Shiny and old!

The Roadmaster has now come to be my primary project over my 1981 Pontiac Parisienne. While I still love the Parisienne, I just don’t have the space for two cars that shouldn’t see winter. My original plan was to purchase a ’91-’93 Roadmaster wagon as a winter vehicle to protect the Pontiac. Seeing as I wound up purchasing a ’94 Roadmaster wagon with an LT1, I think it deserves to be preserved. Having only one garage space available means that the Roadmaster will get it. The new plan has been to sell the Pontiac to another would-be restorer, again to keep it preserved, and look into buying something else for winter. It seems that no one is looking for these cars for restoration yet. Even at 30 years, these cars haven’t yet crossed the threshold from everyday old car to collectible classic. Since I haven’t had any offers that I’m willing to entertain for the Pontiac, I’m considering putting some snow tires, rust proofing, and undercoating on it next year and making it a winter car. Based upon that, it does still need some cleaning up, and there’s no reason that I can’t tackle the fun tasks as well as the necessary ones.

My Pontiac Parisienne has a number of plastic exterior parts that have been Vacuum Metalized for a chrome appearance. After 30 years of bug impacts on Ontario roads, it’s looking very worn. The plastic pieces that make up the grill, headlight bezels, and a few other assorted items around the car no longer sparkle like they should. As the car originally came with plastic ornamental components, it’s unlikely that I can simply replace them with metal counterparts. Even if such parts were readily available, I’m not sure I’m looking to do that level of restoration on the Pontiac anymore. I would still very much like to tackle the process of cleaning up these plastic parts.

I was watching My Classic Car a while ago and Dennis Gage talked about a spray on product from Alsa Corp called Killer Chrome. Killer Chrome is a spray on product that contains a ground metallic pigment. From the product description it appears to be much more involved than a simple spray on product, and it looks like it would be a fun process to try out. I’m pretty excited to get the bezels off of the front of the Pontiac and start this process!