Never again! I've been working on this car on and off (mostly off) for ten years. Finally got it to the back together enough for someone else to take it from here, left my shop yesterday. Thought I'd throw it up on here to see if anyone was interested in what a chopped and sectioned 49 Olds 98 Sedanette would look like. 3 1/2" out of the top, 3 1/2" out of the middle. 10 years ago I was all into this type of thing, now days my intrest lie elsewhere, I have no desire to cut up a car like this again. I feel I cut and welded a zillion miles on this one. FWIW the bumpers were dropped the 3 1/2" so the stock grill, headlights and tail lights will still fit as original. The front was clipped with a 79 Seville subframe, will drop a 2/3" more with the motor weight, rear suspension needs to be reworked still. I reworked the rear wheel tubs and with the way the frame is 6/7" lower in the back will be ride height, car will look much better after that! I've sectioned quite a few cars in the past, this one was the toughest. Normally the section comes out of the widest point, unfortunately on this Olds that was the bottom of the car, many vertical pie cuts to align the hinges, pillers, ect. Just a word of advice for newbies, sectioning a car is not for the faint of heart or inexperianced!
Dam wish I had some extra $$ I had a 50 more door in high school (1966) daily driver with a 394 olds 4 deuces & a Cad Lasalle 3 speed.
Holy mother of...................... that's a hell of a lot of work. Looks great so far. So where did it go? Body shop?
I dig the rear window view. A friend and I sectioned my 49 Cadillac and I vowed to never do a section again. Pain in the ***!
The car belongs to a friend, one of those "buddy deals". He's a body man, so he'll take it from here, right now it went to another shop to get the engine swap done, air bags. resqd37Zep, I ***ume thats your Cad in your avatar. Same body so I guess you know too what a pain! Have you done your trunk lid yet? This was my 2nd time around, I did a 49 Caddy almost the same way 15 years ago for Brian Everett (Caddy-O Daddy-O), made a couple magazine features with it. A couple more pics.
10 years...yikes. Looks like a lot of work. Where did the car go to? Does the future owner have plans to finish it? Edit...you added more as I typed the above.
Your efforts will hopefully see the light of day.......eventually. It'll still be plenty bad *** when done. Long and lean. I hacked up one of your pics to bring to it back down to earth.
Looks great bro....but then again I expect anything that comes outta your shop to look the part. Dude I remember that car while it was in work....does that make me officially old? Damn... So what your trying to say is that you dont wanna start sectioning the 47 buick sedanette I got waiting in the wings??
WOW nice job! Yea it is a ton of work but well worth the effort.Don't give up man.Your past the hardest part of the project.My custom Airflow took 8 years to finish ,section, chop,bla bla bla. You have way too much work into your custom now to not get the reward of driving it and shocking Joe public with your metal art work.You will get miles of smiles with this one.Now get that ****er done and enjoy!
If you need inspiration to finish your project go to the KKOA Leadsled spactular show in Salina Kansas,Last weekend in July.Its a blast,well worth going.Not too far from you.A bunch of us from Colorado go every year.Even if your car isn't finished go. Imformation is Googal - KKOA - Kustom Kemps of America.There were 1,000 customs and hot rods there last year from all over the USA.
Church, thanks for the photochop, it needed that! Salty, ain't no way! Never again! Low Lid, guess you misunderstood, this isn't and never was my car, it's my buddy's. He'll finish it for sure. It was a deal where I did the heavy work, he does the rest, we started it just for grins. Trouble was it was a "side" job, just in our spare time, we both kinda lost intrest after a couple years. His boys are now in their 20's, working in the bodyshop with their dad and they got him fired up on getting it done, thats a good thing! The only thing I'm giving up on is doing this type of work in the future. I'm semi retired these days, my intrest has moved to early Ford hot rods instead of customs. After 30 years of hacking up cars I really have no desire to do anymore.
Metalman, You guys in New Mexico know how to chop/section a Olds ! Will sure make the new owner a great car.
Nice work Metalman !!!! Its very hard to section one of those gm fastback bodys and have it profile out as nice as you did on this one. Realy like how you did the trunk as they can be a real nightmare
Yeah thats my Cadi in the avatar. I can feel your pain brother. I did mine in a pie cut section. I took about 4 1/4 out of the rear and tapered it down to about 2 1/2 in the front. I haven't gotten around to the trunk yet as I'm still dealing with removing cancer from the body. If you have any pictures of the car you did for Brian please p*** them along. I could always use a little more motivation
Wow man. My build photos of Brian's Cad are pre digital so there buried in a box somewhere but they look just like yours. I did Brian's almost exactly like your doing yours only I taper sectioned it from 0 in the front to 3 1/2 in the back. The reason I did it that way was so the truck lid would remain stock, Brian insisted that it wouldn't but cut but wanted the top chopped. I can tell you the Caddy was easier then this Olds with its straight 3 1/2 chop, 3 1/2 section. Brian's Caddy-O Daddy-O
Damn,that looks bad ***!!!!!!!!! Awesome work,thanks for posting pics of this,gonna be a killer kustom!!
I love that Blue Cad! That was one of the cars that inspired me to do mine in that fashion. My hats off to you for pulling off a truely bad*** Kustom!
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