78 Cutlass Wagon- "CopperTop"

[SSLance]

Very nice solid platform for which your son to build off of for his first car. Love the fact that it's a basically solid classic and just needs some TLC to make it nice again, then the fun can begin as his budget and time allows.

The 350 option blows me away...along with the gauges and the fender braces. What year is it anyway? By chance does it look like it's ever had a trailer hitch on it (maybe set up for towing back inthe day)?

[SRD Art]

My initial thought too, but there's no signs of a hitch at all. Perhaps someone ordered it with that intent and didn't follow through. Isn't it interesting to think of the history of our cars, who's driven them, where, why...

[68400BIRD]

Should be a great car for your son. It's nice when just a little clean up or a lot in your case will give you a solid foundation and reliable car. My first thought was how are you going to make that car look cool. Then, I see a picture of the black wagon next to it. Are you staying with the stock color? I like it. And if you are what are your plans with rims? Chrome, aluminum, or powder coated? Looking forward to more pictures.

[Ben@SpeedTech]

Thanks 68. If you click on the link in my signature you'll see more of the black one, it's fairly hard core for a station wagon, and still a long ways to go on it.

My son's car will be a little more mild due to the low budget he has to work with, but should still be a lot of fun on an autocross. We will be buffing the factory paint for now, and in time will fix the door dings and do a repaint in the same color. The rendering I did in post #2 will be fairly accurate, I had a hard time duplicating the factory color in the computer program I use but you get the idea. The wheels we have right now used to be on my wagon, they're 16x8" Trans Am GTA wheels with BFG 225 and 255 50 tires. Eventually I'd like to see 17s or 18s on the car but that's a ways away. When I become rich and famous I'd like to put 18s on my car so the 17s I have now could get passed down to him.

[Ben@SpeedTech]

Well my son has been spending a little spare time on the wagon. He's got the 16x8 GTA wheels on now and he's bee working on blacking out the trim. I have a new set of grilles for my wagon so I gave him my old Cutlass Salon grilles. We both like these better because they have only one verticle bar as opposed to 3 on the standard grilles. They're also a little more deep set in. He cleaned and prepped and shot them semi gloss black along with the head light bezels. Next up it the bumpers...



We've decided to black out the pillars and window frames, and later on window tint will give it a nice subtle look.



More pics coming soon...

[68400BIRD]

Where are the side shots of the new wheels? Did you get a chance to see how the paint will buff out? You know that you have one tiny circle somewhere on the car where you tested it.

[Ben@SpeedTech]

We haven't gotten to the buffing yet, Roman's just been cleaning and doing the trim painting while he's waiting on my time to free up to help him. I've been spending all my spare time evenings and weekends working on several concept renderings for some forum members and I just finished them up this week. This coming weekend and some evenings next week will be spent on my car getting it ready for an SCCA event next weekend. So after that's over I'll have more time to spend on this car. I'm actually pretty anxious to get going on it.

I'll have him get a photo of the car with a good shot of the wheels.

[67goatman455]

oh yea! it will really need some 20% tint now, thats going to look great. maybe black bumpers next?

[SRD Art]

Roman has been continuing with the painting of the trim. I'm pretty busy with work and trying to spend time with all the kids so he's pretty much doing this on his own with occasional advice from me. I'm impressed, he's doing a great job. Every day I come home from work and see his car and am a bit jealous, I think it looks better than mine! I'm really growing bored of the rattle can black paint on my car and like the vibrance and color of his. He finished up the front windshield and rear glass trim this evening but it was too dark to photograph. I think next is clean and repaint the wheels, and I need to get a new buffer so we can work the paint.

Here are his latest pics he's taken. He also took some time to Photoshop a couple of the pics to get a vision for where we're headed with the car, so I'm posting them too...







Photoshopped- shined up, lowered, blacked out rockers and bumpers...





Photoshopped- lowered and blacked out. I plan to narrow the bumper and I think we'll be grafting in some driving lights to be a little unique and continue with the pro touring look...



More coming soon...

[glassman]

Did he gut that interior? At the least Lysol it....i know exactly what that interior smells like (worked at a Chevy dealership in the ''80s), whew, the bacteria....

Fun project, good luck with it!!