hey guys im Travis, im 18 years old . and I love old cars. me and my dad have been into them for a while and he has restored quite a few and he helped me restore a 1950 gmc from the ground up. (that I drive daily). we started when I was 11 and finished it by the time I was 15 1/2. but ive always loved Cadillacs and always seen them as the pinnacle of the American motor car. especially in the 1950s. these cars were produced during the height of American success and power. and seeing them at car shows gives me a glimpse of what we used to be. i decided (when i was about 13) that i was going to have one. and that when i was old enough to be employed that i would save all my money and buy one. so i did. the only way at my age to attain one of these wonderful works of art is to buy a project and to restore it to its former glory. i bought the car when i was almost 17. and ive documented my progress and i want to show it to you guys. the last photo in this thread is where the restoration is currently. this isn't the day we got it. we had taken the drivetrain out and were rebuilding it at this point some rust damage here and there was a lot more on the actual firewall a little body filler to get the curvature right again taped everything off I didn't want primed/ painted, primed outside. then we used the garage as a paint booth. firewall painted in alpine white, not the original color of the car but it is a color Cadillac did use in 1956 this was feb 2015. not sure the day. since I was still in highschool it took me almost my entire senior year for me and my dad to do a complete rebuild of the original automatic jetaway transmission and the factory 365 ci motor. sat that big boy back in there also in feb of this year. we painted the engine with por 15, in the original Cadillac blue the motor was done in. during this time I was also working on the inner fenders. so at this point school was just over. so I dedicated this summer to doing as much on the car as I could. because at this point I had no other interruptions. so now that I had the entire engine bay how I wanted it. I started on the rest of the car. specifically the floors. which was an intense struggle. I started with the front drivers side. cut it out. and fabricated the new pieces from new sheet metal then I did the rear drivers side. the rear passenger side was the only floor that didn't need work. which I was happy about because at this point I was getting sick of rust damage. so I moved onto the front passenger side. so after I got all the floors done I moved to the outside of the car where I figured out real quick I only fought half the battle. both quarters needed to be cut out and replaced so after the quarters, the rocker panels were next I don't have the tools to fabricate a piece this big or this complex. so I had to get these off ebay both rockers I ended up cutting out we decided to paint the car in two sections because the car is just so big. so after the entire body was finally finished. I started on the trunk and hood. (rust damage and time it took to paint body was about 2 1/2 months) more rust damage in the hood so I fixed all the rust damage in the hood. primed . then painted so this is where I am right now. at this point im working on the doors. and getting them ready to paint. this is what I got done over my summer. and now I have started my freshmen year of college. and I work. so its hard. but im still moving forward as fast as I can to making this 1956 Cadillac Fleetwood 60 special the king of the road once again
The Jalopy Journal
