The object on this build: Street Machine, ground-pounder for weekend use and complete restoration.

Our customer purchased the car 1 year old in 1975. Everything is original, including the 455 under the hood.

The engine is a 2-bolt block, so we have recommended no more than 550HP and will have to go with aftermarket heads to reach that.

Car gets stripped.

The car gets put on the twirler, and glass beading begins.

Panel patching.

A/C removal

Chemical Stripping

The owner said he bought the car a year old in 1975,.. but we found it had been in a major collision and received dealership-style repair work as a newborn. In addition, once we were to the steel, we found previous repair from another accident.

Fenders after repair and priming.

Finally the color added! 1974 Pontiac Admiralty Blue. I kept the color code to use later, its just that awesome.

Preparing, priming and painting the inner fender wells.

Core support painted, and transmission prepped and primed, ready for custom paint.

Here you see the wiper assembly and power brake assembly completely restored. Last photo shows the fender flares prepped for paint.

The customer wanted to keep the rear drum brakes, so we added the factory drums to the Dana 60 rear end and completely restored them.

Drum brakes? Hmm, where's that liability waiver...?

Rear spoiler painted and installed, and front end body assembled.

The rectangular fuel cell wouldn't fit in the trunk correctly due to the odd shape of the 74 trunk. We removed the original trunk and replaced it with a 1970 trunk pan that was squared symmetrical and allowed fuel cell fitment.

Continued work on the trunk pan installation.

Now the fuel cell fits.

Back to the engine. Indian took our $15k and ran. It took another 6 months of machine work to finish the block machining that was not done or incorrect, not to mention all of the wrong or missing parts from our order.

End result is an engine in long block form that took more than $20,000 and over a year and a half of build time. If it was easy, everyone would do it.

Finally the wait is over. The engine is assembled and ready for a test run. The pipes are from Doug's Headers.

More shots of the 505 painted.

Don't worry, the engine comes with a gremlin that lives in your engine bay and does nothing but keep the block clean.

Scattershield painted and installed, time to put the driveline in the car.

Custom brackets were fabricated to keep the pulleys symmetrical and to insure they use the same size / style belt.

Tank brackets made, painless harness installed, and starting to wire the engine.

Most people will agree that the 1974 TA is not the most attractive.

The customer has requested that we retrofit a 1973 front end on the car. The hardest part is getting all of the correct brackets, and a few custom made mounting points.

Dynamat added to the interior for superior sound suppression and insulation.

Trunk painted, engine wiring started and dynamat finished.

Ignition installed. This will be hidden inside the fender and not visible.

The plug wires are hidden, wiring is routed through the frame and the coil is hidden behind the engine. We wanted the engine bay to look clean, and it will. The only thing mounted on the firewall should be the wiper motor.

Here are some images showing the evolution of the artwork for the car. The first shot is what this decal looked like stock. We won't be using a decal, we want it painted, and want to add alittle flavor.

The customer couldn't decide on what would look better with this color scheme, an Admiralty Blue shaker or a Pearl White shaker... so he did both.

Shaker scoops are alot like hats, one to match each pair of shoes....

Time for the custom paintwork.

Here we are cutting the car down for the detail work and a complete reclear afterwards.

We started with a custom stencil to use for masking certain areas. The end result will be a very multi-layered assortment of custom colors, so correct masking is very important.

We removed the areas where we wanted to start and applied the base.

Here is the finished Phoenix. You can see the way the color rolls as you move around it.

Now its time for flames.

The client had some special requests when it came to the verbage on the body. I like his style.

We painted everything to look identical to the original decals in style and layout with our mixture of paint.

And the other side.....

OK, quit guessing. It stands for:
Vast Right Wing Conspiracy

I really like his style.....

And the last thing you see as the Firebird from Hell roars past and blasts out of sight...

It is a wonderful thing.

Dash, column and radio installed

Not to mention a dozen special switches. The crap they put in cars after 1970.... wow. Still missing a few things for the column.

Everything seems to be going together well. It is a very sharp looking car.

Next step is cutting and polishing before we move into final assembly.

The headliner is installed as well as all of the bordering interior panels to hold it in place.

On the glovebox door we had to make a block off plate as you can see since we removed the a/c.

The last shot is of the ashtray finished and installed.

I couldn't stand the plain look of the original door panels. I really wanted to do something different. I wanted to carry the engine turned effects on the original dash into a theme we could use throughout the interior.

Instead of the original panels we opted for custom made.

This allowed us the opportunity to improve his stereo system and tie into the engine turned theme as well. The center inset panel is an engine turned aluminum piece just like the dash.

The car originally had an 8-track player installed. As the customer only had one Iron Butterfly 8-track left in his possession, it didn't seem worth trying to restore the unit.

He also wanted additional gauges to monitor other readings on his now fire-breathing fire-chicken, so this seemed an appropriate location.

Here is the finished assembly being test fit. The gauges he added were for fuel pressure, Trans temp, oil temp and vacuum.

We used the same engine turned aluminum treatment as in the dash and door panels.

Installation of the shaker assembly.

You cant install the original shaker setup on the intake we used, so we used a custom shaker assembly.

Not sure which air cleaner he would want to start with, I flipped a coin and blue won.

Now we turn our attention to the seats. We used a Classic Industries set this time. First you can see the upholstery kit, as well as the reproduction foam.

I started with the back seat Tore the old covers off and finished the back in short order.

Rear seat and interior panel installation.

Its difficult to see, but we also installed a custom package tray with hidden 6x9 speakers and a hidden compartment for storage.

Its almost time for the unveiling at the World of Wheels AutoRama. Up until now, the customer has seen photos and the incomplete car but this show will be our opportunity to present the car to the customer as a finished product for inspection.

Step 1: give it a bath

Here are the photos of the car on display with others of our in our booth at the Houston AutoRama.

Enjoy.

The car was well received at the show, and more importantly for us, by our customer. He spent most of the weekend at the show with us going over the car and was very pleased.

Now we just need to get the final details finished so it can look pretty in his garage instead of ours.

Final assembly nearly completed, we cleaned the car for inspection. Waiting now on only 2 or 3 slow to arrive detail pieces for delivery.

The rear bumper currently on the car is a temporary bumper. We have a custom one-off fiberglass bumper that requires some finishing that will be installed later.