1959 Cadillac Front Corner Grille Set Restored, #3 Quality on 2040-parts.com

These 1959 Cadillac Grille corners are for the guy who has a driver, and wants to upgrade to shinier parts. Not show perfect, but they look good and they're not rusty or painted. Restored as original, best possible available for marginal parts. They will show flaws up close.  But look good from a standing perspective.

I can build at least 1 pair of  #3 corners.  Still look much better than old rusty ones.

 

If you have high quality corners, and want them restored as new or show quality, contact me and I can tell you how long it will take and price.  Or if I have a set already, I'll let you know. 

If you have interest in a higher quality pair of corners, send yours now and get them in my current order. Cores are always accepted but not required.  Higher quality corners require rebuildable cores.  High quality parts are not in junkyards.  I can't make them.  The original alloy is aircraft 6463, not available commercially.

 

Mostly, I restore front, rear grilles in #1 or #2 condition, 1956-1961 in either silver or gold (56-58).  I can build corners and rears most any time.  Front grilles always require a restoreable core.  Generally takes 90-120 days to finish one. 

After building grilles for over 10 years I have a lot of good and marginal parts which can still be used, they are just not perfect.  Aluminum just was never meant to last forever.  A lot of my excess corroded poor parts over the last 10 years have been recycled.  But those which are still solid and could be polished and anodized I am able to build a few good sets of corners at discount prices.    If your corners are all corroded up and can never be disassembled,or rusty and painted these corners are a quantum leap better.  They have been disassembled. The steel has been powder-coated. And they have been reassembled stock.  But an up-close look will show flaws that just could not be ground out or polished out.  They will shine, and you can certainly up-grade or trade for better when that time comes. First photo above were for corners I made several years ago, those high quality parts are getting much, much harder to find.  Following eleven photos are from a #3 set. All parts are solid, but there are flaws. Overall look good from 3 feet away. Way better than old rusty or painted parts.  Bargain hunter quality, bargain price.  $50 core/pair still accepted.  This set I made were just avg. parts, most of the parts I have are actually better, parts in worse condition I will not be using. Unless you have a CLOWN CAR you are working on.   These are simply a nice pair of corners when yours are poor or missing. I would use these corners myself on a driver car or if I were building a car bumper-art project, or car spinning over the bar kinda thing as these look awesome from the ground.  Break even prices on these, parts cost a lot to polish and anodize, sand-blast and powder-coat so these are as rock-bottom as you get, if you want to spend as little as possible.

  Auction is for a restored pair (1 right and 1 left) of 1959 Cadillac Front Grille Corners.  These are bright from anyone's viewpoint.  Assembled as original! Get the corners now and do the front grille later.  This set is a #3 quality set, few flaws-but still show well. Price includes a refundable $50.00 core charge.  If you have a decent core set to exchange you can either send them right away (and charge is dropped/refunded) or pay the full price and keep your old parts. Please read the small print below if you want to know how these are made and what else I can build for you. Parts are not flaw free but will show minor nicks, pits and light scratches only visible at close viewing.  #3 quality (budget project, lo-bucks ride or ratrod) at the highest discount I can build. Contact me at (651) 488-4890 if you have questions.  If you have multiple cores to sell  just call me and we can discuss it. I can take cores long after a sale, if necessary.  Can also make custom grilles anodized in colors, black, red or green?

Parts are here now, I assemble and ship in 3 days. Possibly 3-4 sets available.

I also accept Bank Check or personal checks, just need to wait to clear the bank. No problems!

Small Print:

Please Note: NEW!!  Changes in Pricing, Changes in Turnaround Time

After building grilles for over 20 years and seeing the labor costs rise, raw materials and supplies skyrocket, plating services regulated out of operability and core quality diminish I find myself at a crossroads. While I always thought there would be cores to restore, or potential to reproduce parts or whole grilles, I always attempted to build the best grilles possible regardless of whatever I was sent. Lately, all grilles I see are pretty bad.  Good Cores are getting hard to find and most Junk yards think their $500 grilles are perfect when they are in reality average or worse.

  I managed to maintain my prices from before the “great recession” when I made a profit, until three years after it when I no longer do. I did maintain my same pricing for nearly 6 years. Lately I realize I am subsidizing many of the costs, no longer covered.

  But after a few hectic years when I had several grilles to do all at one time, to several years where I had few to do in an entire year I see the hobby being slowed by the overall expenses of just buying used parts in general and the fact that the owners of these old Cadillacs are getting older themselves. Whether the cars continue to be restored in the future or not, the number of cars, and the number of remaining restoreable grilles continues to diminish. Most grilles are already beyond saving.

  After so many years, and very few complaints I still find many people who feel my prices are too high, or I just can’t get em done fast enough. I’ve heard rumors there are others out there who have reproduced parts, who possibly can build NOS quality grilles at this stage. While I have attempted to verify these claims, I have never seen any of them. While building grilles is incredibly stressful lately, especially when I get calls, e-mails often asking if it’s done yet, I still continue to build what I can. But I really need a vacation. Unfortunately I do not control the plating end of the restoration process, and recently they have gone through many changes.

  I did stop building grilles a few years ago, around 2006-7. And I started getting phone calls again asking me if I could do just one more.

  So I looked over all that I had left, and decided I’d work on a few more. Now here it is 6 years later, and the world is just running out of cores. While I still know a lot about restoring grilles, and am very capable of building whatever has to be done, I must change with the forces working against me, or I will be gone for good. I like being able to make a jewel out of junk whenever possible. Unfortunately most junk is unrestoreable.  Ultimately, I may have no option except to stop making grilles---it might be decided for me if a polisher or plater were to close.

Ironically, I find most people send me poor cores and expect show quality, while (few) others send me excellent parts and only want driver quality.  Basically the former forces me to buy other, better cores and really lose money while the latter perplexes me. Essentially I am doing show quality work on the latter, but not being paid to do so.  So, future work, if I do any, may require that all work I do be show quality. I just have to be able to pay for all the cores I buy, and I should be paid for show quality work.  When I have 2nd quality parts, they will be sold on ebay.  I do not set out to make low quality parts.  They are generally what is left over after several orders.

But, to the point, my prices have risen and I can no-longer determine how long it will take to finish a grille. While past grilles could be finished in as little as 60 days, I also used to be able to build them much more cheaply. Those days are long gone. It is unfortunate that I am unable to lower prices, and cannot force polishers and platers to work faster. While some grilles and parts can be done quickly, large grilles cannot. And if I’m doing two or more that also extends the time to complete one.

  So, what I am stating is that I will be adding a modest increase as of now (anything new-not currently being done) and any future grille will need at least 4 months time allotted from start to finish. I currently have 90 days. Doesn’t mean that it will be 6 months, I just would prefer to take my time where necessary and not have a phone call every 30 days. If this means I will be doing fewer grilles, it will be an opportunity for someone else. I hope, given the extra time, that I can improve on them to some degree. But if I find myself on a permanent vacation, it was simply the right time.

 

Grille Restoration: Grilles are restored not NOS.  Aluminum is anodized, not plated.  My grilles are really meant for the most discerning of collectors.  They restore the bright look and fresh gloss that gleamed from your Cadillac 50 years ago.  This means they look bright and fabulous, but the bright parts are not quite as thick and the edges are no longer as square.  I have been restoring grilles on-and-off for about 20 years. I have a large accumulation of odd grille parts in fairly good condition and decided to put them to better use instead of filling my garage. Most of my parts and cores are in excellent shape and came from Southern states.   Most of the cars I am restoring the grilles for are over 50 years old, so decent cores are getting harder to find or simply are so expensive that you would not buy them.  Most cores available are very poor quality and would take 2-5 of them to build a decent show quality grille.

 

How do I restore a grille?  First I disassemble the old core and save every last usable piece.  I strip, de-rust or sand-blast all of the steel hardware and either repaint, powder coat, or cadmium plate the part. Extruded aluminum panels are stripped, straightened, hand cleaned and inspected for surface corrosion.  Selected panels are then repainted in black enamel. The small aluminum grille pieces are inspected, cleaned and then stripped, polished and re-anodized in bright dip silver (or gold for 56-58 grilles or any color for custom orders, green if you wish!)  Then I only use the best parts (as all do not turn out,) and I reassemble the grille as it was originally. The cost of cores, the process of cleaning, polishing and anodizing has rocketed in recent years and it has become very prohibitive having this work done. The prep work, cleaning, stripping and sand-blasting has become very time consuming.  50 year old aluminum parts are not in the best of condition to begin with so even restored parts may show some history from its previous life.  I’m not sure if any NOS parts still remain and I don’t believe anything is being reproduced.

 

 Buyer pays shipping.   Mostly I restore 1956-1961 Cadillac only, I rarely have anything finished in stock.  All work must be prepaid and generally takes  180 days at most to complete.  In many cases I will need your old grille to rebuild, sometimes two (centers). If you have any questions you can call me at (651) 488-4890.