50 Chevy windshield and rear window molding?

My 50 is missing about half of the belt line molding and the other half is bashed to shit. I was going to just skip all molding all together on this thing, paint it flat and drive the crap out of it. My 65 year old Dad who has built several cars, is all over me telling me that you HAVE to run the molding chrome molding around the windshield and rear window because it's part of the structural integrity. I have seen some of these era cars with just the rubber holding them in. Do I really HAVE to run the metal molding or will just the rubber work??? I'm running out of cash on this POS and want to get it on the damn road.

 

Oh, I forgot to say that I do see the molding from time to time on EBAY, but my car is a sport/biz coupe type, and I never see that molding for sale. So that kinda limits my options for finding replacement molding. There are no yards anywhere near me that have 50's cars in them.

 

I see 'em run all the time without the trim, in fact, one of my friends has a '52 without it and no problems so far.

I know a place that probably has the trim...PM me if you want the info.

Bryan

 

Its just trim! Like iceing on the cake, its still cake without the iceing...OLDBEET

 

everybody likes trim!

We ran a sedan delivery without it - like Beet said it is just a trim. The rubber holds the glass in place.

 

The Deluxe cars had the trim, the Specials had just rubber. There was a different gasket for each style, and it is my understanding that if you have Deluxe rubber, you are supposed to run the stainless trim for it to hold correctly.

Steele Rubber has both styles. Don't waste your time on the non-USA crap. You will regret it...

 

heres my 51 styleline. no trim just rubber peep the pic, looks like chrome but its rubber. p.s. if her TRIM is hairy wax that shit