Father/son team returns Pontiac to better than new
Ron and John Bergland are a father and son duo from Fresno, with a passion for restoring classic American cars. Together they have restored a 1928 Model A Roadster and several other Pontiacs from their joint collection.
The Pontiac 2+2 for 1964 and 1965 was sold as either a Catalina hardtop or a convertible with a 2+2 option. This bought you a 421 with four barrel, backed by a 3-speed manual transmission and a 3.42 geared rear end. The interior came with bucket seats, special door panels and badges. From there, the buyer could add more performance options, such as tri-power, long branch exhaust, 4-speed or turbo 400 auto transmission and lower-geared rear ends.
For ’66 and ’67, the 2+2 became a model whose run was short lived. This 2+2 is one of 5,000 4-speed cars out of the total run of 11,000 units for 1965.
When people ask what 2+2 means, I don’t have a cool muscle car metaphor for them, but rather something a little twisted. Back in the day, Pontiac was giving Ferrari a marketing jab by naming its full size muscle car the same as Ferrari’s own 2+2, basically stealing the name.
I first ran across the 2+2 in 1992 at Jay’s Diesel Repair in Fresno. The car had been wrecked in 1969. It had a bent frame and the transmission input shaft was broken off inside the bell housing. The engine was missing, but Jay knew it was around the shop somewhere, and after a short search, we found it in a corner.
It was all original and complete from carb to pan, with the brackets and accessories as well. The rear end was in the car, but the interior had been picked over. The seats and console were missing, as well as the wheels and tachometer. The steering wheel was badly bent, and the story that Jay told was that the original owner had died in the accident and the car had sat ever since.
It was in such bad shape that we didn’t take the project on until 20 years later.
When my dad and I finally started this restoration, we sent for the car’s build history from the Pontiac Historical Society. It was ordered with a 4-speed transmission with console, tachometer and eight lug wheels. It came with starlight black paint with a red pinstripe and black interior. We noticed that it
didn’t come with power brakes or steering, which may have been part of its early demise.
We started with a Catalina hardtop donor car with a straight frame and body shell. Every part of the big Pontiac was sandblasted and painted, or powder coated, from the frame and chassis parts to the body shell and seat springs.
We added quite a few more factory options as well. These included a tilt steering column, sport steering wheel, rally gauges, front and rear speakers, power antenna, rear defroster, trunk light, special dome lights, four core radiator and of course tri-power with long branch exhaust manifolds.
Many NOS parts were used as well. The project took us four years to finish. Now the 2+2 is totally rust free and looks better than new.
This project has been a pleasure from start to finish, and we feel it is some of the nicest work we have done as a father/son team. The 2+2 turned out far better than either of us expected, and now it looks and drives great.
My dad and I have always worked well together. We have a similar vision and we play off of each other’s strengths. Working together on many different cars over the years we’ve learned that projects come and go, but the relationships you build along the way last forever.