Restoration project: sr. 75 Fleetwood Imperial Sedan from 1955

[jkadlubek]

My name is Jürgen and I ´am  from beautiful Burscheid in Germany.

Restoring classic cars is my hobby and after a few other restoration projects, I'm now taking on an US car for the first time.
Namely a 1955 Cadillac Srs.75 Fleetwood Imperial Sedan, one of the few examples manufactured/assembled in Europe. Exactly in Belgium/Antwerp. The condition was a bit worse, but the car is on it´s way back to the road now (hope in the next 2 or 3 years)

http://t603.de/albums/userpics/10001/DSC_0115.JPG

If you are interested, you can find photos of this and the other projects here:

http://www.tatra603garage.de

As you can see, there is still a lot to do, the car had suffered a lot (about 15 years in a leaky garage "inhabited" by numerous animal species)    . I'm currently working on an engine overhaul. The interior is almost completely destroyed, thanks to the excrement 

But it will be fine... :thumbsup:

In this sense,

Kind regards from Germany,

Juergen

[Lexi]

Welcome aboard. I own a 1956 Imperial Limo. Please keep us posted! Clay/Lexi

[jkadlubek]

Thanks for your welcome, I will stay tuned

Jürgen

[Bob Kielar]

Welcome to the C.L.C. club. Years ago I had a chance to purchase a 1955 series 75 that needed to be restored. Still wish I would have bought it but I was restoring my 55 Fleetwood at this time. If you have a chance please post more pictures we all like to see the progress.

Keep Cruzin,
Bob Kielar

[Roger Zimmermann]

Jürgen, could you please put a picture or two from the body plate and from the GM Continental one. Some US cars were indeed assembled in Belgium, but I doubt that a Serie 75 was; it was most probably imported by Antwerp. Assembling cars is requiring some jigs and specific tools; it make only sense when a rather large serie is planed.

[jkadlubek]

Thanks for your comments. I will try to deliver actual pics from the project although I´ve problems to post them directly here in the thread. They don´t appear (I´m using the "Insert Image" function.) Links work well as you can see in my first post. My online photo album is also updated regularly. Here is the direct link to the Cadillac project:

1955 Cadillac Restoration

@Roger: I´ve attached two pics from body plate an GM Continental as you requested. Hope they will work.

Additionally I started a request at GM Heritage and received a build record. The car is listed with "kilo speedometer" and the outlet code "X57". Nobody till now seems to know what this means, maybe you (hopefully  )

Greetings,

Jürgen

[Roger Zimmermann]

Thanks for the pictures. I have the impression that the car was build in the US because car assembled in Antwerp (or Switzerland) had not the GM body plate.As you can see, the VIN or "Fahrgestellnummer" is not on the body plate. Therefore, GM Continental had to issue another plate for legal purpose, like it was done in Switzerland. There is something which irritate me: the release number. Usually, this release was used on CKD vehicles. Parts were packed in huge boxes; for US cars maybe enough parts for 6 vehicles. This was a release. If I'm remembering well, Opel cars assembled in Switzerland were in batches of 12 vehicles.
Vehicles imported from Europe had a speedometer in kilometer; X57 could be X for export and 57 Antwerp, but there is maybe another explanation.
Another thinking: if you got a build sheet from the GM Heritage, it means that the car was assembled in the US; CKD vehicles were not registered at GM USA.

[jkadlubek]

Roger,

thanks for the detailed information.

Regards,
Jürgen