Hot Rods Bare Metal American Graffiti Clone

Here you go, first the actual Milner Coupe and then the Naked Milner. Now for some reason the real Coupe placed the traction bar bracket tabs under the frame on the passenger side and IN the frame on the driver's side. We chose to make them uniform.





Aloha

 

DAMN... I knew I shoulda' crawled under it when I had the chance. You NAILED it. With details like this you'd HAFTA write a book to explain it all. Fantastic job.

 

I got a chance to see it being built (outside of Portland Or). its a really nice car and from what I can tell (and heard) its a very accurate build to the original.. I have a picture of two of it during its build, just have to find them... The shop building it is first rate..

 

Your attention to detail, and your patience is amazing. That's one hell of a job you've done so far....

 

Thanks for all the kind words.

 

Looks unreal! (pun intended)

 

Just jaw dropping gorgeous. Thanks OP and beauishere.

Doug.

 

This car's absolutely beautiful! Any progress on the "book"?
I never noticed this door panel trim on the original AG Coupe. What's it from??

 

what's that square tube spacer for?

Awesome build, by the way!!

 

Aren't those windsheild slide out bars installed upside down? Bob

 

Thanks! The book text is done. We're doing another group of photos. Should be out next year.
We got our door trim from a 1956 Ford Fairlane Crown Victoria. The original Milner Coupe is missing the trim on the driver's door.

 

The square tube was used as part of a camera mount during the filming. Like the front 'tow brackets' on the front of the frame rails, they're still on the original Coupe so we chose to include them.

Thanks.

 

Yes. They.. Are...

The new official response is ; "The original Milner Coupe doesn't have the bars. You can see the windshield moving in the movie. We chose to use them to keep the windshield tight, but hadn't got around to cutting them at the time this photo was shot."

Doesn't really explain why our dumbass put 'em in upside down other than to keep them lower.

Nice catch Willie Mays.

 

Nice workmanship, but why clone a car that's still around? And a car that has already been cloned a hundred times before. Not flaming ya just asking your motives.

Scotty

 

Good question, I can understand it as a tribute to a rather iconic move car but still.

Another thing, apparently the original movie car was put together with some questionable build practices, why duplicate that as well ?

 

I love this car. Graffiti sparked my obsession.

 

I looked through my photos from the 2011 Portland Roadster show and didn't find one of it. I may have passed over it thinking it was another one of the many bare metal cars from the shops in the Portland area in their booths to show their handiwork though. The shops in the area tend to bring out some great work in the bare metal to stick in their booths and another bare metal car can get lost in there pretty easily.
If it was in the Movie car room that was there that year I could have missed it altogether as I didn't spend much time in that area.

 

Valid questions. Here's my answer...

When we bought our deuce, we didn't know that a lot of people had their own "Graffiti Coupe". I've always had hot rods but really hadn't been a car culture expert. I'd certainly never seen one before.

Having been influenced by the movie, at first we just wanted a yellow deuce that resembled the Milner Coupe, but as the project progressed, it became a pretty nice challenge to do it right. After a while, a not so nice obsession. The challenge was that at the time nobody really knew anything about the car. Most of what was published was wrong and the owner wasn't giving it up. It took three to four years to do the research to even try to get close.

Other than Jeff Beck, no one has even come near building a good finished clone. Another Hamber (Graffiti32) is probably building the closet to a true clone, warts and all but he isn't quite finished yet.

Ours is more of a tribute than a clone. We set out to build the car John Milner the character would have drove as opposed to the prop Paul LeMat the actor drove while filming. And that should answer the last question about questionable building practice. While having to stick to the overall concept of the existing car, we tried to take an approach of safety and common sense. The average sane human won't notice those details but it does keep it from being a true clone. And if you've had a chance to inspect the real Coupe, that's maybe not such a bad thing.

Thanks for asking. Aloha

 

"Bitchin'"

 

Thanks for the explanation. makes sense.

Scotty

 

OP 05-19-2011... painted yet?

 

One awesome 'naked milner', that is a work of art, literally, full credit to you for your patience and commitment, now when's that book out?

 

What's the big deal? It looks like an unpainted '32 Coupe?

 

Great, a naked Milner Coupe. What's next. A naked KOOKIE T? A naked Batmobile?

 

It isn't a clone until it's painted. It's just unfinished until then.

 

Way more to it than that alone..Way, way, way more..There's a plan and its being followed...What are the reasons that a clone, tribute, replica, copy etc. are built? IMO..

 

Why be a douche? Just because you can?

 

Why be stupid, because YOU can? Why am I a Douche? Because I don't agree with you? That's just how I feel. Now it's a blank canvas.

 

You should build a 55 gasser and be original........

 

It's like copying a Davinci painting in pencil, no color. Granted the car is a Davinci, I'll give it that but it needs color to be complete. Besides, how do you keep it from rusting?