Website Profile: Jims59.com

Here's a place to spend your coffee break. Or maybe an entire afternoon! Jims59.com outlines - in tremendous detail - the restoration of a low-mile `59 Impala that had been stored for 35 years. The restoration photos include many shots of the car in various states of assembly; Jim also discusses methodically what type of work needed to be done to each corner and each panel. The car was so nice that he ended up only repainting the blue portion of the car; the white paint was perfect. This section of the website can be used by `59 enthusiast to see exactly what their own `59 might look like underneath the grit and grime. This car is beautiful!

Aside from the restoration, Jims59.com also provides some vintage photos of `59s going back 25+ years. Also a nice feature to the site is his section on Vintage Schwinn Bicycles. Make sure to stop by his site today and check it out!

KDC

The Practice Classic

Recently I got an email from a younger car lover looking for help. "Just wondering if you'd lend a helping hand and push me in the right direction," is what he wrote.

"I have always loved every bit of detail and beauty in the '59 Chevrolet Impala. I'm not much of a car buff or car maniac, but when it comes to the '59 you could talk to me for days and I wouldn't lose interest. ...After a while I would definitely love (and plan to) buy and restore a '59 Though I've still got plenty of time before this happens...In the meantime I'd like to study up on car restoration and anything else that could help. ...I'd like to ask for any words of wisdom, advice, tips, or resources (besides your site haha). I'm somewhat of a beginner when it comes to cars as I have only done minor checks and replacements (brakes pads, rotors...) so any suggestion will be well accepted."

Well I can't blame him for liking the `59. It's one of a kind. His email led me to believe that maybe some folks should consider buying what I call "The Practice Classic." A car from the 1960s would be a good place to start in your training towards restoring a `59. Some are more forgiving than others - six-cylinder cars and four doors - because they're often not totally trashed even at 40+ years old. Having a driver like that gives people the opportunity to polish up on old-school maintenance skills - tune ups, water pump replacement, front end rebuild etc. - and maybe even a bit of body work. It allows people to cut their teeth on an old car for which the parts are plentiful and simple to replace; this can help you later, as the car projects become more complicated (and they will...believe me). Good candidates for a Practice Classic would be any Slant-Six powered Chrysler product from the Sixties, or even a a 1967 Cadillac Sedan Deville.

Searching for a `59 Chevy currently is fairly easy, although with each passing year it becomes tougher to find good ones that aren't expensive or beat up. Craigslist is a good source, as well as Collector Car Trader. Hemmings Motor News also has comprehensive nationally-based classifieds. One of my Biscayne's suspension parts came from Montana, thanks to Hemmings. If a person doesn't have an affinity to four-doors, a Practice Classic like the `59 Chev four-door sedan is also cost-effective and usually in better shape. Biscaynes and Bel Airs can still be found functional in the mid four-digit range, with non-running projects costing quite a bit less (beware of RUST...it's deadly on `59s and took most of them out by the end of the 1960s. It's a miracle there are any left today). Hardtops? They are getting out of the grasp of regular folks in my opinion, even the four-door hardtop "Sports Sedans" are getting pricey. The project cars are out there, and most need a lot of love. And Convertibles? Yes, they exist for a price or a project; scrap ones now start in the five-digits, and I've seen some so rusty that they're falling in on themselves from rot. Funny development for a car one could barely give away in 1980.

My thought is that a `59 four door is a good "way in" to your dream. A person's relationship with a car like that can become lifelong if it proves to be dependable and fun; or it can function as a "filler `59" until such time that the desired model is found. Either way, it's hard to go wrong with a car that is getting more and more popular on the street as the years go on.

Where have all the `59s gone?

When I go to car shows, I see many beautiful `55 to `57 Chevys. Don't get me wrong...I like them nearly as much as the next guy! The lines are clean, the cars are well proportioned, and parts are readily available. But for every fifteen or twenty Chevys I see from "The Hot One" era, I will see ONE `59 Chevy - if I'm lucky.

So where the heck did they all go?

There were over a million of these cars made in 1959, 1.4 million to be more exact; given those numbers, a person should see a lot of them. Even in the seventies I remember seeing them surfing the streets of North Seattle. But unlike the `55 to `57 cars, the`59s didn't survive. A while back a friend of mine picked up TWO `57 Chevys for $600. Try finding TWO `59 Chevys anywhere...well, okay I had two in my driveway at a one time.

But the point is this. Old tin is still out there, as long as it's a `55 to `57 Chevy!

Here's my speculation regarding the `59 survival rate:

1. Look at all the compound curves. What do you see? I see lots of places where dirt, road salt, and grungus can get stuck. The front and rear valances will rot easily, as well as any spot where metal bolts to metal. A very famous place for that is at the headlights; road grit gets thrown up on the back of the headlight buckets, where it gets stuck between the bucket and a panel. My wife's `59 Impala was so bad in that area that it wouldn't hold headlights IN anymore!
2. It is possible that the `59 Chevy (and to a degree the `58 as well) are victims of `57 popularity. When most people think of a classic car, the two that come up in conversation most are an early Mustang or a `57 Chevy. With such demand and such a following, it's no wonder that my friend was able to extract TWO out of a field at the same time. In my formative years,`58 and `59 Chevys were considered less desirable alternatives to the `57 and were thusly thrown away.

Now here's the cold hard truth: A website visitor wrote to say that he saw countless `59s in wrecking yards during the late 1960s. The enticing curves attracted more than longing gazes from pre-soccer Soccer Moms; those curves also invited rust, something most `59 owners will attest to with little arm-twisting. Call a wrecking yard sometime to find a solid headlight bucket for a `59; the ones that remain now all look like swiss cheese. So you can see that - sadly enough - these cars started rusting out early and eventually became part of the earth once more.

Given the unfortunate passage of time that can melt a `59 into rot, we should be thankful that even a handful of these car exist today! Now it's time for each of us to do our American duty and Restore One! A restorer friend once wrote "Do the hobby a favor: Restore or preserve a classic car, build a Hot Rod, ride a Harley Davidson or do something that adds to your life and soul."

KDC

Originally written October 13, 2001, edited and updated for this blog