I know it is not a Plymouth and not even a 59 but I want to show my wife’s new old car to the rest of the world. We just bought her last night and she is a beautiful 1958 Pontiac Chieftain. The car is all original, even the paint is from 1958! The body is solid as a rock and most of the chrome looks great. The engine and other mechanical parts will have to prove their reliability in the near future, the car hasn’t been driven for almost 4 years. So she probably needs some preparation before she can try to keep up with the Sport Fury
that’s a real nice indian! don’t see to many of them, looks like u found an exceptionally solid one too. hope the drivetrain is as nice as the rest of the car. btw, what tranny does it have? powerglide or three on the tree? --j
We will find out about the drivetrain soon I hope! The car will be here wednesdaynight on a trailer, it hasn’t been driven in more than three years and I am a little afraid to start her for the first time. Any tips on what to do and also tips on what we absolutely shouldn’t do are welcome!
It’s not a three on the tree car but I don’t know if it is a powerglide. it is an automatic for sure, I know torqueflite’s and powerflite’s but I do not know a lot about Pontiac’s Soon enough I will have to learn “Pontiac” though. Have been looking for a nice and friendly 1958 Pontiac forum but so far I haven’t found one.
I guess it will be unregistered for a while too Somebody told me how much work it is to keep a website up to date and I already have a hard time keeping up with this forum. And besides I think those GM owners aren’t as nice as the Mopar guys
Easy way to tell what trans it has, on the shifter quadrant if its a powerglide it will read PRNDL but if its a Turboglide it will be PRNDGr, the Gr standing for “grade retard”
Being that that car is a US Pontiac, (Canadian ones were Chevs with a smaller Pontiac body) it may read PNDLR or PNDGrR …
It is a US car, as far as I know it was built in San Diego. Probably was in San Diego until it came to the Netherlands in 1999. My wife is the second owner in the Netherlands and we have the paperwork from the last owner in the US. He owned the car from 1982 until 1999 and kept all bills with the car. A search with Yahoo people finder gave me his current address and phone number and he will get a call from me soon.
The trans is a Hydramatic I guess, the picture of the dash shows no Gr. as you can see in the picture.
Yeah it is a hydramatic, powerglides and turboglides were 2 speeds, that one is a 3 speed.
In those days US Pontiacs were a bigger and fancier car than Canadian ones, which as i said earlier were essentially Chevs with Pontiac sheet metal.very similar to what we called a Plodge which was a Plymouth with a Dodge front end.
Dont know why they did stuff like that in those days either!
That is one of the first websites I found on the web. He sure has some great classic cars! And he seems to know a lot about the Pontiac, and fortunately I have a friend who has a 58 Pontiac Starchief in excellent condition. The only problem with his car is that he lost oil pressure last fall due to a sloppy repair job. His engine seized and was rebuilt during the winter, total cost exceded 11.000 euro so far and it still isn’t running perfect But he will be a big help for me since he knows the car inside and out. Oh btw he is also a nice GM guy and so is my son Dennis who is the owner of a 1958 Oldsmobile 88. His car is shown on his website www.oldsmobile1958.com
We picked up the car last Wednesday with a trailer and took her home. Then Thursday we tried to get the engine running, first thing to do was replace the battery. After a quick check of all fluids we disconnected the power from the distributor and made the engine turn a bit to get the oil through the engine. Fuel was everywhere because the line was broken just in front of the fuel filter. Replaced the fuel line and decided to start the engine and it started right away and immediately ran beautiful
There are some minor problems that we have to take care of, the exhaust leaks a bit between the manifold and the pipe (no gasket?), the parking brake on the right side doesn’t work well, we need an electrical wiper set up and that’s about it. When these things are done we can have the car tested and drive it legally. Of course we didn’t wait for the test and took her out to the car show last Monday
hope the drivetrain is as nice as the rest of the car. btw, what tranny does it have? powerglide or three on the tree? --j
But he will be a big help for me since he knows the car inside and out. Oh btw he is also a nice GM guy 
