1936 Pontiac Master Six Cabriolet Restoration

Hello readers. I am creating this blog to document the restoration of my 1936 Pontiac cabriolet (a convertible with roll-up windows). I am new to this blog thing and actually started the restoration two years ago. So let me start with a little history.

I've owned a 1936 Pontiac business coupe since 1965, while still a high school student. It was my first car and a real find: a complete original car with 68,000 miles on it and a sale price of $75.00. I have learned a lot about 36 Pontiacs over those 40 years. For a summary of that learning, go to www.earlytimeschapter.org and click on the literature section.

This car, a very rare model, turned up on eBay in October 2002. The CA seller did not receive the his minimum price of $23,000, so the car didn't sell online. His phone number was in the ad though, and I called him immediately after the auction ended. After hearing a description of the car and looking at the photos, I bought it a day later, sight unseen for $18,000. It is exactly the same car, from the beltline down, as my coupe. And since I had a great many extra parts for it accumulated over the years, had a good network of other 36 owners and parts suppliers, I was confident I could fix what was needed at fairly low cost. I had the car shipped from California to Maine; it arrived in December of that year. (I got lucky: it was shipped with no antifreeze during a cold snap, but it did not freeze up and crack anything.) Here is what it looked like when I got the car.





I had it appraised for insurance purposes immediately and that appraisal came in at $25,000. So far, so good!

Well, not surprisingly I guess, the seller's description of the car and its actual condition were more than a little different. I knew that it had no top and was missing top bows, side rails, rear window and vent & door windows. I was surprised to learn that it had a 1940 engine (that did run well once I got the right carburator, new water and fuel pump, and distributor), needed the transmission rebuilt, brakes redone, suspension redone, a quite a lot of other mechanical work. The car supposedly had a frame-off restoration a number of years ago, but they did a shoddy job. The paint has faded noticably, is bubbling is many places and there are a couple of minor but noticable rust spots on the hood. The chrome was also redone, but again cheaply and many parts should be replated. But hey, fewer than 3,500 convertibles were built in 1936 and I now had one of what seems to be less than ten left. So I was happy.

My son Jason and I had time for a brief ride around the neighborhood before I put the car up in the barn for the rest of the winter. I then set out to find out as much as I could about these cars and find the parts I needed. That's been a very interesting, and at times expensive journey, but it's been great fun. I will document that process in subsequent posts.