this is dale car.he took 5 3/8 out of the front and i think 7 out of the rear. you can see more in riks site.it was a fun day cutting it up. http://public.fotki.com/Rikster/11_.../49-51_chevy_custom_cars/dale-van-zant---dvz/
in this picture it looked like they had it pretty close but i noticed that later on it looks like they ended up cutting a bunch more metal out. was that to get it to look smoother?
Someone must have realized that the entire back window was wrong, wrong, wrong! Look at the dip above the rear window in the "almost finished" photo - it's terrible. Now they're working it to make it a nice flowing curve to the beltline. It's also why they flipped the rear window upside down - to get rid of the big hump just above the beltline trim.
By the way, anyone know what that rear bumper is? Pontiac? It looks longer on the sides than Pontiac, but I'm not sure.
Looks like '54 Chevy front... I'm not sure either, though....hard to tell exactly where the bumper bolt holes are in that pic. Could almost be '54 Ford, but I don't think so. Bryan
the car flows a lot better now.the 1st pic was just after cutting away and just laying the window in.there are 2 reasons the rear window was flipped.1st when chopping one of these chevy when you lay the rear window down you get a bigger gap in the middle of the window then you do one the corners.it wont flow with the belt line that great and it doesnt look that clean either.now flipping it look at how the bottom of the window now has a nice even bend that goes with the belt line.the 2nd reason to flipping it is now you have opened your view up so you can see more out the back.you can see what im talking about in these pics.i think it a great chop and all around car.dale did everything in his drive way and everything look bitchin.the bumper is off of a 49 pontiac.i know a lot about this car and the chop.i was there helping with the chop. http://public.fotki.com/Rikster/11_...custom_cars/dale-van-zant---dvz/10_topfinish/
ahh memories that was a fun day, i shot the vid and helped out. The curved b-pillars are particularly sexy.
Yah man, D'ago ride, i sent Dale the link to this thread so he'll get to chime in on it. he's "dvz" here on the hamb.
Hey Y'all- Pretty fuckin' weird to see this much conversation on my car that I was completely unaware of. Yeah, a lot of what was said is pretty true. That first pic is after the easiest part of a chop, actually cuttin' it and steppin back to check the profile. I took 5-5/8" in the front and 6" in the back. And no matter what you do, to get the roof to flow into the trunk properly, yer gonna hafta give the roof some love above the rear window. That whole area is pretty vertical stock, and makes a pretty tight curve to the horizontal surface. I spun the window cuz I wanted the wider portion (bottom) of the window to be at the top. The rear bumper is '49 Pontiac, and the tail lights are '55 Plymouth. BTW, I've got abot 65 or 70 build pix posted on Rik Hoving's site, everything from the initial smoothing, to the tail lights to the chop and the curved b-pillars. The b pillar pix are pretty interesting in a Frankenstein kinda way...Feel free if anyone wants to grab 'em and post 'em here. The whole reason I documented everything is so someone lookin to do a chop who hasn't before might benefit from it. http://public.fotki.com/Rikster/11_.../49-51_chevy_custom_cars/dale-van-zant---dvz/ Dale
Hey Preacher- No man, I didnt take any more metal out of it. Just moved it around, and replaced in other areas with new metal. That first photo is immediately after the initial cuts, when you stack up all the pieces and start figuring out how you want to position everything. The height of the chop front and rear was dead nuts on, I did my paper doll and photoshop homework before the sawzall was plugged in, and all the cuts were exactly where they should be. I didn't decide to flip the rear window until after I saw it as shown in the first photo, and it was also at this point that I decided to pull the flipped window 4" up into the roof. Bone stock, these cars have literally no space between the bottom of the rear window and the beltline. I added that 4" of sheetmetal which nicely mirrors the existing metal between the deck lid and the beltline. The magic is in the details. BTW, this chop was started and completed on weekends and evenings in less than 30 days to make the Primer Nats. dvz ps Here's another pic of it at the GNRS Suede Palace this year...
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