VCCA Home Forums TECHNICAL - 1945 AND NEWER 1949-1954 1954 GETTING AN "OVERHAUL"

This post was written, in another forum, by a 26 year old guy who found a close to perfect, unrestored 1954 Chevy.

Read on .... you'll cry!


i just bought my first 54.. its in almost perfect shape for a 56 year old car..it runs and drives..all org motor trans and rear.. not a spec of rust or rot in the car .. a few dings in the bumpers and the paint its hurtin.. but the pait is also org. im want to do a bagged sled.. airbags all the way around and some shaved goodies.. my question is.. where do i start.. i would love to keep the stock motor an tranny for its all there and pretty cool looking.. i know if i go with a mustang 2 in the front ill loose the straight 6 and have to go to a v8.. how should i go about this? i want a stock outside (maybe a few inches off the top) but a car that can lay frame.. get me started guys

Take heart Bob. I'd be plenty willing to bet the guy is trying to pull everybody's chain. Just doesn't sound "real" to me....

At least "we" hope not....

Bill.

No, I think it's all too real. There are a whole bunch of street rodders that go to great expense to find cherry vehicles to hack up for a street rod. My brother was one of them and would find perfect cars (many of them over the years) then chop them up basically just using the body but with the top chopped, firewall replaced, doors shaved with bear claw electric latches and all the openings sealed up like the cowl vents.
Being a preservationist I would just cringe every time I would see another one being destroyed, but after all, he could afford it and he had to customize them to fit his taste.
I hear this said often and I hate to hear it, but every one of these old cars or trucks that they cut up makes our original stock vehicles more rare and worth that much more.
When I was a kid they were doing that to Model T's and A’s, 32 and 34 Fords now just try to find an all-original steel one today. It’s next to impossible unless you have extremely deep pockets and 9 out of 10 you see at the car shows are reproduction plastic cars with after market rolling chassis. I was at a show last fall and saw what most people there would concider the most beautiful ”˜33 three-window coupe on the field. The guy was boasting to me how it was a cherry all steel original car that had been in storage for 50 years when he found it. Said it only had 34K miles on it and it started right up after changing the oil and fresh fuel. All the further it drove was up onto the trailer before it went to the chop shop. Unfortunately it was to late to ever restore it because he had taken 6” out of the top, stuck a chrome plate in where the fire wall was and chopped the frame to pieces for the IFS, 9” Ford rear, shoehorned a 350 SBC and automatic in and cut out the dash.

Denny Graham
Sandwich, IL

Well, Bill ...I think this guy has the car he speaks of, think he is going to do some major mess up stuff to the car

sad story.

Well Denny and Bob....

You guys sure could be correct. For some reason the guy's writing just makes me think he's pulling our leg(s). One of his most telling comments about all this was when he asked "where do I start." Just sounds phoney, to me. But I sure could be all wet with my thinking about leg pulling.

As I've expressed elsewhere, I'm not totally opposed to modifying these old Chevs. But this guy is talking about going totally off the cliff. Chopped top and and bagged and so on is just beyond me. Not much chance of coming back after doing all he's talking about!!

Maybe he'll say more in that other forum. Who knows?

Incidentally, just curious - what is the other forum?? Maybe some of us could go "over there" and ask about his intentions; give him some ideas about not going "too far," and so on. Just a thought....

Bill.

Hi Bill,I think the guys are talking about Chevy-Talk,the 49-54 forum over there has an identical thread.
I think the guy is serious,but,I hope he has a lot of money to throw at the car,he's gonna need it.Sure hope he reconsiders......

I had a neighbor some years ago, a real nice guy. He worked in the office as an estimator for a large international construction company. On the way back from a business trip to Iowa one time he spotted an all-original cherry '39 Ford two dr. sedan that he though would make a real neat car for him and his wife. Next trip he hauled it home on one of the companies trailers. Even though he was in his 40's he had never had the hood open on a car and after knowing him for 12 years I never saw him get his hands dirty. The car sat along side his garage and never ran while he had it. After four or five years all he had managed to do was buy some fender welting and spark plug wires, mind you he didn't install them, they just lay on the front seat. The question was "Where do I start?"
So you see, there are a lot of guys out there that jump into one of these projects with big ideas with out a clue as to "Where to start?"
By the way, another friend of mine bought the '39 and finished it off in a year making a show winner out of it.
Denny Graham
Sandwich, IL

Something I find disconcerting is the number of people who purchase a good car, start an "eye in the sky" super modification project and quickly run out of interest or finances. It is amazing the number of these 1/2 finished cars that end up at swap meets. They are usually missing numerous parts, body cuts that would be nearly impossible to mend, rusty, and severely overpriced. So goes the hobby.

Another sad part of the rodding hobby is that they mostly all look alike. They chop the top, they get rid of the hood louvres, they lay the grille back, they all have a F**d 9 inch rear end, and a Mustang II front end, 90% have a SBC engine and auto trans. Billet this and billet that. When somebody thinks up something new (rare) everybody jumps on the band wagon and pretty soon they are all the same again. The high end rods only slightly resemble the car they started out as.
At least in the early days of rod building, every guy built his own car out of stuff he could find at the local scrap yard. They were different from each other and interesting to look at.
Now days they just order all the parts from a catalog and bolt it together. When it is finished, they jump in, start up, turn on the AC, adjust the power seat, tilt the wheel to a comfy spot, drop a CD in the player, head down the road with the cruise control set and enjoy the experience of driving an old car. Am I missing something here?
That's my rant and I'm sticking to it.

Mike

Hate to break it to you guys, but people don't just come over to VCCA to ask questions / make comments about slicing, dicing,etc their cars up. That goes on EVERYWHERE: little shops, big shops, backyards, etc. Have you guys watched You-tube lately? Watch them pull out a comatose Ol' Lady from Pasadena and chop, bag, and drag her car in a week. Just remember: there's a reason so much repop junk is out there. Part of it is for this reason! And remember this: if the next owner of YOUR vehicle does not do this same, the following one probably will, unless you have a barn for a 50-year storage.

The original post in question was NOT originally posted on VCCA .... I brought it to the VCCA members because I felt it was a sad story.

Bob
VCCA Member