The 1950’s Pontiacs are some of the finest cars to ever roll off the assembly line. They were cars that were built to be symbols of class, cars that an owner could take great pride in owning and driving, and cars that were built rock solid! A man by the name of Luke Warner has recently found one of these beauties inside the grounds of an abandoned church in Dayton, Ohio ripe for the picking.

Luke stumbled upon this 1951 Pontiac Chieftain that was long forgotten, yet the body only had minimal rust and just needed some TLC. Bonus score – is the inline 6 still runs which makes this buy a great deal especially considering Luke only paid $3,000 for the complete car.

This Pontiac was Luke’s first hot rod project and before this his past experience building bobbers and wrenching on trucks played an important role in the learning curve. The first thing that had to be done was the removal of the floorboards as the floors had been rotted and rusted from years of exposure to the elements. Luke removed the old rusted floorboards and replaced them with new sheet metal floorboards that he had fabricated himself. After the floor was complete the next step was the dash.

The dash was in decent shape, but it needed to be cleaned up and painted. All of the instruments were removed, polished and cleaned, and with a little love now the look as fresh as they did back in 1951. The dashboard was painted white, which gives it a vintage ’50s look. The next phase was the body work and paint.

Luke began by filling the holes with sheetmetal to get the job done right. The lower panel on the driver’s side door also contained several holes, Luke fixed this by ordering a 1951 Chevy lower panel from Brookeville roadster. He removed the stock lower paneling, reshaped the Chevy panel to fit the car and welded her in place.

After this was complete, Luke began prepping the car for paint, he did this by sanding the car with 320 grit and covering it with a coat of primer. Not only was the body prepped but the wheels were as well. The color Luke chose was Volkswagen Indigo Blue and he hand painted the car himself in his home garage!

We have to say that  you did a really marvelous job Luke! After he completed painting the car he then added the original Pontiac trim which had been polished. He then cleaned up the  and painted them “Bright Metallic Aluminum” aka rattle can silver.

Since the interior had worn away by the years of exposure to the elements it had to be completely redone. Luke installed new carpeting, covered the seats with Mexican blankets, added new fabric on the doors and hand made new fabric armrests.  The Chieftain needed to able able to stop which meant that Luke had to replace the master cylinder and the brake lines. Luke began by pulling the master cylinder and when he did, he discovered something cool! The master cylinder was manufactured at the Delphi Assembly plant in Dayton, Ohio which is just  3 miles from Luke’s house!  Luke decided to hold on to the master and use it as a wall piece in his garage.

After all of the grueling body work was over, it was finally time to mount the Chieftain on its wheels. The wheels had been painted Indigo and were covered with the original hubcaps which had hub cap bullets installed on them. The wheels were wrapped in vintage style white wall Goodyear tires from Coker.

After that task was finished it  time to fire up the 51 Chieftain! Luke invented his friend Eric over to help him bring the car to life. They poured gas in tank, turned the key and ran into problems… The battery was dead  and it was soon replaced with a donor battery. Luke firing up the car again but… it still didn’t start! They believed the problem lied with in the carburetor. The carbuertor was an original Rochester BC from the 1950’s, it was taken apart, cleaned up and reinstalled it.  This time when  the key was turned  the old Inline 6 roared to life!

A few finishing touches were than added to the Pontiac. The old fuel pump was replaced with a brand new holley fuel pump, the Hydra Matic P51 transmission was rebuilt so it would shift smoother and a Vintage Pontiac script was added to the driver’s door (he is still looking for a passanger side script). After a few months of hard work the 51 Pontiac Chieftian was finally complete and ready to drive! Luke did an amazing job fixing up this car and getting it to look like new. Luke’s 51 Chieftian is looks just like Pontiac is suppose to look: Clean, low and full of class!