Our October feature car belongs to a friend of our moderator Carl Stevenson named Luc. Luc has been a Beaumont fan since an early age and has owned this sharp 66 Beaumont Custom since 2015. In those 9 years Luc transformed this Beaumont from a barn find to a show stopper. Carl give us the details:
This is the story of Luc's beautiful 66 Beaumont Custom as told by Carl Stevenson (4SPEED427)
I've known Luc for close to 50 years. He and I have lived in the Morris area basically our entire lives. In that time he's had some very cool cars but this has to be one of the nicest ones. When he and I were probably in our late teens or early twenties he had a 67 Sport Deluxe hardtop 283 two barrel factory 4-speed, a very unusual car. I believe that was his first Beaumont but it started a love for Beaumonts for him. After that he owned a very nice 66 Custom two door hardtop which eventually ended up with his sister.
Fast forward to 2015. A friend of a friend discovered a true barn find! It was a 66 Custom two door hardtop that had been off the road for who knows how long. The car was originally a 283 powerglide and when it was discovered was sadly neglected.
Luc's friend managed to purchase the car and it didn't take long for Luc to realize that he wanted to own that car. A deal was made in the full of 2015 and the car changed hands.
There's not a lot of history about the car that is known other than it was sold new in an area approximately 90 miles southwest of Winnipeg and appears to have remained there until Luc ended up with it.
When Luc bought the car it still had original paint on it which was in poor condition. However what was there was an extremely solid original body with all of the original trim on it still. As you see the car today you are looking at all original exterior sheet metal. The only metal work required during the restoration was one trunk mount needed a repair which is very common on these cars.
The car was upgraded during the restoration in the areas of the chassis and powertrain. Most of the powertrain work was handled by Norm at Red River Rod and Custom in Morris. A small block remains under the hood but now it's a 350 with a 4l60 behind it. The 350 has a Sniper fuel injection on it. On the chassis side disc brakes were installed on the front as well as tubular control arms and heavy duty sway bars and suspension bushings.
The original bench seat interior was in tough condition and was upgraded to original buckets and console. A reproduction big block hood was added partly for looks but also because the original hood was in such poor condition it needed to be replaced.
The interior and exterior colors are very close to what the car was built with originally.
What Luc has ended up with is a stunning Beaumont that draws admirers wherever it goes.
I asked Luc if he had run into any snags during the restoration and he told me a very funny story I was not aware of. The 66 Beaumont Custom has that nice upper beltline trim that is anodized. When he got this car the trim was in nice shape but the anodizing was poor. He decided to strip the anodizing off and discovered that one of the best ways to do it is using oven cleaner. He decided a good way to strip the anodizing would be to put the mouldings into a PVC tube with the oven cleaner. He glued threaded ends on to the PVC pipe and screwed on caps. After a while he realized the pressure was building in the tube so rather than open it up in his workshop he rolled the tube outside on the ground. When he did that it blew the threaded end caps and glued threaded fittings right off the end of the tube! He said the moldings became projectiles but weren't damaged, thankfully! Lesson learned..
Luc's next project is something almost as unique or maybe I should say even more unique. As soon as he gets time he plans to get going on his 66 Beaumont Custom station wagon.
