It’s a sad to see, looks like a factory green 383 RM21 post car. My dad owns a 69 R4 Red 4 speed post RR, he’s had it since 1972, beautiful cars.
You dodged a bullet Chevrolets from the twenties and thirties are so full of wood... Basically the steel skin is literally nailed on a wood frame... This wouldn't be a problem but you pretty much can't get wood kits for the cars.
The problem is you got to have a pattern to go off of, these cars are literally about 100 years old and weren't noted for being leak resistant when they were new. As an example A few months ago I had a 35 Chevrolet truck I bought at an estate sale (great looking body style in my opinion) and there was literally no wood left in it. That isn't to say it would be impossible to put back together but it definitely would take more patience than the average person has and would definitely be a labor of love along with limited parts availability and hardly any aftermarket support it makes these vehicles extremely hard to work on when compared to for example a Model A or 1932 Ford. On a side note I enjoy working with wood but as I get more comfortable with a welder I really like metal because if you screw up you can "ultra hot glue gun" it back together wood you definitely measure twice before you cut and you hope you can find wood without a lot of knots and a tight wood grain which is almost impossible these days.
there are plenty of old school cars built with zero aftermarket support. even for those Fords that have massive support. you don't need a pattern for wood any more than you need a pattern to put steel in your Ford body
Your argument isn't really true, a Ford body such as a model A or 1932 is almost entirely Steel, even a Model T by the mid-1920s doesn't have a lot of wood. A Model A other than the door jambs and the roof area and some wood blocks that mount it to the fame is all steel. A GM by comparison (before 1937 actually) from the same era is literally a wood structure with the steel body panels nailed to it, even the door frames are wood with steel skins hung off them. Can you use the shape of the steel to remake the wood or even make it in steel? The answer is of course you can anything is possible with enough time and or money. There is even a chance that you might come across a car that has a decent wood substructure but that wasn't My point, my point was and is it is a lot harder to build one of the "off-make" cars, from weather stripping, to wood to even trim pieces all have to be hand fabricated and it really is a labor of love in order to take one of those cars from rotting in a field for the last 70 years and turn it back into a usable car. Not impossible just extremely hard compared to a Ford of the same year. You mentioned it as an off make being built as a on topic car there wasn't a whole lot of those when the cars were relatively new (1940s and 1950s) let alone now that they are almost a hundred years old and when you did see one most of them were/are only using the body with tons of easily available Ford stuff such as 1928 to 1934 transverse leaf suspension bits because again all the parts are easily available and they look sharp at Fords from that period we're really small cars they were naturals for hot rods. I want to be clear and my original comment still stands, I am not bashing anyone who builds any vehicle from any genre or any make or trying to discourage anyone from building something way cool and different. It could be a 1931 Chevy coupe or a 1934 Oldsmobile, I love all cars and I am all about supporting the automotive hobby and everyone that's in it (without going all political we need to stick together because our hobby is under attack from bureaucrats all over the world). My point in my original comment was there is definitely a lot more effort involved and it is a labor of love when you can't go to a company like CW Moss or Berts and buy restoration parts that are needed for even hot rods and even cars that use no visual aftermarket parts usually still have some aftermarket parts of them. Remember our cars are 90ish years old at this point and unless they've been stored indoors it's amazing they are still around at all and all of them that haven't went through restoration probably need some sort of restoration work at this point. I mean even the show cars from the 1960s are generally pretty beat up at this point and need love. It gets a lot harder if you decide you're going to keep all the Ford stuff off of your car and even harder if you're only going to use vintage parts and the reality is it's not really a traditional build if it isn't loaded with a bunch of Ford parts even if it is era correct when we are talking a hot rod. I am a 46 years old in a few days obviously I was not around during the Golden age of Hot rodding nor do I claim to know everything and there are plenty of people on this website that are way smarter than I ever will be when it comes to this corner of the automotive hobby and my knowledge is all second hand, I am going by the 100s of magazine back issues that I have accumulated from that era. Reading the posts on this website for some of the men that actually were around in that era and just talking to people at the swap meets qnd car shows. My conclusion is pretty much everything was a Ford with pretty much every drivetrain imaginable wedged into said Ford, there is the occasional Dodge touring/roadster and there might even be the occasional Chevrolet roadster but they were the exception not the rule of the time and I think most of those "exceptions" were on a Model A/t type frame with ford suspension and at that time these were junkyard cars turned into hot rods most of them were less then 30ish years old, it would be no different than building a late 90s vehicle today for an age comparison, a gearhead then and now would not generally be picking up a vehicle that needs major restoration work or that is destroyed one would find a relatively clean vehicle for their starting point today if you are into a traditional car you don't have that option, well I guess you do if you want to spend the money you can buy a restored car cut it up, most of us don't have that extra disposable income and even if we do almost all of us have a heart against cutting something up that old that has been around for that long again obviously there's exceptions, a great example would be all the stock model A's that are being turned into Bangor hot rods for the last year or two.
I did! Basically he is saying is no one wants to build the wood frame body GM cars (before 1937, according to him) without a wood kit available. I suppose history tells the story that not nearly as many are rebuilt, compared to other brands, like Fords. I tend to agree, I would rather not build a car brand that I need to build the entire body structure from scratch, before I could build a hot rod out of it. If a car body needs a new body structure under the tin, having a "kit" available dramatically increases the chances that it gets built.
I agree with you gene, having a wood kit made my build easier. when I started on my 29 model a I had a plan to build the wood for the body. I have been working with wood for a number of years building furniture and such, so have the power tools to build it. However after much thought and studying what the shape of the wood in my car was like, really not having many good patterns plus the amount of time to shape and fit it, I bought the kit. Im glad I did, What you say about having those parts available either in kit or individual part will help get it done faster. Even with the parts so readily available, it took me 14 years to finish, things get in the way like life, work, house maintenance, the wife, kids you name it. And yes the body had to be nailed to the wood frame, hundreds of nails.
Back in 1995ish my buddy had a white 1976 trans Am with a 455 if I remember correctly, is he painted it midnight blue metallic and beat the hell out of that car... To this day I would not say the car was real fast but it off-roaded really well especially in soft dry California dirt lol.
That is pretty much what I said. Along with the oddball cars aren't really a traditional Hot rod even if I do like them it's just a fact of history.
my GTO Judge was the most fun car I ever owned... here's one rotting away. 66 or 67 GTO. I can't tell from the front
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