59 Pontiac wagon
 

Would you pay $55,000 for this. It has a 1956 347 engine in it.https://www.ebay.com/itm/1959-Pontia...-127632-2357-0

I don't care for it:

Is it a restomod, is it a refurb, is it a restoration?
It's a hodgepodge and doesn't suit my tastes.

I find the wheels especially irksome, and I don't understand why a 347 was used instead of a 389.

All that being said, it wasn't built for me. Having a wagon, I can tell a pile of money was spent on the interior alone.

If you like it, go for it!

James Q

Can tell anyone, For Certain, that the wagon will NOT ride "smoother" with " Riddler " wheels and low profile tires.
Unless you have fast acting struts, TIRES are part of the suspension. It looks nice, but not worth that money, even with inflation. If I was in the market, top dollar would be 40k if nice underside, Minus the cost of some tires and wheels.

This place is a museum, when I emailed him he said that motor was all that was available. By the looks of the cars around it he could have afforded to find a correct motor.

I always average 2 collector car value guides and I come up with $18k in #2-#3 condition. Wheels and tires don't add a lot of $$ value. When a seller does not post pics of the underside, I immediately turn away. I get tired of asking for the same pics all the time. Fresh paint in the trunk on this and probably the entire underside, is a huge red flag on any used car.

As much as I like ‘59 Safaris, I would not spend anywhere near that much for that one. It’s been for sale for a long time.
Take a look at the oil pan, trans pan, and gas tank. All pretty beat up. Don’t like the interior at all and it appears cheap. Wheels and tires? Nope.
Love the color, one of my favorites. Like JamesQ, I understand how difficult and expensive it is to build a Safari but I’m not impressed by this one.


HoovDaddy, click on the full size pictures link, there’s a lot more pictures there.

The car looks nice, but not my taste, and not $55,000 nice.

One other thing, a 56 engine is a 317, not a 347, but 57, is a 347. Some one has their facts wrong, or the engine could be a 317 if it was from a 56. I guess if it were just bought to cruise, it wouldn't be horrible to drive with a 317, but you're giving up a lot of HP, and torque with a 317. I owned a couple 59s, they're heavy, and a wagon is a little heavier than a car is.

That car would be a better driver with a 455 in it, I owned 2 of the early 70s clamshell wagons with 455s in them. It's nice to have that torque to get them moving. The T 400 would also be a better choice as the older hydramatics are not as smooth shifting, and parts availability, as well as a tech that can work on them is pretty limited at this point in time.

:focus:

"All that was available" where? In his basement?

He actually has a museum in Rodgers MN. That was me that got the year wrong on the motor, and I know better.

Ellingson's has always had high prices in my opinion, but that's what dealers do. If you look at the other cars they're selling on eBay there aren't any bargains there. https://www.ebay.com/str/ellingsoncl...75.m3561.l2563

I didn't think of going to his web site for undercarriage pics earlier. The LR frame rail looks like it's split and needs repair.

https://forums.maxperformanceinc.com...1&d=1647035333

Seems like every car on their website has that heavy flat black undercarriage treatment. Unique car but I could never consider that much without seeing in person.

Believe it or not, that was likely how the car came from the factory. The frames were manually welded, and the welds looked like chicken scratch when new. Fresh thick undercoating will hide a bunch of defects, especially if the person looking at the car doesn't scape the undercoating off to see what it's hiding. Having owned a state inspection garage in PA I've seen about every trick in the book to hide bad frames that were rusted, or cracked. Fresh undercoat is usually a dead giveaway to get a pick hammer and start probing the frame. You should see the faces of owners when you find what they thought they had hidden with tar, bondo, duct tape, etc....LOL

That seam is 2 pieces of channel overlapped and joined by welding. These poor welds are the reason when pressing one of the cars into dirt track service you would go over the whole frame and likely use 10-15 lbs. of welding rod re doing the factory welds.

Over the years in the mechanic business, I have had to repair frames on street driven cars that had failed welds numerous times. There was little if any QC on the frames of early cars. Many times it looked as if they hired someone off the streets that hadn't ever welded before, and stuck them on frame welding as it was a dirty, and hot job. Being on piece work as well as having to turn out so many frames in an 8 hour shift, doesn't promote quality assemblies.

Most people that are learning to weld have a tendency to go over the seams too fast, not melting the base metals enough, and not using enough filler rod to make a strong weld. Good example in the picture.

In 50 plus years of looking at the bottom of cars, I've seen plenty of shoddy welds from the factories. GM was probably the worst for bad welds. There's a reason that manufacturers went to robotic welders, over human welders, every weld is a duplicate. They also can keep up with someone speeding up the line, while keeping the quality adequate.

Car is bagged with a '57 engine. The bagged/wheels ruin it for me. The '56 engine was a 316 CID, not a 317 or 347. Had a friend recently try to swap a '73 Pontiac 350 into a '56 Safari and the 350 would not physically fit between the A arms and frame. It was too wide. Blew our minds as we thought all Ponchos 287--455 were dimensionally the same.

Ummm, they are. Not quite familiar with the 1956 stock mounts, but I would think the discrepancy would be with the engine mounting not with the exterior dimensions of the engines..

This particular car is way overpriced for the lack of quality of the undercarriage, and the engine compartment. The rolling stock doesn't fit the car, and the interior is blah. Like the car's design and color, but its double the price point where it needs to be.

How much is the Blue Vert ?

56 engine is 316.6 cubic inches, rounded up it is 317. 350, is actually 354 cubic inches, and 1963 326, is actually 336 cubic inches, (3.781 bore) same as the Pontiacs that went into the early GMCs. In 64 the bore was downsized (3.718) and was closer to the advertised displacement.

In early articles, the 56 engine were actually referred to as a 316.6 displacement. Pontiacs own service bulletin (Pontiac Service Craftsman) also referred to the engine as 316.6 displacement engine. Back then they referred more to HP ratings, rather than cubic inch displacements. The top of the line 2, 4 bbl 1956 engine was referred to as the 285 HP engine, by Pontiac in their own newsletter in 1956.

I would guess that the reason the late model engine was wider was because the exhaust manifolds were much smaller in diameter in 1956. As the displacement increased. so did the diameter of the log manifolds. Also the steering box placement (rear steer) limited the width of the engine to fit in the cramped space of the 56 chassis. There are 55-57 cars with late model V8s installed, so there has to be some way to shoehorn the late engines into the early chassis.

Many publications list the displacement as 316/317, so take your pick.

1937 P/U
 

This is the one he’s selling that I’d be interested in.
It sounds like most of his cars are consignment cars, not his.

Moving the decimal point over, one spot to the left, would still not be cheap enough......