I didn't find much other than garbage in the car, but I did find a few receipts from Simpson Sears auto back to '62. Pair of rear tires installed for $22.

The underside looks decent, surface rust, but solid including the outboard body mounts. I'll get it up on stands in the next weeks and snap a few more pics. Overall I'm pleased the rust is as minimal as I thought it was. It was a bit of a crap shoot seeing as when I first looked at it there was 2 feet of snow and the temp was -26.

Nice find!!

 

Fitz.

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.

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

57 Pathfinder wrote:

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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.

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 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. 

Great score you have there! I'm really looking forward to more photos of your build. I agree a 283 would be great in there. Gotta keep the 283 looking period correct (at least on the outside)

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. 

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.

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

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.