1953 Canadian Pontiac
Bob's 53 Pontiac passenger side
Here's pictures of Bob Hierlmeier's 53 Pontiac 2 door sedan from August 2001 Foothills Street Rod Association' s Fun Run in Calgary Alberta Canada. Bob is from Edmonton, Alberta and with the Edmonton Street Rod Association. From what I understand during the short conversation with him, is that he runs a powder coating business. The car is done in a pro-street look. The two tone split is almost identical to what I had envisioned except I had the top a light white and the bottom a medium blue. Bob's ride is actually a dark purple not blue as the pix indicates. The orange stripe down the middle is actually sandwiched between purple and white pinstriping - very effective.
A week earlier, I was looking at the extra chrome I had and decided that I would use the chrome that circles the car just at the bottom of the windshield, side windows and rear windows. Guess who thought of it first! As Babe Ruth said "It's deja vue all over again!". Just look at the rake - exactly what I was planning!
Driver's side 3/4 view
The above pix gives a good view of the front end. He kept the original chrome on the hood and powder coated them with a rough aluminum look. He used pinstriping tape the same purple color as the body for the stripes in the hood strip. The front bumper and grill were painted to match the car. The headlight rings are from a 54 and painted to match the body color. Its hard to see but he still has the iron indian hood ornament and he has left the iron indian plastic logo original (red) on the grill. He went the powder coating way for two reasons: the chrome was in poor shape and he was in the powder coating business. It worked out great!
Rear 3/4 view
The rear end turned out nice and I like the way the two tone blends into the trunk lines. Notice he's shaved the bumpers and painted the taillights to match the body color.
This is a good picture of a Canadian Pontiac. If I remember right, this car was originally his father's car. It is also a very basic Pontiac as it has the Chev 150 style rear window not the wrap- around style. Other differences from my car are the lack of chrome on the windshield and rear window rubber. Interestingly, there was a stock 54 Pontiac 4 door a couple of cars away that had chrome with a small dip in it on the passenger's door. It was a Pontiac Laurentian but the radio tuner said Chieftan on it.
Bob's got a late 60s Nova front clip with Fatman's shortened Nova control arms, a Nova rear end and 225-60 15s all around. For get up and go, there's a an 80s small block Chev EFI 350 under the hood powering a T350 tranny (maybe a T400). For comfort, the interior has a split front bench and was upholstered by Bob himself in a grey tweed with purple and an orange stripe through it. It sounds like a strange color combination but it works very well. Bob spent many an hour coming up with these colors that match so well.
I wish I had taken a pix of the dash, because he's given the same powder coating to the dash chrome as to the outside chrome. He's shaved the door handles, put on mags and air suspension for the down low in the weeds look. So far he's put on roughly 15,000 miles since its hit the road.
Standard Disclaimer
This was written a week after talking to him and is from memory so some of the info may be just plain wrong...