When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.
For years, my 72 vista cruiser was my true daily driver. Unless it was snowing or there was salt on the road I was driving the vista. Everything from basic commuting to hauling 2x4's to filling the car with swap meet parts to sell at maple grove. If I was on the road, there is a good chance I was in my vista. Now that it is completely re-done to the point that it is too nice to use as a DD I miss not having it as a daily driver. (I still drive it a lot, just not in rain, to haul stuff, If I have been working in the garage and my clothes are greasy) Luckily when I bought my vista back in 2014, it was a 2 for 1 special. The vista's 350 was using a fair bit of oil when I went to look at it and the owner told me he had another motor I could have. The other motor was another olds 350 2brl and it was in a 72 holiday coupe that he was going to scrap. He had bought the car because it was a factory bucket seat console car and he wanted the interior parts for his supreme. When I heard this, I asked if he had a title... he did I asked if the car was fairly solid... he said it was. So the end of the story is that I bought the vista cruiser and it came with the 72 holiday coupe for free (cost of the title transfer). So, at this point the car has been sitting outside since 2014 on top of however long it sat at his house, and the person he got it from who had done some body work on the car. This is basically what the car looked like as I got it:
Originally the car was a 350/350 auto car with PS, PB, A/C, bucket seats, and a console. Around 2018-2019 I built a 1968 455 out of a ninety eight and put it in along with a muncie m20 and a tilt column. I have been collecting parts for the car for the last 7 years up until I found a Thornton OAI hood for it a few months ago. When done it will have power windows, power locks, power trunk release, power seat, power seat back release, AM/FM stereo w/ 8 track, tilt column, rally pack gauges, safety sentinel speedometer, rear grid defroster, Power disc brakes (originally on my vista cruiser), soft ray tinted glass, power steering, A/C, and it will look like a 71 w30. Yes I know that in 71 you could not get a w30 4 speed with A/C, incase you missed the title, the car is fake. The problem that I recently came too is that my original plan was to make the car really nice with a full frame off. If I do this, I know I will not want to drive it so I have decided to try a patina finish on the paint. the interior will be nice, under the hood will be nice, and the paint will look "overly well cared for". As if some one had washed/ waxed the car every week for the last 50 years and rubbed through the paint on the edges.
Here is some progress so far:
The goal is to have a car that looks great from a distance, good up close, and I will not get to upset when someone opens their door into it in a parking lot.
I was initially excited to see the original Saturn Gold (I'm a bit partial to that color).
Originally the car was huggar orange (chevy name I for get what olds called it). Who ever put in in primer had also started painting it gold. The interesting thing is that 12-15 years ago, my brother ant I did a 71 clone in huggar orange. I did not realize that was the original color on this car until I started to work on it recently. When finished the colors will match my vista cruiser.
71 my brother and I did years ago:
Current shot of my vista cruiser (should look great sitting next to the holiday coupe):
Last edited by Loaded68W34; January 27th, 2021 at 04:21 AM.
So it has been a few weeks since I posted. I have been working on the dash, wiring and console. I have been collecting parts for this car since I brought it home and finally some of those parts are going on. I found an auto console a few years back and added the conversion "frame" from the parts place. For anyone considering this, I am very pleased with the final fit, and I would definitely recommend it. I also re-flocked all of the interior parts of the console. The metal plate under the lid had deep pitting so I flocked it as well even though it was just painted black from the factory.
Console pics:
I got 71 (walnut) dash and console wood grain trim inserts (metal backed) from H&H classic auto. The trim needed some work for a proper fit but looks great:
One of the differences between the 72 and a 71 is the location of the horn relay. In 72 the relay was on the firewall while 71 had the relay on the inner fender. Since I am trying to make the car look like a 71, I repined the bulkhead connector and fuse box so that everything except the coil, wiper/washer, and starter wire are now in the outer (furthest left half) of the bulkhead connector.
Whenever I restore a harness, I clear the fuse box with a flat clear to protect the lettering and keep the edges of the fuse holders from rusting. For most boxes, I pull every fuse clip out and blast or wire wheel them, but this harness was in pretty good shape, so I cleaned them in the box. Here the clear is still wet so it looks shiny, but dries flat:
Also restored the inside heater box. I used the best parts between the original box from the car, and the one I took out of my vista cruiser:
When I redid the needles on the tach and replaced the clock mechanism, I mistakenly painted the second hand white. I still need to take it back off at some point and repaint it black.
This is where I am at right now. Currently, the dash is just laying in the opening held in by a nut above the glove box. There is a little bit of a warp under the radio opening but this should look a little better once all of the nuts are on and tight along the bottom edge.
Last edited by Loaded68W34; February 27th, 2021 at 04:53 PM.
Very nice work! Thanks for sharing. I like to see the in progress photos, too - you get to see how different folks manage their construction projects, and I get new ideas for when the time comes to do my own parts.
It has been over a year since the last post. At this point, all of the wiring in the car is finished and working. I had to make a harness for the power seat back releases (I had an original set of door jamb switches with connectors but only about 2 inches of wire on the connectors), most of a harness for the power windows, and repair a lot of terrible work on the front-end harnesses in addition to changing the harnesses under the hood to look more like 71. With that done, most of the work I have been doing has been on the interior. Here are some photos of the column.
I am still looking for the correct tilt column lock plate and cover. There was no steering column in the car when I got it and this column was missing the lock plate when I bought it. These are out of a non-tilt and I had to enlarge all of the slots so that the locking pin would actually stop the wheel from rotating. I also decided not to fool around making cruise control work so I removed the cruise turn signal lever and installed a standard reproduction lever along with another set of 71 H&H lower dash wood grain since these photos were taken.
A while back, I made a thread about adding a 1/8" audio jack to a stock radio. https://classicoldsmobile.com/forums...-radio-161300/
If you missed it, here are photos of the converted radio and harnesses as well as the jack mounted in the console. I also found plugs for the console compartment light and switch since I converted the console from an auto to a 4 speed.
The previous owner bought the car for the interior and stripped out almost everything. About the only things in the interior when I got the car were the door panels (no front or rear arm rests, window cranks, etc.), the headliner, and some of the seat belts. Since 2014 I have been slowly gathering parts as I found them. I was lucky to find a decent pair of rear black arm rests. The vinyl cleaned up nice enough to re-use and I repainted the upper metal filler panels. I also found a pretty nice set of original rear ashtrays. I sprayed the original front arm rest pads and bases from my vista cruiser black as it now has custom arm rests on all four doors. The original black door panels cleaned up nicely. I added new carpet sections to the bottom and I was able to add the power window and door lock switches to them. The power window switches go in the same location as the original window crank openings, so I just had to enlarge the holes to add the switches. I also removed the "S" emblems to install the rocket emblems that a 71 442 would have. The chrome moldings are pealing a little and the wood grain is the 72 pattern, but they will do for a driver.
I found a factory pattern online to remove a section of the lower A/C vent to add the 8-track. I just played with the size while printing it until it was a good fit over the piece and then removed the section where the 8-track sits.
Here are some photos of the nearly finished interior minus the seats and a few other detail items.
Checking OPGI's website a few weeks ago, they actually had 1 set of black front seat covers in stock. The rear seat covers look like they will not be here for another few months, but I was able to get the front covers and a new set of seat foam from eBay. I have a lot of pairs of bucket seats in my parts stash (probably more than a dozen pairs) but they are pretty much all 66 and 67. I found a solid pair of 69-72 seats for this car years ago at Carlisle, but I needed the seat backs for my vista cruiser. I combined them with a 67 strato-bench to be able to use the correct head rests in that car. After I stole the seat backs I planned to use, I found a very rough set of seats at Hershey for like $30. I ended up using the bottoms from the Carlisle seats, a small portion of the Hershey seats and a pair of seat backs from a 69-72 Cadillac strato-bench seat to make the seats for this car.
"Carlisle" seat bottoms. 1 usable headrest from "Carlisle" seats and 1 usable headrest from "Hershey" seats.
This set still had part of a build sheet, but it was not readable. The covers were made by someone, so I don't know what they were out of originally.
Here are the "Hershey" seats. They are really rough, but i thought I would be able to salvage the seat back frames. I was wrong.
And finally, one of the Cadillac strato-bench seat backs.
Last edited by Loaded68W34; March 5th, 2022 at 06:45 PM.
The reason I did not use the Cadillac seat backs from the start is that the top of the seat frame has a totally different shape than any other seat I have ever seen. The inner hinges are also different because they were on a strato-bench but I have a lot of seat parts so changing them out was not an issue.
My solution to this problem was to use the area above the "slots" from the "Hershey" seats. I just needed to get the right shape and correct area to mount the headrests.
With the shape corrected, I had to weld on the correct hinges. You can see the old inner hinges I took off in these pics
Finished seat back frame
Last edited by Loaded68W34; March 5th, 2022 at 07:02 PM.
Side note. Any one who is looking for a set of those cadillac style headrest, I still have them with the top portion of the seat frame, headrest tubes, and locks/ bezels.
I restored the power track for the driver seat a while back.
I have a lot of power seat tracks in my parts stash but I only have one really nice set of original plastic side pieces. I used these to draw up a pattern in auto cad and cut out some new ones with a laser engraver using textured ABS. The smaller shapes in the image are the carpet protectors that bolt on over the rear seat track feet. These were originally textured metal, but I cut them out of the thin textured ABS as well.
After using a heat strip to bend them here is the final result. The originals are on the outside. You can see the bends are a little too sharp on the new ones but they look pretty decent installed.
Last edited by Loaded68W34; March 5th, 2022 at 07:56 PM.
Lastly, the drver seat installed in the car. I still have to clean up the plastic seat back but I wanted to make sure the power seat back release was working correctly before installing the back and chrome release button.
I still have to finish assembly on the passenger seat and then I will probably move on to suspension work as just about every bushing in the front end is totally gone.
Last edited by Loaded68W34; March 5th, 2022 at 07:39 PM.
Thanks for the compliments guys. This will be the first 4 speed car I have had on the road in over a decade so I am really looking forward to driving it.
Funny/ironic…previous owner buys car for interior, you spend countless hours and time and dollars to get/make/install interior!
it looks great!
my car had almost no interior wheni got it! I got lucky and was able to purchase most everything i needed in good shape on cl from a guy w a stalled resto.
That's going to be a high option car and clean as new.
What did you use for a heater core (referencing back to posts a year ago)?
That bucket will have power tracks and power seatback release? Does that mean power locks too? I can't remember what requires what with that setup.
I used a reproduction aluminum heater core. The original heater core in this car let loose and caused quite a bit of damage to the inside heater/ AC box. I used the best parts from my vista cruiser box and the hardtop box. The vista cruiser heater core was still in good working condition when I took it off, but I learned long ago never put an old heater core back it regardless of how it looks. I finished my 66 Chevelle convertible in 2005 using an original heater core. In 2008 I was driving the car and coolant started rushing into the passenger front floor pan. Never again - always install a new heater core.
The power seat back releases were only available with power locks. I am not sure why because they operate independently. I did add both power seat backs and power locks though.
The car originally had power drum brakes, power steering, A/C, bucket seats w/ auto console, and sport mirrors. I know others on here do not necessarily feel the same way, but I personally love original options. I enjoy restoring them/ getting the to work. I enjoy the challenges installing them can bring. And I enjoy using them once the car is on the road. One of the main reasons I ended up buying and restoring my Toronado is because of all the options it came with. I have been buying parts and options for this car since I got it in 2014. It now has power disc brakes, power steering, A/C, power windows, power locks, power seat back releases, power seat tracks, tilt column, rear defrost, AM/FM stereo with 8-track, power trunk release, safety sentinel speedometer, tic toc tach with rally pack, hood lock, sport wheel, sport mirrors, and possibly some other stuff that I am forgetting. These along with the Thornton OAI hood/ original air cleaner set up and w30 parts mean it will probably be worth more in parts when it is finished than as a complete car.
Last edited by Loaded68W34; March 6th, 2022 at 08:50 AM.
Funny/ironic…previous owner buys car for interior, you spend countless hours and time and dollars to get/make/install interior!
it looks great!
This is where time and patience can really pay off. Other than the new stuff I would have replaced anyway (seat covers, carpet, bezels, wood grain, etc.) I only bought stuff as I found it if I could get it for a good price over the past 8 years. I did end up paying more than I wanted for the hood, but it was still slightly less than the cost of a hood directly from Thornton (the guy bought it and then needed a hood with 2" taller scoops to clear his intake).
The power seat back releases were only available with power locks. I am not sure why because they operate independently. I did add both power seat backs and power locks though.
The car originally had power drum brakes, power steering, A/C, bucket seats w/ auto console, and sport mirrors. I know others on here do not necessarily feel the same way, but I personally love original options. I enjoy restoring them/ getting the to work. I enjoy the challenges installing them can bring. And I enjoy using them once the car is on the road. One of the main reasons I ended up buying and restoring my Toronado is because of all the options it came with. I have been buying parts and options for this car since I got it in 2014. It now has power disc brakes, power steering, A/C, power windows, power locks, power seat back releases, power seat tracks, tilt column, rear defrost, AM/FM stereo with 8-track, power trunk release, safety sentinel speedometer, tic toc tach with rally pack, hood lock, sport wheel, sport mirrors, and possibly some other stuff that I am forgetting. These along with the Thornton OAI hood/ original air cleaner set up and w30 parts mean it will probably be worth more in parts when it is finished than as a complete car.
I'm with you, I'm a sucker for options. My '71 VC came with most options, but will be adding oem not repro gauges, speed minder (yes, technically not available in '71), night watch (making it compatible with the gauges and maybe even making into a true Twilight Sentinel), and demand wiper. LIke you, I've been collecting original parts for these options.
Really like your work on the seat frames! I too had a '69 Eldo Strato bench seat that once I figured out the top was different, sold it and got a '69 Toro Strato Bench. I have parts to make it into a passenger recliner option. That will be going in as well. I have the seat back release parts as well, but they're not compatible with the recliner option.
January 26th, 2021, 05:13 PM
