1958 Pontiac Pathfinder Sedan Delivery
March 11 2018, Sidney BC - I saw this car parked about a mile away up the Lochside Waterfront Park. I could tell by the color and shape it was a 50s station wagon - I picked up the pace so I didn't miss the chance to check out. A few hundred paces away I noticed the car was starting to look familiar - I'd seen one like that before. This was shaping up to be a rare sighting of a rare Canadian-built car.
GM discontinued building Pontiac sedan deliveries after 1953 in the USA - they kept building in Canada in limited numbers using Chevrolet running gear until 1958. Ultimately this near duplicate model to a Chevrolet sedan delivery would not really increase total unit sales for GM - only 402 1958 Pontiac were built in this body style. I've heard that only 48 left the factory with a Chevrolet 283 V8 - all others with 261 cid straight 6. It costs a lot to design each particular model - to tool up for only a few hundred thousand cars probably was not that profitable, but that production number officially qualifies this one as very rare in the automotive world.
The survival rate for sedan deliveries is probably the lowest among body styles. The Delivery part of the name says it all - these half-van half-cars were runabouts abused to deliver goods around town. They were made to drive into the ground doing their job. With no back windows (or seats), deliveries don't make good family cars - the long term market was pretty narrow for the body style.
Why was this car so familiar? Because I dragged one home nearly 20 years ago, with great plans of making new again:
Underneath the layers of brown paint, rust and moss lies the same Seaforth Green paint as on our feature car. Annual visits to the acreage hiding spot were consumed with poring over all the work that needed to be done - all the time and money that needed to be spent. Sitting outside through four seasons for decades, the project grew more ominous by the year. I bought roof rack, missing pieces and a sedan parts car to replace the front clip, and upgrade the 6 engine to a model year correct V8 (3 on the tree). Almost enough objects to bring it back alive. Given numerous other project cars on hand with an easier path to perfection, we grudgingly gave up on this particular dream a few months ago. Handed off to a more talented fixer-upper dreamer.
Stumbling upon a complete and perfected version of the same car on a walkabout was thus a happy experience. The history of these two cars couldn't have been more different since leaving the factory, though. Geography has a significant bearing on how a car turns out in the end. Vancouver Island has probably the nicest year-round weather of any place in all of Canada, and cars live a much better life as result. The feature car was sold new in Victoria BC, so was pre-destined for a softer life than its prairie cousins or eastern.
John Buck bought his car 42 years ago from the original owner, and recently refinished to the beautiful condition enjoyed today. Wet climates are bad for cars too - John needed 150 hours to replace metal - door skins, rockers, panels and such. He belongs to his own car club - Lone Wolf, with 4 Bucks as members if you count the wife and kids. We bet he doesn't get much Lone Wolf time driving this car around though, with folks like me attracted like moths to bright shiny objects.
by Randy Berg