Betty - Jun 4, 2008

Saturday 5/31/08 I bought a 1955 Cadillac 62 Sedan who will now be known as Betty. Black Betty to be exact, like the Old Ledbelly song that turned into the cheesy Ramjam song that turned into the great cover by Spiderbait in its most recent incarnation. She's primer black with a candy metallic green roof & just oozing style. The drivetrain is all original & the interior is extremely tired, but she runs great & floats own the road like a caddy should. I'm not going to be undertaking a major build here, just a few minor things I want to do to her really. Here's a preliminary list, should be fun to see how this changes over time.

1) Seat Belts. 3 points front & rear would be ideal. There are no belts right now, and I don't like the idea of sliding across a giant bench seat and away from the steering wheel if I have to swerve to avoid a child chasing a ball into the road. I prefer to be strapped in where I can control the car. 3 points are needed because my girlfriend & parents refuse to ride with lap belts for fear of being dissembowled.

2) Paint. The black & green is a beautiful look, but I worry about how primer will fend off the elements, even if its epoxy based. I'm trying to find out from the previous owner what kind of primer he used so I can find out what needs to be done. If its a good sealer primer then I've got some time, but if not I need to get it into a paint shop right away to preserve the ridiculously rust free body. I'll do a suede black and leave the roof metallic green if paint is in order.

3) Pinstripes. Just gotta find a good striper, I'm going to have some accent striping done on the fenders, trunk, & door pillars to tie the body into that bright friggin roof a bit more.

4) Flame Throwers. Unless someone knows of a really good reason not to do it, like risk factor with the gas cap located 2 feet above the exhaust pipe, I'm going to rig up a couple spark plugs in the tailpipes to burn up leftover fuel. That's always been one of my favorite rodding tricks and the '55 caddy bumper was MADE for flamethrowers, no doubt.

5) Interior. This is the biggy, not sure how over my head I'll get on this one. As I mentioned, the seat belts are a top priority. After that, everything right now is blue from the original color of the car. It has dark blue vinyl seat covers over the original 2 tone blue upholstery, a cracked blue dash and steering wheel, and no door panels. I'd like to paint the metal bits of the dash & doors in the same green as the roof, build some custom door panels with black surrounding a white tuck & roll insert, get some black & white seat covers, black dash pad, fill the steering wheel cracks with an epoxy resin & then dye the whole thing black or 2 toned black & grey maybe. The headliner is ripped & discolored, haven't decided what I'll be doing with that yet. For now I'll just leave it, but I might end up pulling it out and seeing how annoying a metal roof is. Who knows.

So yeah, thats basically the plan. Here are some pictures as she stands today.