Meet The Players

I am always looking for project cars that I can flip, I like to find cars that are generally unmolested and that have nice patina. Patina can be a fine line, there's the mellowing and soft edges that only time can bring and then there's just plain ravages. Of time, that is.

I looked at a lot of junk since the Studebaker sold but this 1956 Chevrolet station wagon seemed just about perfect. he car was owned since new by the same family and then parked in 1998. It was left outside in a backyard near Long Beach, CA so the salt air did some strange damage to the car. These normally rust in the spare tire well and in the quarter panels, but this car was perfect there. It was rusted badly at the bottom corners of the windshield and into the cowl. Rust here is fairly common in these cars but not to this extent. On the good side, it is almost 100% stock, has a recently redone interior and everything was there.

After making the deal, I had it towed back to the shop. I spent a few hours cleaning it up and after some gentle coaxing it barked to life! Not bad considering it was sitting for 13 years. I had to replace a master cylinder and the radiator but otherwise the car drove great. A few days later I lowered the car just a little to get the stance right, put the stock hubcaps on it and that's that! The car drives better than my 2000 GMC Sierra, no kidding.

I put it up on ebay to see what it might bring as is, but I also still have the 5.3/T56 six speed and the 76mm turbo just begging to be swapped into something. We'll see what happens, but for now here's some pics.

When I dragged it home, it looked kind of like this except it had four flat tires and about 26 pounds of mouse shit in it. Three of the four whitewalls held air!

The 1955-56-57 Chevrolets have a big following, they are called Tri Five Chevys. Wagons have become hot in the past five years or so, this one should sell.

I cleaned it up, dropped it down and added some black wall tires.

I've said it before and I'll say it again...stance is everything. Amazing what a simple 2" drop can do for a car's personality.

Nice!

The interior cleaned up well, the dash is a nice survivor, these are usually cut up to fit a radio.

The seats, door panels and carpet were redone some years ago and they held up well.

Here's the rust, it was covered up by the stainless windshield trim and a bunch of bondo mixed with angel hair. I poked it all out because I needed to see how mad it really was.