Clint drove this 1952 Pontiac Chieftain from Winnabow, North Carolina to Southport, North Carolina on May 2, 2009. The fifty-seven year old automobile was on display during the Cape Fear Cruisers Annual Show. Clint was accompanied by his young son who was standing on the front seat sawing back and forth on the steering wheel, much like a sea captain at the helm of his ship. The young navigator is the Great-Great-Grandson of the lady who bought it in 1955.
Clint explained, while his son continued his cruise, “It’s been in the family since 1955. It belonged to my Great-Grandmother, which my Grandfather sold her the car. He had a Pontiac Dealership in Alabama and sold it to my Great-Grandmother.”
Clint’s Grandfather owned Love Pontiac, a dealership located at 2321 Cogswell Avenue in Pell City, Alabama.
“In 1973 my Dad got the car and it sat in a barn for a while and deteriorated,” Clint said. Clint’s Dad, Rick brought the Pontiac from Alabama to Winnabow, North Carolina in the early ‘90s and restored the Chieftain to the condition shown in the picture. The Pontiac still has the original straight-eight engine, three on the tree, original carburetor setup with oil bath filter, and glass washer bottle.
“It took a good fifteen years,” Clint said of the restoration. “Piddling here, piddling there, because we tried to do everything our selves. We did everything ourselves, except for the paint,” Clint proudly stated.
Rick and Clint had the car painted and sent the chrome off to Fayetteville, North Carolina. But the father and son team tackled the rest. “Everything else was done at home. All the mechanical work was done at home. It’s all original, we hadn’t modified anything,” exclaimed Clint.
Restoring the Pontiac without losing the character and personality was the objective. “That was the goal. To keep it the way it was when it rolled off. This is the original color, this two-tone blue. This is what it looked like when it came out the showroom,” Clint declared.
“We had to get several after market emblems but everything you see here is pretty much original. The floorboards were rotted through, so we put some new sheet metal in. Some of the chrome was too pitted up to restore. Most of it’s original. Some pieces were reworked and some pieces are new. But we’ve gone back as much original as we can,” continued Clint.
Clint walked back to the trunk to show the case his Father Rick had made to display some vintage pieces. “This is the original Owner’s Manual and GM parts boxes,” said Clint. The display also included a yard stick from his Grandfather’s dealership in Alabama and some photos of the ’52 before restoration.
While looking at the trunk Clint recalled. “We have the original spare tire. It’s not steel belted and it was in here for a long time but we took it out because driving the car as much as we do, we wanted to have a real spare tire that we could actually use.”
When asked about comfort, Clint replied, “It rides like you’re floating on a pillow, it’s the best ride. You could put 7 or 8 people in there and ride to town in it and not have any fear at all.”
Clint, his wife and son, and Clint’s father Rick, enjoy taking the Pontiac to about a dozen car shows throughout the year when they get the chance.
Classics Feature – 1952 Pontiac Chieftain – Clint resides in Winnabow, North Carolina. Pictures were taken May 2, 2009 at the Cape Fear Cruisers Spring Show in Southport, North Carolina.
