Hi folks!
I've greatly enjoyed the posts on these forums and have been learning a great deal from the community here. As I'm just starting down the road with a restoration of a '53 Commander, I am starting this thread to document progress! I had been on the look out for one of these cars for several years and when it initially appeared on Craigslist I didn't at first strongly consider it -- I'd just completed another multi-year project and I wasn't sure my wife would be up for another! A few days later, however, a friend forwarded a link to the ad and the seller had dropped the price, so I decided I'd drive up and take a look.
The car lived most of its life in Arizona before coming to California and no magnet test was required -- still in its original sun-baked paint, it is a stranger to bondo. The seller had begun to strip it down as part of a conversion to a Carrera racer, but he did a careful job of removing the parts and it is largely complete. This car was an automatic, but comes with a three-speed + overdrive transmission that can be seen sitting in the background of the pic above.
I intend to restore the car to its 1953 specifications with the possible exception of going with the three-speed rather than the Automatic. My wife isn't particularly fond of Coral red, though I think it's pretty nice with an Ivory-white top, but worrying about paint color is getting a bit ahead of ourselves at this point. ;-) Over the past several afternoons we've gotten the front-end broken down and were thrilled to discover that it's every bit as solid as it seemed on the surface.
(click on the thumbnails to enlarge)
I've also started updating a journal for family and coworkers that are interested in the project. Please feel free to visit and comment - from my previous project I am very much aware that it takes a community to produce a quality restoration. The link for the blog is http://starlight53.wordpress.com. If you're in or around the south SF Bay area, let me know!
If there is interest I'll keep posting pictures, questions and updates to this thread. For now I've got to make enough room to finish the disassembly and prepare the car for media blasting.
I've greatly enjoyed the posts on these forums and have been learning a great deal from the community here. As I'm just starting down the road with a restoration of a '53 Commander, I am starting this thread to document progress! I had been on the look out for one of these cars for several years and when it initially appeared on Craigslist I didn't at first strongly consider it -- I'd just completed another multi-year project and I wasn't sure my wife would be up for another! A few days later, however, a friend forwarded a link to the ad and the seller had dropped the price, so I decided I'd drive up and take a look.
The car lived most of its life in Arizona before coming to California and no magnet test was required -- still in its original sun-baked paint, it is a stranger to bondo. The seller had begun to strip it down as part of a conversion to a Carrera racer, but he did a careful job of removing the parts and it is largely complete. This car was an automatic, but comes with a three-speed + overdrive transmission that can be seen sitting in the background of the pic above.
I intend to restore the car to its 1953 specifications with the possible exception of going with the three-speed rather than the Automatic. My wife isn't particularly fond of Coral red, though I think it's pretty nice with an Ivory-white top, but worrying about paint color is getting a bit ahead of ourselves at this point. ;-) Over the past several afternoons we've gotten the front-end broken down and were thrilled to discover that it's every bit as solid as it seemed on the surface.
(click on the thumbnails to enlarge)
I've also started updating a journal for family and coworkers that are interested in the project. Please feel free to visit and comment - from my previous project I am very much aware that it takes a community to produce a quality restoration. The link for the blog is http://starlight53.wordpress.com. If you're in or around the south SF Bay area, let me know!
If there is interest I'll keep posting pictures, questions and updates to this thread. For now I've got to make enough room to finish the disassembly and prepare the car for media blasting.
Congrats. BP
We've got to quit saying, 
coming!
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