Howdy! First time post, and hopefully a good one.

I've been trying to find some information on this thing for far to long now, so hopefully somebody can shed some light.



It appears to be a conversion of some sorts. My dad bought it about 28 years ago, and was told at the time that they were done at the factory, only for Canada, and only about 250 were made, only for 1955. Doors appear to be from a 4 door, wheelbase is roughly 139". It has a removable top, which uses the wagon rear door, and swings up, but you can remove the top, and door, and a tailgate slides into place.

Anybody?

Welcome and if you odd some tag pic's some of the experts on here can help you.

Welcome to the site!!!    

the car/truck looks like a sedan delivery, that has had its roof "cut"off.......

Hope it was not one of these......

More pics of the rear end to see the attaching points would be great.

 Here in Sask many a fine car was chopped to make a truck to burn "purple" gas because they could buy it at farm prices. A truck could be plated "farm use" but a car couldn't which meant either two fuel tanks or "Look Ma! Our new truck!" My Great grandfather, who is still alive, would pull the decklid off to make a farm truck as soon as he bought a new family car long after the purple oil wells dried up.

It doesn't appear to be a sedan delivery. The top that is removeable has windows in it, not unlike a regular station wagon. The doors are of a 4 door, they are the shorter length, and where the rear doors used to be, the door frames were cut out, and paneled over.

When my dad first bought it, all the windows were smashed. He went to a wrecking yard looking for new glass, and found another one of these. It was the exact same model. My brother remembers seeing a Pontiac ad in a magazine from 1955 where this car was advertized, along 3 other "new" models for '55. So it does appear to be a legit 'truck', although it is most definitely a conversion.

Here's the best pic I have from the rear.

More pics.

Engine bay


Rear of cab


Rear top latch, and box side rail


This is what is on the door, I have no idea what it says. Any guesses?


Side view


VIN tag, this should be interesting


This is the panel on the inside of the box


Door length measure roughly 46" just below the handle. I dont have any other door measurements to compare this to.

Hope some of this helps.

for 55 model 22-71 comes up as sedan-delivery

Ok, that makes sense. I looked at the top piece today, (sorry, no pic, it's a little to rough) but it looked like the holes for the windows were cut. So it may very well have been a sedan delivery. Good to know. Now if I could just find some info on the conversion.

Cool, thanks man. I didn't know they made a Pathfinder Delivery.

-- Edited by Pontiac_Truck on Sunday 31st of October 2010 01:12:09 PM

As noted, Model 71 = Sedan Delivery. Looks like someone cut the body in half then added sheet metal to extend the bed. Fabricated rear window too. Check the wheelbase, factory was 115" and I bet someone welded in additional metal to extend the frame beyond that. Dave

My dad used to do that to cars all the time. We had lots of old cars transformed with a torch and a welder into "farm trucks" It woulod be so cool to go back in time to get them before that happened and store them away till now -

Have a few pictures of some of the teardown. I have my work cut out for me.








Heres the frame I'll be using. Its from an '80 Suburban, and I had to cut all the rivets off and relocate the spring mounts.





-- Edited by Pontiac_Truck on Monday 15th of November 2010 07:46:53 PM

Are ya going lifted and 4x4?

Yes and sort of no. Yes to 4x4, sort of no to being lifted. As I'm well aware of this things sorry state, actualy making it road worthy is a lofty goal. So we're going to make it as solid as possible, mount it on the 4x4 chassis, and use it in competition 4x4 truck pulls. For what we need to do with it, the bottom of the rear bumper needs to be roughly 26" off the ground, although it may be a little higher, havent made the decision yet. Have no idea how high the front will be, but lower than the back. The tires will stick out slightly past the fenders, nothing I can do about that, so as long as it's high enough to clear a 31" tire, however high that is. A larger tire will be used later, so I may need to plan ahead for that.

Also found out a little more info on what this is, and what it was used for. This, and many more like this were comissioned by Pontiac to be built for funeral homes. Pontiac themselves didn't do the work, but they hired another company to do the job. Its purpose was for carrying supplies, such as flowers and what-not, from site to site quickly. At the time there was a need for something low enough to get stuff in and out of, like a car, but be able to lift stuff out the top like a truck. Plus it has a huge cargo area, much larger than pickup trucks of the time, and much lower, making it more convienient. Doing some searching on the ol' internet turned up several 1955 Cadillac flower cars, as well as some Packards from the 30's. Seeing as how this one was built out of a Canadian only model, one would assume they were only ever in Canada. I have no idea what company did the conversion, or whether or not they are still around. Mine was used by a funeral home in Uxbridge, then when it was retired, it was sold to a farmer who used it around the farm to move hay around. I guess he liked it because it was lower than his pickup, making it easier to toss hay in. He reluctantly sold it to my dad, only because some kids had smashed the windows out of it. My dad went to a wrecking yard shortly after to try and find some glass, where low and behold they happened to have another one of these, whick he robbed for its glass. Should be a neat project, but it will be far from showroom perfect. Will update as I go.

if i was to do my truck over again i would have gone 4x4 and lifted, but since i already have a jeep that is lifted. i could always sell the jeep and lift the 55. just dreaming not gonna happen. keep us posted on the progress, i like this stuff.

This vehicle looks to me like it was a four door station wagon, that was obviously converted to a pick up. Of course it was never offered or made by GM. Neat looking Pontiac and i am sure it will be a sweet ride when you are done. Good luck with it mate. Cheers. George.

Got some work done on the truck. Did some reinforcing to the back of cab, and the floor. The main issue was that all that is holding the front end to the back was the rockers, and theres not much left of them. If we tried lifting it off the way things were, it might break in half. As it sits, the only mounting points are the oes out front, and the ones way at the back, so we're being very gentle with it. The inside filler panel wasnt attatched to anything at the front, originaly there was a wood frame that it was nailed to, but its long since gone. Not wanting to weld to anything, we added a 4" wide peice of 1/8" flat bar, and pop riveted it into place. After the crossers were welded in, the cab became noticably stronger. We added the bars at the floor too, welding them into the front mount, to spand the doorway, giving even more strength. There will still be more, but we ran out of steel.

That's all for now.

As a finishing touch, put some (fake) flower arrangements in the back and when you get weird questions at your truck pulls, you can say with an absolute straight face "it was built in 1955 as a flower car, eh" Maybe paint the name of the Uxbridge funeral home on it somewhere Dave

Grim Reaper.   I like that.  Whats your colour choice ?  Funeral black.

Will likely be flat black, will the crome polished up. If the body turns out to not be in too bad of shape once the body work is done, it may go gloss, with ghost flames. Flat black hides alot.

-- Edited by Pontiac_Truck on Friday 19th of November 2010 02:30:36 PM

A little more work done, have all the bracing done so I can lift off the body.

Keep going! I notice that long driveshaft has a support bearing, might be an alignment issue lurking there? Dave