We had been looking for a car for a while and when we saw the Pontiac and we decided to stop and take a closer look at it. From the street, the body looked pretty good and all the chrome and stainless was intact but somewhat dull-especially the rear bumper. We talked to the owner of the classic car lot and he gave us some background on the car: Someone had put a 1957 motor and transmission in the car, there were '57 "Superchief" script on each front fender over the wheel opening, there was chrome ribs on the tops of the front fenders, the fenders and doors had the 3 Starchief stars on each side and there were 3 '58 Bonneville "bars" attached to each front fender behind the front wheel opening. We didn't think much of the color combination, but did feel that the car had lots of potential. We didn't do much with the car for the first couple of years we owned it because we were busy doing other things. But in January of 2000 we decided to make the car into something that we could take to cruise nights, car shows and other automotive related events. We wanted the car to be a reliable "driver" with all the creature comforts we had become accustomed to in our newer cars. You know, things like power disk brakes, tilt wheel, power steering, cruise control and A/C. What we decided to do was to replace the front suspension with a Fatman Fabrication Mustang II setup with power rack and pinion steering, tubular A-arms and 11 inch disk brakes. We bought the subframe that Fatman makes for the '55 Pontiac and the whole assembly was welded into place exactly where the instructions from Fatman indicated. All of the front sheet metal and bumpers bolted right back in place without any modification. Next was the engine. We had found a donor car-at 1966 Pontiac Executive with a recently overhauled 389 and used it as the engine of choice for our '55. We didn't want to rebuild the smaller '57 motor and the '65 and later motors have many more aftermarket products available than the '64 and earlier engines. We wanted the engine to look as good as we knew it was going to run so we added a Edelbrock performer intake manifold with an Edelbrock carburetor. While the engine was out of the donor car and before it was installed in the '55, we added an Edelbrock 2157cam, new lifters and push rods, new water pump, new starter and a new double roller timing chain and gears. Additionally, we removed 10 ccs from each of the combustion chambers to reduce the compression ratio so we could run on pump gas. Chrome Edelbrock valve covers and an Accel HEI distributor rounded out the additions to the engine. The engine installation provided some interesting challenges, as there were no engine mounts on the frame for the later engine. Engine mounts were fabricated (the left side proved somewhat of a challenge as the steering shaft was routed right through the engine mount). After talking with several of our street rod and custom car friends we chose to use a Turbo 350 transmission rather than the Turbo 400 that was in our donor car. We traded the 400 for a rebuilt Turbo 350 from a transmission shop in Chico, CA. A new rear transmission mount had to be made to match up with the 350, but once in place, there was lots of room. When we had the Turbo 350 prepared, we had asked that a shift kit be installed to make the shifts crisp without being kick-in-the-seat-of-the-pants hard and the shop came through with flying colors. The stock steering column was removed and replaced with a tilt-column shift Ididit column pre-wired for the Rostra cruise control that we ordered with the column. We used a Kugel Components adjustable shift arm to connect the shift control arm on the end of the steering column to the transmission. The Ididit column was almost the same diameter as the stock column making the installation of the column virtually a bolt in situation. We chose a black leather wrapped Lecarra steering wheel and adapter to top off the column. The wheel compliments the black and chrome gauges and trim on the dash. All of the original gauges were retained. The speedometer was removed and serviced. We retained the stock heater and defroster. The under seat heater works well and we saw no reason to eliminate it. When the A/C is installed it will be a "cool only" unit making the installation and controls simpler. We replaced the Bendix Treadle-Vac power brake unit for a Delco-Moraine unit that fits in the same location. We had the unit rebuilt and it works well. We replaced the stock rear-end with newer GM 10 bolt unit from a Nova. It had the same lug bolt pattern as the front rotors so we don't have a mis-matched lug pattern eliminating the need to either carry two spares or to keep our road service paid up. The rear-end ratio is a highway cruising 2:73 to 1 and we still have enough torque to "light up" the 245-60's! The rear springs were re-arched and an additional leaf was added to prevent the notorious 50's rear-end sag. In preparation for paint, we removed the body from the frame and had it sand blasted to remove all of the old paint. We had the frame and bumper mounts sandblasted as well. The frame was repainted along with the underside of the body. The body was replaced on the frame with new mounting bolts and rubber insulators. We wanted to run American Racing Equipment 200-S mag wheels on the car with 15x7's in front and 15x8's in the rear. To gain the necessary clearance for the rear wheels, we "belled" out the rear wheel wells to gain some additional room. Looking along the side of the car you can see that each quarter panel has a gentle curve to it, but it doesn't look unnatural. From the side, the car looks stock. All of the chrome was replated and all of the stainless trim was polished. All new weather stripping was installed. Fortunately, Performance Years Pontiac Parts had the soft parts along with the fasteners and minutia required to bring all of the door glass channels, felt, etc. back to new. Additionally, we installed new side mirrors, glove box liner, kick panels, rear window shelf panel, firewall insulation pad and door threshold moldings from Performance Years also. Selecting the paint color and the upholstery was a gut-wrenching process. We finally chose Dark Metallic Violet for the hood, front fenders and lower part of the body and Light Metallic Violet for the roof, upper half of the body and the trunk. The combination is striking and we get lots of compliments on the color combination wherever we go. Because of the exterior color scheme, the interior was a challenge. It took almost a month of discussion that included our son and daughter to help us choose fabric, pattern and style. We ended up with two different types of gray velour cloth with magenta piping. The door panels were units with integrated armrests from Rod Doors of Chico, CA. As you can see from the pictures, the car looks good. It is slightly modified from stock from an appearance standpoint, but it would take a dyed-in-the-wool Pontiac fanatic to see what the differences were. It has taken more than 1-1/2 years and more money than we had originally planned on spending, but we are definitely satisfied with the car's performance and its looks!

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