1965 Pontiac Catalina 2dr Hardtop custom

[enjenjo]

Thanks for some history of the car from first hand experience.

[DrDoctor]

Some interesting "tid-bits" about the '65 Pontiac that not many people know, or remember . . .
  But first – to preface the following – this is in NO way meant to diminish the accomplishments achieved by Larry Wolfe, and/or the many individuals/entities that participated in the astonishing final outcome of the car. It's simply fantastic!!! Obviously, he has an affinity for the car that I never would have. Larry's justified in being proud of the accomplishment. Congratulations to you, Larry, the car looks spectacular!!!
  Now, to continue – the Pontiac was one of the first 65's built – Pontiac, Michigan, August, 1964. It's an "HD" version (Heavy Duty). HD's came equipped with an oversized radiator, oversized brakes, dual exhausts, a Dana rearend, among other things. Originally, it was a metallic green-ish, with a matching vinyl interior. As Catalina's go, it was fairly basic.
  Dave was working for American Motors in the design department, working on the Javelin/AMX. He bought it in 1966 from the original purchaser – an engineer working for the Pontiac Division of General Motors. He returned to Wichita shortly thereafter. He lived on South Seneca, and worked at Dean's Body Shop. The first change made to the car was to lower it, the removal of all of the emblems, and the "nose" being extended. He spotted-in these changes with the original color. He also mounted a set of regular Cragar S/S wheels, with the original tires.
  It remained unchanged until the summer of 1969. At that point, he sectioned the front portion of the car 3", and chopped the rear of the top 3". I could go into the actual process of this procedure, but that can wait for another time, should there be significant interest. When all of the body work was completed, it was then re-painted in the original color. It looked like a stock Pontiac Catalina, altho' much lower, and when viewed from the rear, I appeared much wider. It was definitely different, but not as much as he'd hoped.
  It remained again unchanged until the winter of 1969, when it underwent the major reconfiguration that resulted in its appearance similar to how it looks today. This work was performed at a closed filling station on the north-east corner of Hydraulic and MacArthur Road, in south-central Wichita, right next door to the A&W Root-beer drive-in that his dad owned, as well as the filling station. The car was put on a frame lift (the old style lifts with the large tube going into the floor), the regular Cragar's removed, and replaced with one of the first set of reversed Cragar's made: 14"x7" in the front sporting E60x14 Mickey Thompson tires, and 15"x8" in the rear wearing L60x15 Mickey Thompson's. As the car was lowered back to the ground, the tires interfered with the body, we (I was working for him at that time, along with another guy, who's name I think was Larry...), cut away metal, until the car was finally sitting on the ground again, with adequate clearance between the tires and the body.
  The interior was removed, with the exception of the headliner, and he sent it to an upholsterer who was, at that time, a new up-and-comer. Unfortunately, the result wasn't very good, but Dave had no choice but to use it was for the car's premier at the upcoming Starbird car show in Wichita. Then the interior returned from the upholsterer, Dave went ballistic, calling it "junk". However, we were out of time, and had no choice but to use it. We had no headliner, so it went to the Century II Center without one, puckers in the side panels, no carpet, and ill-fitting seats. It was a mess, and he considered covering the window with tinfoil, but we didn't. Once that show was completed, the car went to Paul Matz, who completely redid it, using some of the panels/components the previous guy had done, and making others from scratch. The result was spectacular, and that's the interior that was in the car right when I sold it – put in by Matz in January of 1970 – almost 43 years ago!!!
  Dave continued to show it, and did very well, winning best radical custom, best paint, best interior, best in show, among others, wherever it went, whether Starbird's shows, or other shows. But, Dave, and time, took its toll on the car. By early-1972, the car was a mess – one rear quarter had been backed into by a car at his shop Dave used to have just east of the Kansas Turnpike overpass (about a mile east of Hydraulic on MacArthur Road). Rayletta (his wife at that time) had backed into an old oil barrel in which he was burning trash, and caught the other quarter panel on fire, warping it badly. Dave had run over something, and it got wedged between the right front fender and the right front tire, rippling the fender, and knocking the paint completely off in the damaged outward-dents. The car barely ran – engine was shot –using 3 quarts of oil per day!!! It smoked like a mosquito sprayer – it was so bad, you had to put it into neutral to let the fan on the engine blow the smoke away. The smoke poured out of the front fenders, and the hood opening.
  By that time, he'd lost all interest in the car, and I offered to buy it from him in the early spring of 1972. He said he wanted $1,500.00 for it, and as I wanted it, that's what I paid him for it. I purchased it in April, 1972. The car was obviously in poor condition, but it was a radical custom, the only one in the world like it, built by Dave Stuckey, I got to participate in its construction, I just had to have it, I had acquired the money, so I was finally mine!!!
  I drove if for about a month with the crappy engine. It used so much oil, I was dumping used oil in it that I got for nothing from a filling station located on the southeast corner of South Meridian and West 31st Street South, a block south of my parent's home. I got the opportunity for another engine, a fresh long-block rebuilt out of a just-wrecked '65-'66 Pontiac 4-door sedan. I used the tow truck from a garage, went to the guy's house, picked it up from in front of his garage, and went back to the garage. I put the engine on the ground, and used the tow truck to remove the old engine and transmission from the car. The transmission was separated, new front and rear trans seals installed, and then connected it to the new engine. The assembly was then put into the car. I kept the blower plate and related parts.
  I bought a sheet of sheetmetal from Dave, and made the fender liners at his shop by myself, using his tools and equipment. I moved the battery from behind the right headlite, to behind the left one, since the starter's on that side. The dropped spindles were replaced with a set I bought at a salvage yard on MacArthur Road east of South Broadway, along with the A-arms, springs, etc. to get the front end squared away (the ball joints were shot, and you can't replace them on '65 arms, as there's a plate welded underneath them, and there's no reinforcing lip on them, so, one has to use the arms on a '66). I went to the Caterpillar dealer on South West Street, and bought grade-8 bolts and nuts for the rebuilt front end, as I didn't want to deal with this ever again! Once all the components were installed, along with new shocks, new tires, and the front end re-aligned again, the tire wear problems disappeared, altho' the wheels/tires were a couple of inches further into the front fenders. Small price to pay for finally being able to be dependably drive the car.
  The car needed a lot of attention. For example: a piece of welding rod fastened to a pair of vice-grips (nope, the inside door handle was now MIA...) just wasn't going to work, so I installed a '56 Chevy starter solenoid in the door, a '66 Ford solenoid on the front left fender liner for protection, a '46 Ford starter push-button underneath the cowl vents, covered with rubber (to make it waterproof) reinforced with small metal plates, and an electric key-switch in the grill to lock the door. I sealed the hood opening, made rain-channels on the lower edges of the valve covers, moved the coil next to the distributor, and made the cover for them out of an aluminum box I bought from The Yard. I put a cover over the alternator, and quickly burnt it out. So, I replaced the alternator, and trashed the cover. I had to move the radio antennae, as it was on the passenger front fender, but the door hinge had broken the bottom of it off. I bought an antenna from the AMC dealer that used to be on the northeast corner of the intersection of East Douglas and Washington Street. I don't remember what it went to, but I bought it because it goes down all of the way, and it was cheap, since it's a manual one. I 'semi-frenched' it into the right quarter. I also put a couple of spare tires in the trunk – one for each size tire on the car.
  The car didn't have any front turn signals, so they didn't work on the back. I went to Neff Salvage, and wound up getting a pair of front turn signals out of a front bumper of a '60-something AMC Rambler. They were long, thin, and shallow enough to fit in the grills, and I tho't they looked pretty good, as good as an amber turn signal can look. The other round light in the left grill came from my father, who got it at a garage sale for 10¢. I put it in the grill so we could use it at drive-in movies, which we went to almost every weekend. What that light originally came from – who knows. I'd guess a car from the 30's, but that's about as close as I can get.
  There are three knobs on the dash to the left of the steering column. The one with the little knob in the center's for the windshield wipers. The one in the middle's for the lights, except for the headlites. I put the Cibie low-beam lights in, and the combination of them with the Lucas Flamethrower hi-beams was too much for the electrical system, and I burned out all of the wiring for the lights under the hood one night. I got two relays for the hi-beams and the lo-beams,, and another switch (the left-most one on the dash, which now controls the head lights only), so to drive the car at night, you had to pull out both knobs.
  The radio never worked well, and it quit entirely shortly after I got the car, so I put an AM/FM radio behind the glove-box door. I also "sacrificed" the ash tray (which I also still have), so I could install an oil pressure gauge, and a temperature gauge, as I tho't keeping tabs on the engine was important. On a trip to western Kansas to see my wife's parents, one of the Plexiglas quarter windows blew out. When we returned to Wichita a couple of days later, I went to Neff Salvage and bought the trim pieces that goes between the stock quarter window, and the door glass. I cut them to fit, purchased some rubber channel, the chrome button from the quarter window of a Dodge Duster, trimmed the Plexiglas accordingly, and then put this whole conglomeration together to mount the quarter windows firmly and solidly, once and for all.
  On one of our trips to western Kansas, we were going to her parent's house by way of Dodge City, as I wanted to go to the big truck salvage yard there, to buy a GM 4-71 and/or 6-71 blower. Prior to the trip, they'd had severe rains there, and we had to take a controlled detour, during which we went thru some water on the roadway that was deep enough that the fan caught it, and blew the water thru the opening of the hood, covering the windshield, and over the car onto the car behind us. My wife freaked at this event, and she opened the passenger door to see how deep the water was. It was deep – it cascaded into the right half of the car. The only thing that kept the left side of the car dry was the transmission/drive shaft tunnel. So, until we got to Dodge City where we bailed it out, she sat there with her feet in the water, while I was still high and dry.
  On that same trip, once we were in at her parents, her brother and I went to a salvage yard in the western part of Ness County just off of K-96, where I wanted to get another steering column. The one in the car was shot – bushings hanging up, the wiring gone. The column shifter kept getting stuck, but I'd eliminated that problem by installing a floor shifter I'd made by modifying an old 4-speed shifter I happened to have. The guy at the salvage yard said a column would be $10. We found a nice tilt unit in a metallic blue '65 Pontiac 4-door Catalina, so we took it out. When the guy saw it, he wanted more since it was a tilt unit, but I told him I didn't care (I really did...), and that it was the only one we could get out easily with the tools we had with us. He relented but wanted extra for the steering wheel, whereupon I told him he could have it, I just couldn't get it off. He didn't have a wheel remover, so he told me to keep it. As such, I wound up with this whole setup for $10. We took my treasure to the local Chrysler/Allis Chalmbers dealer, where a mechanic pulled the wheel off for $1. I put my goodies in the trunk, and life was grand.
  Later that week, we went to the NSRA's Street Machine Nationals being held in Des Moines, Iowa. It was the first trip to such a show, and we had a ball. I followed a semi-truck on I-80 thru Nebraska doing what I guess was 70-80 mph, when the speed limit at that time was only 55 (the speedometer didn't work, the speedometer drive was installed incorrectly, so it didn't engage the drive gear in the transmission). Three things were learned from that drive: (i) the car ran and handled just great; (ii) the car got about 17-18 mpg (not bad for a car as heavy as it's, and as fast as we were going); and (iii) following a semi-truck too close can result in significant "road rash" on the front end...
  We had the car painted a solid color, Ford Ginger Brown enamel. That looked nice, and we drove it in that configuration for several years. Then, I painted it myself in Corvette Chrome White acrylic lacquer, with gold and silver panels, and painted the peeling spokes of the Cragar's white. It looked really nice that way, and we drove it many years that way, too. Again, panel paint jobs were in vogue back then.
  As that paint job began to show its age, I purchased 3 gallons of burgundy acrylic lacquer, a pint of gold tint, a pint of silver tint, and a pint of extra-course metallic, along with the necessary thinners. I went crazy with panels, emulating the original designs on the car, but with asymmetrical designs therein. I put over 80 hours of work into that paint job, and I got more complements on it than any other one the car had. I painted the spokes of the Cragar's a very light gold, which really went well with the interior. I won a best paint trophy at a car show, along with best interior, and best radical custom. So, I felt quite pleased with it, indeed.
  As that burgundy paint job began to show its age here in Delaware, so in 2004 I purchased 2 gallons of Jeep yellow acrylic enamel, as I wanted to go a totally different direction – a single color, which the car hadn't been since it was its original metallic green. I also wanted to paint inside of the door jams in the body color, as prior to this, they'd always been satin black. Obviously, the light gold spoked wheels didn't work with yellow, so I painted them a metallic black, which I tho't looked OK. I painted the brake drums flat black, so they did show up rather nice. The last car show it appeared was in 2004 in a small town about 20 miles from here, which equates to about 30 minutes – remember: heavy traffic, and "LSD" = "Lower Slower Delaware, and it won best custom, but I didn't go up to collect the trophy, as I was getting ready to leave. I haven't attended a car show as a participant, or as a spectator, since then.
  We live in one of the more popular tourist destinations along the mid-Atlantic coast, and the tourists tend to leave their brains at home when they come here for vacation. We were concerned about causing, and/or being involved in a major accident here, what with the tourists gawking at the car instead of paying attention to the very congested traffic. We didn't want the car damaged, or worse; or anyone hurt, or worse, so we decided that it was time for it be "move on down the road", preferable not on the Atlantic coast, since the salt air here's hard on cars.  When it was color sanded, and polished, in the summer of 2006, an "incident" occurred involving my wife. As a result, I decided it was time to let the car go. Every time I looked at it, I'm reminded of the "incident", and as such, I didn't enjoy it anymore. That's what clinched the decision that the car had to go.
  In conclusion, I'm glad Dave got to see it, to sit in it, and maybe even drive it, prior to his passing. I'm also pleased that Larry's as happy as he appears to be with the car. I do, however, have to take exception to a comment credited to him in the newspaper article: "[sic] it was rough. If I could've, I would've pushed it back in the transporter. If Dave hadn't built it, I probably wouldn't have bought it." My response: 1) it was rough, and he was so informed; 2) maybe he did want to put it back onto the transporter, but it was "non-returnable"; 3) Dave did build it, so he obviously wanted it; and 4) he obviously wanted it, because he kept it. This having been said, I hold no animosity toward Larry, and I can only hope that he holds no such animosity toward me. Obviously, by his comment "[sic] I love the car, I love that he built it, and that I now have it. It's probably the last car I'll ever have", he's got the car he wants. And, I no longer have the car I don't want.

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[jaybee]

Thanks for sharing so many interesting details about the history of the car, and welcome to RRT.

[DrDoctor]

enjenjo, and jaybee,

  You're welcome for the information. If you, or anyone else, would be interested in any additional insights about the car originally customized by the late Dave Stuckey, I'd be more than happy to provide such. I'm finding that this site be interesting, and entertaining. And, Thank you for your warm welcomes, I really do appreciate your kindness.
  With kindest regards to each of you . . . .
Thx.

[kb426]

Very interesting. I'm always surprised when someone has a real long love affair with a car. As we age and our tastes change, I fall out of love with some cars. I have seen the car several times since it came back to Kansas. The story will make it more special the next time I see it.

[DrDoctor]

kb426,
  Thank you for your kind comment. Yes, tastes do change. Add to that the commitment required in a medical practice, and time becomes a rare commodity indeed. Life = change. . .
  Larry obviously has a much stronger affinity for the car than i. I tho't it be nice if I could get it sold back in the mid-west – the closer to Kansas – the better. Who would've tho't that it's actually go full-circle, and wind up back in Wichita. I'm really pleased that Dave got a chance to see it, and sit in it, before his passing.
  I really have no regrets about the car – I used it, and I mean I really USED it. Larry will probably show it more than drive it, and that's OK!!! It deserves its retirement, too.
  Best regards . . . .