[Vic1947]

The moment of truth was upon me and the bumpers weren't going to jump on the car by themselves. So, as usual, I started with the easy one. Supported the '57 DeSoto bumper on stands to get an idea of how it was going to fit. Years ago, I had the bumpers straightened and de-chromed. I could see from old photos in books that my bumper was pinched together slightly in the middle. Since it was apparent that the DeSoto unit was too wide and I'd have to section it, I corrected the gap at the same time. Measurements indicated I needed to remove 1-1/4" from the middle to get the fit I wanted. Marked my lines and cut with a cutoff wheel, then tacked the two halves together.

Positioned the revised bumper in place and it was beginning to look like it would actually work. Reality has a way of smacking you upside the head, though. I trial assembled the '55 Pontiac bumpers and filler panel and set them roughly where they needed to be. I could tell immediately the amount of work to get them to fit would be outside the scope of my time budget. The angles were not correct, the lengths would have to be altered, the filler panel would need extensive pie cutting and re-contouring. In short, it looked like a huge amount of work. So, I'm going with Plan B.

I'd seen some custom tube grilles made by Jerry Wesseling of Glory Grills. I rung him up and ordered one and it should be here in a couple of weeks. The design that Charlie did for me will have to wait for another time. Stuff that looks great in PhotoShop can be a rough trip from the small screen to the real world.