There has been a lot happening since I last posted and its fair to say I have put off posting until I had made a few decisions and had a few answers I could share with you.
You will recall that the original intent was to build a Tudor (a sedan shaped car but with 2 doors - hence the play on words - Two Door / Tudor). The plan was that it would look something like this.
In fact the blog was even called Flaming Tudor. You may also recall though that the idea was to make the the body removable so I could interchange it with a Coupe body as well. I still haven't heard if I'm going to be allowed to do that or not but the more I think about it, I doubt the idea will fly......and that got me thinking......you see I have always wanted to have another Coupe and the Tudor was kind of an added bonus. If I can't do the two body thing then what would I really prefer? I have to say it is a Coupe.
The Coupe was always going to be a fenderless version and my original thinking was build the Tudor, that will be the harder car to build as there is more to it and that way the change to a fenderless Coupe should be a relatively easy one. I was wrong though, there is more to building the fenderless car as more is exposed and on view. You can hide a multitude of sins with those guards and running boards.
So the big change is.........the Coupe will come first!
The other big decision I have had to make is whether or not to redo the whole front end of the chassis that Juniors Kustom Rides have just finished installing. Why would I want to do that you ask???
Well I had never given it a lot of thought but I have found out since that work was done, that when you build a fenderless hot rod the front chassis rails stick out like this car below. You can see the ends of the chassis rails protruding with the headlights mounted to them.
This is okay on a traditional looking rod but on a more modern looking rod like I envisage you'd normally do what they call pinching the chassis. In effect it is bringing the rails closer together at the front and as a result having them line up with and hidden by the bonnet. The end result is they are hidden and don't stick out, so you get a cleaner look like this.
Does it look cleaner? Yes.....
Does it look better? Hmmmm dunno.
Does it look okay not pinched? Yeah I think it does.
Is it worth redoing the whole front end again at great expense? This is the most difficult one to answer. This is because if I want to do this it is never going to be easier or cheaper than doing it right now.
So how do you decide? I decided to mock up a picture of the car and to draw in the protruding chassis rails to see what it will look like. So that's exactly what I have now done.... now you can consider yourselves very lucky......in fact.......the privileged few. You are the first to see this mocked up drawing of what the car will look like.
Do the protruding chassis rails look okay? Yeah I reckon they do especially if I mount the headlights on them. Let me know what you think.
A lot of work to get to this from a standard 33 Ford Coupe. It is significantly chopped which means height is taken from the pillars that support the roof. In this case more height has been taken from the front pillars than the rear ones, so you get that real "raked" look. Also if you compare it to the picture of the original car below you can see that the windscreen has been angled back to give it a more modern stance.
In addition to "raking" the top of the car I will also be exaggerating the rake by angling the body itself. This is achieved by lifting the floor of the car upwards so that the chassis tucks further up under the body. This is known as channeling. Again more in the front than the back, which will angle the body forward.
All this Chopping and Channeling has an impact though as the roof is lower and the floor is higher in the car. Guess what that does for head room.... yep you guessed it.... not much. The seats will be damn near set on the floor. Can you imagine that though.... a 300hp V8 bolted to a chassis that carries a wee bit of fibreglass and its occupants who are sitting on the floor. It should be like riding in a go kart. I can't wait!!!!!
Anyway compare it to the picture of a standard 3 window coupe. Pretty radical change huh! Traditionalists will hate this, but i have the philosophy that a hot rod should be what the owner wants it to be and this is what I like the look of. If you don't like it go and build your own one!
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