOF vehicles in these regions. Jersey uses a lot of salt, too, and I have never seen/heard of that sort structural 'manfunction' before. The logical explaination is Toyota either skimped on the coating by design or manufacture, or the metallurgy is bad- other reasons may play a minor contriuting role, but there is a major flaw there to start with.

Front suspension is all rebuilt stock: SLA (lowers forged), screw-in bearings, coil-over shocks w/ new 1" shorter HD springs. The 'Al-Fin' 12" aluminum drums do not fade and will get Kevlar-impregnated shoes. Pop Mech tested a '60 Invicta when new and got it to average 138' in 60-0 braking. That's modern family sedan territory. Add in wide radials, better shoes and lighter weight, and I expect to knock an easy car-length off that (circa 120')- that's only 9 feet more than a Lambo Gallardo. Here's a shot of the above-mentioned rear suspension. Note that the factory fenderwell is still intact- it remains underneath somewhat like a motorcycle fender to keep the tire from tossing too much stuff around. Weight is... not inconsiderable. Shipping weight (no options, gas or water) for the Invicta coupe was 4274. Curb weight (full tank fuel, all fluids, all standard equipment) is officially 4394. My car with it's scant options (AM Radio, heater/defroster, power steering, dual exhaust) calculates out at at 4481 lbs. But it pays to do your research: the factory 455 alternator bracket (also mounts A/C compressor) was a heavy steel unit weighing 4 lbs by itself. I grabbed an interchangable non-A/C bracket from a junkyard '67 LeSabre 340 car; made of cast aluminum, it literally weighs nothing. Happily, every component swapped in has weighed less than the original; so far I'm down 374 lbs to 4102, with the weight differences in the rims and exhaust currently unknown. I would love to get to an even 4000 but don't know if it's in there, and I'm also going to have to add some weigh via various components. I tried adding something to make the car lighter -holes- but the practice is overrated; you can drill for a few hours and only lose a pound. If I can get the car down to 4000 lbs, divided by 575 HP equals 7.0 lbs/hp. As a reference, that's Shelby Cobra 427 territory. A car this angry should move like atomic hellfire.

>>"...perhaps the design team put those there because they considered it to be a subtle Cadillac trademark."<< Could be. Is it merely a testament to the greatness of GM then that these functionless vents were, in fact, functional when they need'nt have been? Being 'real' is what puzzles me and makes me wonder if there was some sort of actual purpose besides aesthetics. That, and it's a very strange detail to be considered a 'trademark'- I have no doubt that if Cadillac could've gone without the earlier A/C scoops, they would have. Not to dwell on the insignificant, but the details always pull me in & I still feel we're missing something here.....

Umm: what? 68- you should know with that angled A-Pillar it's not '59-60 !! That's a '58 Bonne interior (grab bar reveals the model, but I know the car anyway). The (can't recall the name of that) sliding sunshade (option, dammit!) was a 1-year only aftermarket item as far as I can tell, I've only ever seen it associated with '58 Pontiacs. It's extremely rare- I've never seen one in person. Another oddball item I've seen in 2 '59 Olds' were REAR sun visors. I have a pic somewhere of a 98 hardtop coupe with 'em (they're notched like the front for a mirror). They might've been a factory option, but more likely they were dealer-installed. That '59 Bonne custom is sweet, not too low for me, but I think it was a mistake to shave the Bonne stars off the quarters... and I HATE skirts where the fender has any flare- they come off as afterthoughts.

>>"The 71 HQ series Holdens were styled using the '70 and '71 GTO as the styling inspiration..."<< Yeah, I see it; 4 tires, 4 headlights, 2 doors! E'Wet looks like it drew a hellva lot more inspiration from a 4-yr old Ford Torino wagon in the rear & next year's Torino up front than a GTO; apparently the Pontiac stylist was only able to contribute the wheels & some interesting period graphics, and nothing else exterior-wise. James- do you believe this factoid is verified (Pontaic designer/s contributing to the '71 Holden HQ) ??

Interesting article on safety tech and it's ballooning costs & debatable results: Lookie >>"Ironically, by improving visibility these so-called smart beams could encourage people to drive faster — and more dangerously — at night."<< This is a general thought I've had, esp in context of reading a debate on a hot rodders forum about vintage vs. new car safety. More & more safety features enable increasing dependancy and less experience/ intuitive skills. Many on the hot rodders forum were of the opinion that cars were safer, but drivers were much less so (not to mention way more distracted). I can agree with that without hesitation. >>"Despite conferring a James Bond kind of cool, night vision hasn't caught on; Cadillac and Lexus discontinued their versions due to poor sales. Sure, the technology works as advertised, but it also presents a fundamental driving dilemma: whether to look at the screen or the road."<< Wasn't Cadillac's imagery projected onto the windshield vs. mercede's dash screen? If it's true these sorts of features are rising in demand, I wonder if Cadillac will re-introduce it soon?

I prefer the '68-70 lamps in the fender edges I think; it does look more 'finished'. Wonder if the blank was in anticipation of '68, or because stamping a fender that sharply & deeply creased would've been near impossible... so the lights moved on purpose to 'fill' than blank area... Interesting, because in the '67 print ads, the seam for the blank is airbrushed out.... Those rear qrtr vents are a puzzle to me- they aren't really even seen unless you are standing alongside the quarters... hardly noticable from the rear... they're not related to A/C, are they (did the white car have A/C?)? For many years, Cadillac had quarter intakes in this spot for A/C cars and the Series 75s... Look @ the ass of that white car- damn that's sexy!

Veezel- the tires are a neccessity for traction--> car is going to have a lot of power. Pic doesn't show it well, but they are treaded tires, not slicks (tho I have a pair of 29.5" M&Hs, too). -- -- -- -- -- '72 Buick 455 block has been boiled & completely deburred. Here it sits mocked-up with T/A Performance Stage II aluminum heads & single plane intake just sitting there. Heads flow 300+ cfm out of the box. Crank has also been deburred. Peeking out the front of the oil pan is the T/A block girdle, a heavy cast brace to keep the bottom end of the motor from doing the hoochiecoochie under WOT. I also have a new front timing cover, 1.65 shaft rockers, valve covers & oil pump, and I need to order the 3" primary headers soon, because that steering box (rebuilt with a faster ratio: 3.3 turns l-t-l) is jutting into the header's turf and I think I am going to have to fab at least 2 tubes on that side. Carb, pistons, rods, valves, springs, dist..... $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ still to come. And machine work. I don't like to think about the bill here. But on the happy side, in order to be able to turn right around 11.0s in the quarter, the car need to put out about 575 HP. Hence the tires. Girdle is prolly overkill for a car under 600 HP, but what the hell- I value over-engineering things. Trans is going to be a '70 code BC Buick THM400 (ONOZ! OMG!! Slushtboxzez suxzorz!!). Mid '69 and later units have 'case saver rings', an internal cast reinforcement. And in another example of me going overboard, I recently cut the factory bellhousing off to replace it with this, an SFI-approved UltraBell: More recently I have been pondering an auto OD unit. Gear Vendors has a 'splitter' OD unit that bolts on the back of the TH400... and although it's rated for like 1200 HP, it's also about $2K new. Instead I'm strongly considering a 4L80E, the 'overdrive Turbo 400'. These need some other bits to make it work (a 'brain box' and an analog speedometer drive thingie), but they are more like $3500. Then again- I'd still have to get the TH400 built. Mulling all this over, need to do a spreadsheet. 4L80E rear mount is 2.5-in farther rearward than the TH400, should be no big deal to fabricate a modified trans mount & keep the crossmember where it is. With the tires planned and 3.73 gears, the car would be turning about 2520 RPM @ 60 MPH. Frankly, after driving ODs for 20 years, when I shift out of OD in my 3.73 Silverado, I turn about the same RPM and it just feels & sounds... wrong. Still pondering cost vs. expected frequency of use...

So the '67s had separate 'fender blanks' where the '68's running lights are... as opposed to being solid there ??

I do have a '65 Bonneville 2-dr hardtop, but yer dad doesn't want what's left of it. I don't think the scrap guy even would. -- -- -- -- -- I had a friend who worked for a Pontiac/Olds engine builder do some work on it next. I did not trust my (lack of) bodywork experience at this point to experiment on my baby. I bought what may have been the last NORS B-59 quarter patch panels available; the lower half in 2 panels that split over each rear wheel. Aftermarket rockers are still readily available, tho in the repair, my buddy Joe put 2x3" steel tubing inside the rockers from cowl to rear wheelwell to help support them, making a secondary double frame rail. The body is incredibly stiff (even without a B-Pillar ). Here's a sectional view of the rocker/frame area- the green areas are what was added/replaced. Here's some cruddy surgery pics snipped from video: A local engine/chassis builder modified the rear of the frame to fit an axle & suspension befitting it's intended future use. B-59s use a unique 'K' frame, and the builder said he'd never worked on a car with such a beefy frame. So he cut the 'K' member out. The floor bracing noted above is C-channel welded to the body shell (like a unibody 'frame' so to speak). Standard practice. My buddy also built the rear for the car, using a truck Dana 60 with a 4-pinion posi, 31-spline Moser halfshafts & 3.73 Richmond gears. He built 36" fully-adjustable ladder bars and a new Panhard bar. The factory Buick wheelwells are very large, but the framerails protruded into the well, so in order to put a larger tire on, he ended up back-halving the car- everything from about 1.5' in front of the rear on back is all new... but was made to accomodate everything factory that was staying: gas tank, fuel filler & all body mount points (B-59s utilize 22 body mounts). Rear tires are 315/60-15 BFG Drag Radials on 10" rims. Car here looks like it's riding high because of the lighting & angle; but from the curb the car sits quite low: Suspension is adjustable at both the front of the ladder bars, & the axle, so once all the weight is on, it can be fine-tuned as needed. Solid motor mounts & a custom trans crossmember was also fabb'd. I forgot to mention I had the body media-blasted, too. After getting the car back from Joe, she looked like so :