It stared with getting the front bumper off which was secured with about 16 bolts and one metric (yes, metric on a 1973 American car) bolt. This took awhile since we didn’t think two of the bolts needed to be removed to pull the bumper off. We were wrong, a trend that would continue with this project.

Next we removed the hood and fenders all so we could remove the “Ventura” insignia on the fenders and then we started on the rear bumper. The rear bumper that, much like the front one, we thought we had ready to remove. The rear bumper that ate a wrench and necessitated the over-nighting of new wrenches. The rear bumper that had to have a stripped bolt drilled out of it. The rear bumper that still took twenty minutes to remove after all the bolts were removed. It’s off now.

While waiting on the wrenches needed for the rear bumper we went to work on the rest of the car’s insignia. This included a “Custom” and Pontiac logo on each side behind the rear windows and a “Custom Hatchback” insignia on the the back. Figuring these insignia were much the the ones on the fenders we took apart the interior to gain easy access to the bolts from the inside. Turns out the interior was welded in such a way to make accessing them impossible.

So we started pulling them off.

And this proceeded for about an hour with little progress. We tried razor blades, knives, screwdrivers all to get some leverage. None of it worked. In the end we invented the ultimate insignia removing tool. This tool is constructed from microfiber cloth and duct tape. It starts with a thin piece of duct tape that gets progressively thicker until it connects to the microfiber. Using this we were able to remove all the remaining insignia in about fifteen minutes.

Presently the Ventura is sanded and ready to be primed. Some pix are below.