[68Poncho]

There´s a 49 Silver Streak straight 8 for sale nearby. I looks rough tons of scratches, paint faded, chrome is dull but very little rust. The interior is toast, dashboard and instrument cluster are fine but seats, door panels, carpet and ceiling are shot. Is there a place that reproduces seat covers etc ?
Searched on google but it seems that these 1950ish cars don´t have a bigger fanbase that would bring money to reproduce these parts.

Thanks anyways.

[fyrffytr1]

There is a Facebook group just for Pontiacs that you might try. And, I am not trying to show my knowledge here because I made the same mistake in the beginning, but Silver Streak only refers to the engine. The different body styles have different names. The Chieftan came in a base and deluxe model and the streamliner was the fastback style.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/150467135123404

[68Poncho]

Thank you, I just came across this car. Before I didn´t pay a lot of attention to these post war cars so I´m just starting to dive into that whole subject.
Question is also how these cars drive with barely over 100hp. I don´t want end up being a roadblock.

[Stuart]

I doubt you'll find anyone selling ready to install seat covers, they'll have to be made by a local auto upholstery shop.

Acceleration will be leisurely by today's standards, but a car like that should be able to cruise nicely on the highway at 60mph (100km/h). When I was a teenager I worked for a guy who had a 1953 Pontiac station wagon; I used to drive it for running errands and had no issues, but it wouldn't have been suitable for Autobahn use.

[68Poncho]

Originally Posted by Stuart

I doubt you'll find anyone selling ready to install seat covers, they'll have to be made by a local auto upholstery shop.

Acceleration will be leisurely by today's standards, but a car like that should be able to cruise nicely on the highway at 60mph (100km/h). When I was a teenager I worked for a guy who had a 1953 Pontiac station wagon; I used to drive it for running errands and had no issues, but it wouldn't have been suitable for Autobahn use.

I think so too. Good thing is that original upholstery and door panels are still there, just in very bad shape. But for a good upholstery shop it should be enough to get the idea of pattern and fabric to reproduce it. Plus those materials and patterns were not nearly as fancy as the became in the late 50s.

Well Autobahn is not a race track as some might think. 60mph is good enough to float with the traffic. Bigger trucks have a speed limit of 50mph so everything above that is sufficient

[Stuart]

You could probably get the exact upholstery material by the yard from SMS in Oregon, but it may take a long time. However, the cloth used in cars back then tended to be fairly generic so there are probably other sources.

I bet the headliner would be very similar to what was used in the same year Chevy.

ACC carpets has a listing for a carpet set for a 1949 Pontiac, but it's described as loop carpet which I don't think would be correct for that year.

[Goatracer1]

My first car was a 1953 straight 8. It had a 0-60 of about 20 seconds but once up to speed it could hold it's own at any legal speed limit plus some. I wouldn't try to beat a semi on an entrance ramp but driving on the highway would be fine.

[68Poncho]

Well clearly I wouldn´t buy it to win street races on a Friday evening. At 100 hp it is still stronger than 90% of European classic cars dating back to the 80s. The omnipresent VW Kaefer ( bug / beetle ) comes with whopping 34hp and the 1st and 2nd gen VW Bus are not better. If one wanted to drive a car with more than 100hp one had to buy a Mercedes, Porsche or Jaguar back then or go for even more exotic ( and expensive ) Italian or British cars.

[Bill Hanlon]

Originally Posted by 68Poncho

a car with more than 100hp one had to buy a Mercedes, Porsche or Jaguar back then

The first commercially available Porsche 356 was also a 1949 model. 66 cubic inches. 40 horsepower at 4200 RPM with 52 ft-lbs of torque at 2800 RPM. Had a long way to go to get to 100HP. Wouldn't want to try Friday night street races with it either.

[madeuce50]

My brother-in-law had a 49 2 dr coupe, fun car, not a rocket ship but drove the road just fine. He was lucky, there was a small hometown Pontiac dealership that had never thrown anything away and had campaigned a Pontiac straight eight on the local tracks when everyone else was running Ford Flatheads. We scored a "high" compression head and a few other goodies from the dealership owner who got a kick out of a couple younger guys messing with an old Pontiac.

[68Poncho]

Originally Posted by Bill Hanlon

The first commercially available Porsche 356 was also a 1949 model. 66 cubic inches. 40 horsepower at 4200 RPM with 52 ft-lbs of torque at 2800 RPM.

Ferdinand Porsche was a brilliant engineer, that´s why Hitler commanded him to build a car everyone could afford. So Porsche designed the Volkswagen ( Volk = peoples , Wagen = car). So Volkswagen was a N a z i (sorry but that word is apparently censored) project that never happened as by the late 30s they started to produce war machinery in the production plants. After the war was over nobody had money and they fetched the old blue prints for the Volkswagen out of the drawer and named it Volkswagen Kaefer (bug). Ferdinand Porsche though was bored and started tuning the Kaefer and so the 356 was born still using a lot of VW parts including the engine.

That´s a little Deutsche Autogeschichte ( German car history )

[Jack Gifford]

Originally Posted by 68Poncho

... they fetched the old blue prints for the Volkswagen out of the drawer...

Wasn't they the British?
As for old Porsches using the VW engine, wasn't the Porsche crank roller bearing right from the start?

[68Poncho]

Not to my knowledge. The first production post war VWs weren´t available to the public though but went to the British and German federals. But they were produced in
Wolfsburg mostly using left over parts for the Kuebelwagen.

The first Porsche 356 used VW parts as the transmission, brakes and suspension parts. I´m not so sure about engine parts in detail since I´m really not a Porsche expert.