I bought this 57 in January and the seller was kind enough to store it for me til today. 

The car was in an accident in Jan 1967, and had been parked in a garage for 47 years until the owner passed away. At that time his family paid to have the property cleaned up so it could be sold. The front end took a good hit, frame looks mostly OK except for in front of the suspension where the bumper bolts up is a little munged up. I'll have a better idea when I get the sheet metal removed.

Anyways, I hope you guys like pics. 

The ugly part of the car...

261, 3 on the tree. 

Cowl tags...not many options on this one.

First order of business was to clean the junk and debris out of it and see exactly what I had to work with.

Trunk looks remarkably good!

Front seat looks decent, probably clean up a bit better yet but no rips.

Rear floor area, also very solid. The is a bit of rust at the front of the rear wheelwell area...but nothing horrible.

Seeing as the car was only on the road for 10 years I believe this is the correct mileage.

Radio delete...

So, after having a much better look at the car I noticed a few small things. The generator has been robbed, as has the starter. The generator I don't care about as I recently bought a beautifully restored generator from Long Stroke a while back. In the accident the rad support pushed back hard enough to hit the air cleaner...which then broke the base of the carb. There are a few plug wires missing. I won't be able to check if the motor is seized or not til I remove some of the front end.

With this car I also picked up a 57 4 door Laurentian as a parts car. It has the 283 power pack and a 'glide...but more importantly it has all the front end sheet metal I need. That'll show up in another month or so. Gotta get my Blazer running first so I have room in the garage for it.

Nice find!!

Fitz.

Quite the time capsule!

Noted the bent steering wheel, likely from the driver hanging on during the crash (no seatbelts!).

What are your plans?  Restoration?  Hot rod?

Whatever it is, you have a nice solid car to start with.

Rene, it is nice to see you got her home and you are about to get at it. Rene, we here at C.P do not like photos................ we LOVE photos and please keep us all posted on your progress with your 57. Originally that is a really interesting colour and i would keep it that way. Your 57 looks amazingly solid and your restoration of the car will not be painful from where i am sitting. As much as i love that original 261 six i would still be thrilled to have an original 283 V-8 in that engine bay and it would be tempting to put the Power Glide in there with it. If you have both the 283/ P.G. and in complete working order then why not put it in. Rene, she looks real sweet and i for one will be looking forward to all updates on the build. Please feel free to contact me in regards to any help you may need with your 57 and i am glad to be a very small part of the resto, by supplying you with the generator. Good luck and cheers mate. George.

57 Pathfinder wrote:

---

I'll have to evaluate the 261 and the 283 further, but for the moment I am leaning towards.the 283 and a T5 with the rest of the car appearing dead stock. The steering wheel isn't bent, the horn ring is loose. I'm leaning towards Nassau green for paint. I just don't care for the limefire too much.

---

I was 'holding back" on suggesting a 5 spd.  BUT YA!!!!  T-5 should work well with 283 I went the Tremec route but putting 'way" more ponies thru it!!! 

57 Pathfinder wrote:

---

I'll have to evaluate the 261 and the 283 further, but for the moment I am leaning towards.the 283 and a T5 with the rest of the car appearing dead stock. The steering wheel isn't bent, the horn ring is loose. I'm leaning towards Nassau green for paint. I just don't care for the limefire too much.

---

 Sounds like you have some pretty cool ideas for the build.  Thanks for posting about it!

I can see the horn ring being loose, now that I look more closely at the pics.  Guess I've seen too many old wrecks over the years where the steering wheel took the brunt of the impact for the driver. 

davelacourse wrote:

---

Those rear bumper caps look excellent, and are otherwise unobtainable, per other 57 guys, so you should be really happy about that.

Side trim looks really nice too (you can find any stars you need pretty easily).

And ... gotta love a 55-57 2-door post car.

Looks like a good base for your project!

Dave

---

x2

Solid car! Nice plans!

End caps in great shape are worth a grand+ for the pair.

This is the parts car I'm getting in a month or two...has one good bumper cap, which means it already paid for itself. 

Sadly the seller removed and kept the mint Laurentian emblems. 

The frame on mine is bent ahead of the suspension. I'm hoping it's not tweaked farther back. If it is, the frame on the Laurentian is good. The body is coming off the frame anyways, so if swapping frames is the best way it won't be that big a deal. I spent about an hour with a buddy trying to remove the mangled bumper. Surprisingly most of the bolts spun out without breaking. It's a little hard to see what is still holding it to the car. I'll spend a bit more time on it tomorrow. I'd like the get the mess off the front of the car so I can better see the frame and check if the motor turns over or not.

Thanks for all the kind words, and encouragement!

I wish I could claim some special skill at digging these things up...but alas I am mortal and my spare time is really spare. I purchased both of these from perrysprojectcars.com 

Ivan Perry has been great to deal with. Aside from these two he has another three or four 57 Pontiacs there in various stages of dis-repair. 

Hi Rene,

Good to see you got her home. Keep the updates coming. Hopefully see you at the next CP coffee get together.

Cheers,

Tom

brad2v wrote:

---

Wow, that is a super-solid looking car. I like the 283/5 speed plan. Can I plead a favor? Could you shoot a pic of the gas filler neck? My 4 door was a jigsaw puzzle when I started on it, and I've got the filler in, but it doesn't look
right to me. I would be greatly appreciated.

---

 Brad, this is what the gas filler neck area looks like for the 1957 Pontiac. Taken from my own 57. If you need a different angle, let me know. Cheers. George.

Snapped a few pics, not an easy area to get great pics of... Hope that helps

Snapped a couple of other fun pics. The car has three brand new appearing radials, which would be unremarkable but these look like they were brand new in the late 60's.

I think this is a date code? No idea how to decipher it...

Seeing as the rims are blue, I think these came from another car. Still kinda cool I think.

so, I did get to spend a little time in the garage tonight. I used almost every tool I own to get the mangled bumper off. Near the driver's frame horn the lower bumper wrapped itself over the splash shield pinching it very effectively. It did finally come loose, and even though frustrating I'll take collision damage over rust any day. My neighbor across the street just started working on a 57 Chev 150 2 door, and it has a fair amount of rust. He is on his 5th night attempting to remove the front bumper...

So, my wife comes out and sees the rear seat back leaning against the toolbox. She is poking around and pulls this little bag out of it. 

I asked her what it was, so she shows me and tells me there is something inside it.

Looks like someone was hoping to get lucky back in the day and struck out.   Not the craziest thing I've found in a car, but it's #2 or #3.

57 Pathfinder wrote:

---

So, my wife comes out and sees the rear seat back leaning against the toolbox. She is poking around and pulls this little bag out of it. 

 

I asked her what it was, so she shows me and tells me there is something inside it.

 

Looks like someone was hoping to get lucky back in the day and struck out.   Not the craziest thing I've found in a car, but it's #2 or #3.

---

  I found a tin of old lamb skin condoms up in the cellar rafters of our house. They were hard as a rock. My wife's great uncle must have been a randy guy!