FRIENDS RESTORING ’61 PONTIAC
Fourteen-year-old girls gain valuable experience restoring vintage Parisienne
Jasmine Sweet and Sarah Wilkinson have been friends since Grade 5. Now in Grade 9, the Vancouver French-language school students love to do things together. So when Jasmine told her friend she was going to restore a 1961 Pontiac Parisienne sedan, Sarah was in.
The work to completely disassemble the car began last December in Jasmine’s father’s shop.
Ted Sweet, a licensed mechanic and motorcycle technician, operates Essential Motorcycle Services in South Vancouver, a full motorcycle service and mechanical shop equipped with almost every tool imaginable.
At the age of 14, the girls are learning mechanics and the use of tools from Ted, who advises them how to do things but insists they do it themselves.
So why a 1961 Pontiac?
“I grew up with the Pontiac my dad restored,” Jasmine says referring to the modified 1961 Pontiac four-door hardtop that has been in her family for years.
“I always thought it was super cool. Whenever I rode in the car, I asked questions about how things work like the carburetor and other parts.”
When Ted bought a second 1961 Pontiac and Jasmine saw it sitting beside his original, she said she wanted to make it her own car to restore.
She already had her own Kawasaki Ninja 250 motorcycle she is learning to repair.
The second 1961 Pontiac was acquired in Port Alberni on Vancouver Island for $1,800. The owner drove it to Vancouver as part of the sale. The car was subsequently brought into the motorcycle shop for restoration.
When Sarah learned about her friend’s plans to restore the car, she became interested.
“Jas wanted me to look at the car and, when I started working on it, I loved it.”
The girls work on the car every Tuesday after school and, in the past four months, have taken it completely apart themselves, marking and bagging all the parts for easy reassembly. They are now at the point of lifting the body off the frame.
“I’m really proud of the girls and what they have accomplished,” Ted says in his panelled shop with old-time wooden plank floors that looks more like a clubhouse than a motorcycle repair shop.
He has taught them how to use tools to systematically disassemble the car and even how to take the windshield out.
“We learned that the windshield is very fragile — but we didn’t break it,” Jasmine says proudly.
The disassembly of the car shows what 57 years of exposure to the West Coast elements does to a car body.
“There is so much rust,” Jasmine says, looking at the huge holes in the floor.
Still, the girls are committed to bringing the old Pontiac back to original condition, painting it the maroon colour applied at the General Motors Canada factory in Oshawa, Ont., and reupholstering the car with the correct maroon and white material.
The girls fabricated and welded in the bracing necessary to stabilize the body when it is lifted off the frame. Both girls weld, but Sarah has really taken to it.
“I’ve been welding for thirty years and I’m still not very good,” Ted says. “But Sarah has a natural talent for welding.”
Sarah’s parents, Dave and Carole, are very supportive.
“This is not an experience Sarah could get from our family. It’s teaching her practical and life skills that are invaluable,” Dave says.
Jasmine’s mother Angella Bedard, who has been riding and fixing motorcycles since she was 20, is also very supportive of her daughter’s interest in mechanics.
Both girls say this experience is teaching them how cars work and how all the pieces fit together.
“I want to be able to fix it myself,” Jasmine says, adding she plans to spend much of her summer working in her father’s shop to pay for the car.
The girls have documented the progress through a series of pictures that will prove helpful as the car goes back together.
The next step is to sandblast the body and frame before the job of welding in new metal begins. Future birthday presents may involve parts for the car.
The girls plan to share the car once it’s completed.
“It’s going to be our car,” Jasmine says. “We’re looking forward to cruising the beach at White Rock and we will absolutely take a road trip together.”
Interested in how the restoration progresses is Jasmine’s 13-year-old sister Rowen. She wanted her own car so dad bought a barn-find 1935 Oldsmobile Eight in Quebec that will be shipped to Vancouver later this spring. That restoration will have to wait until the 1961 Pontiac is back on the road.
Ted plans to oversee the restoration until it is completely done.
“That sense of accomplishment is something you can’t buy or rent; it only comes from within when you finish your project,” Ted says. “If two teenage girls can restore a car, you have to wonder why other people can’t do it.”
For weekly progress reports, go to Jasmine and Sarah’s Pontiac Build on Facebook.