Grundy customer Mark Beede wrote to us about his 1930 Pontiac, and we wanted to share his story with those who subscribe to the Grundy Weekly Reader. Enjoy!

I bought my 1930 Pontiac Coupe Special, in 2000, from Mathews Memory Lane Motors.  It was an original all-steel car that was running, but barely drivable. But, I managed to drive it home, and the next day I started to dismantle it for a frame up restoration rod build.

The Chevy and Pontiac cars of that era had wooden interior structures and the skin was fastened to the wood frame with hundreds of tiny brads.You don’t put a modern v-8 race engine in a wood interior framed car and expect it to remain intact! I never intended the car to be a high dollar build.

I took the car to Silver Creek Auto Body for some minor body prep and painting. Tom Larson, owner of Silver Creek, told me he would not work on the car unless it was done correctly from the chassis up. Thus I started the ‘project’ of building a high-end street rod. High end, for me anyway! Tom Larson is a meticulous craftsman. He re-checked all the work that I had done to that point and started the process of correcting fabrication errors. He put the frame on the laser rack and correctly straightened the frame and suspension.

The body skin was removed, exposing the interior wood frame. Tom fabricated a new steel interior frame and welded the skin to the steel frame.He also fabricated a steel panel to replace the original rag top insert. All of the exterior stainless steel and chrome, including the door handles, door hinges, trunk latch, etc. were shaved and filled with sheet metal.

I was very fortunate to have made Tom’s acquaintance.  He and his son-in-law, Bob Knodel, are truly craftsmen who take great pride in and guarantee their work. Tom is by far one of the best body men and fabricators that I have ever met.

Tom is not cheap, but he is the best and he stands behind his word and workmanship. Every one that has seen the car comments on the craftsmanship and quality of the fabrication and paint. I’m not sure of how many hours Tom and Bob have put into this car, but it is well into the hundreds and maybe even more, for I know they both put in many more hours than I was billed, just out of friendship and the challenges of the build. Silver Creek Auto Body shop is known for their quality. Their body men are all committed to that same goal of excellence.

Bob Knodel, Tom’s son-in-law and co-owner of Silver Creek Auto Body, put in an AVIC -Z3/Pioneer sound system from Car Toys at no charge for installation. It includes voice command sound and communication system, back-up camera, DVD player with stereo surround sound, GPS navigation and hands-free cell phone capability. All I had to do was provide the parts from Car Toys and believe me that was a real blessing; he adjusted the sound system to the interior of the car to get the right sounds out of the system. The sound is terrific, and amazingly, you can hear it while driving due to the sound and heat deadening treatment from Lizard Skin. That stuff really works well…it’s a great product.

The exterior color and interior trim is a three-stage Planet World product from Martin Senour, Very Velvet is the color, which is Sherwin Williams’ version of Candy Apple Red. This was also done by Silver Creek and really shows off the fine bodywork and fabrication of the car. The paint also highlights the curves of the car and the careful attention to the detail of the fabrication is impeccable. All of the doors and seams are perfect, thanks to Tom’s meticulous craftsmanship, and when you close the doors while inside the car, you have to crack open a window or you’ll be slamming it shut because it’s so tight. The doors shut solid, sound and feel just like a BMW or any other quality car.

I wanted to have a “smoothie look” to the car, yet keep the original lines and style of the car with minimal body changes—so, the only changes to the body was stainless steel and chrome on the exterior of the body. The original Pontiac Indian radiator cap was refurbished and chromed, a ¼ inch surface button for the radio antenna, window wipers that are nicely tucked up under the original sun visor, two chromed trunk hinges, the head lights, chromed light rack and the Chip Foose Legend wheels.  I also had a stainless steel gas tank made and repositioned with a new rear roll panel.

My goal for the interior was to have an elegant, clean look. Dawn Chikes Upholstery, Keizer, Oregon, did the interior. The only instructions I gave Dawn were to keep it simple and have clean elegant lines. I selected Ultra Leather, Wheat color, with inserts in darker Suede Ultra perforated Leather. A custom-built console was fabricated by Tom and painted with matching exterior paint, adding to the clean fresh lines, to create a total package of elegant beauty.

Boy, did Dawn’s interior work ever come through. The door panels have a custom designed armrest and hand-pulls with the Suede Ultra Leather trim running in a horizontal swish through the car including the trunk. As an added focal point I had two original Pontiac Indian head logos, embroidered in red to match the color of the car, placed in the head rest area of the two seats. Dawn also took the BMW bucket power seats with heaters and cut the backs down to showcase the rear oval window of the ’30. I bought new three point seat belts in a matching Wheat color to finish off the completed look of the bucket seats and interior. The seat belts were anchored to the interior steel reinforced tubing over the shoulders and then to the steel flooring.

To recap some of the detail, the original 1930 Pontiac Coupe has had a complete body off frame restoration street rod style, laser straighten and boxed frame, polished TCI front and 4 bar with 9” rear end, 400 small block Chevy Stetson racing engine with Edelbrock manifold and dual quads, and a 350 Turbo trans. The bodywork has been extensive, to say the least, although the original car did not have any rust. Fabrication included customizing the roof panel, rear roll panel, hood modifications of taking the four-panel hood apart and welding the two top panels together and building an aluminum support system to attach the hood. The original gas tank replaced with a custom stainless steel gas tank.

Tom also installed heat/AC and Front Runner polish aluminum serpentine belt system from Vintage Air and Mac’s Radiator.  The brake system is a power TCI disc polished front and Speedway Motors rear 11” discs with emergency brake, power steering rack & pinion from Unisteer. Just as a side note, we had originally installed an Omni manual rack and pinion system, but it became quiet clear after test-driving the car that a power rack & pinion was needed, so I contacted Zigs Street Rods and purchased the new Unisteer rack.

All Auto Meter gauges from Speedway Motors finished off the dash and electrical system.

The electrical wiring harness was a 20-circuit system from Easy.I had a gentleman start to wire the car, but found out it was done incorrectly. This car has a lot of goodies, electrical and mechanical, and required knowledgeable people to advise and do the work.  All of the work that was previously done to wire the car had to be ripped out and redone by a pro. The wiring also included modifying the 2000 BMW Z3 power 6-way seats with internal heaters.

Other items in car are Lokar shifter, Flaming River steering column and Flaming River Water Fall steering wheel, 17” Foose Legend chrome wheels with 235/50ZR Proxes tires on the front and 18” Foose Legend chrome wheels with 255/45ZR Proxes tires on the rear.

There is a custom center console, dash and upper shelf that houses the window, door and trunk open switches, Vintage Air controls, head light and wiper switches, stereo system, shifter and shift and turn signal indicators, cluster gauges, clock and two auxiliary plug-in ports for a laptop computer, an upper consol shelf with interior oval polished lighting, tachometer and much, much more.

After test-driving the car, there was some tweaking to be done with the brakes, carburetors and distributor. I had Laren SRB of Check Point Motors in Oregon City, work out problems with the brakes, which he was able to fix very nicely. He suggested that I take the car one more place to have it dyno tested.

Wayne Paola, Bel-Air Machine & Performance Inc, dyno tested the engine and found that it needed a new heavy-duty distributor and the dual quads adjusted. He has become a good friend and is another professional providing excellent workmanship.

I guess when all is said and done, I feel very blessed to have met folks like Tom Larson, Bob Knodel, Dawn Chikes, Laren SRB, Wayne Paolo and their families. They have made a dream come true for me, and I have made some very good friends. There have been others who have helped me with the car, many others as a matter of fact; some have been advice-givers, some professional consultants, like John Grant who walked us through the process of straightening out the wiring mess, and one especially who has given me much love and support, and still loves me in spite of myself…my loving wife, Mary. Thanks Honey, I love you.

Mark

More photos of Mark's ride can be found on his site: Mark's Hot Rod.

Mark contacted Grundy when he learned about our ad contest. Want to learn how you can enter Grundy Worldwide’s contest that lets our customers show off their cars in our advertisements? Click here!

Story edited by: Becky McLaughlin