Does anyone know if 55 or 56 rear doors from a Buick Special will fit on a 54? I want to enlarge the wheel openings on my 54 Buick mordor (like the 55-56s). It would be way easier to use donor doors and quarters than to fab everything from scratch. Thanks.
I can check it in the Hollander's manual, but I won't be back home until 04/11. If you haven't gotten an answer by then, shoot me a PM or email and I'll look it up for you when I return.
The front doors are the same, aren't they? Also Olds 88 used the same ones I believe. I think they'd fit the hole, ***uming they're both Specials and both post sedans, just the wheel arch area would be different, and that's what you want. I guess I don't know that for sure but I think it would work. Pretty sure a Hollander will say they won't interchange because of the wheel opening differences though.
Not sure if it's possible or not due to slight rear quarter changes in the '55-'56 models. You don't mean "radiused" openings like the Hard Tops do you ? JK
Maybe it's easier to just show what I want to do since James D was kind and talented enough to do a terrific photoshop of the mods. I'm thinking about, and added some great ideas of his own It seems that this will be simpler to do if I can get donor rear doors and quarters off a 55-56 for door and piece them in as opposed to all that fabrication. I believe they are the same as the "radiused" wheel opening Jonnie's talking about..Or am I wrong..Here's the idea My car as it sits today- The ultimate goal (and totally bad*** 4 door mild custom that needs to be built!)
That '57 side trim treatment looks great. I think you are correct in that you could adapt the '55/'56 rear doors to get where you want to be......for the doors anyway. I suppose you can also section in the forward quarters/wheel housings to complete the conversion as you have suggested. I agree that Hollanders will be no help since the respective doors are different and do not interchange in stock form. Ray
JVK54, The "phantom" version looks good, but the problem would be this: the 1955-1956 4 Dr. Sedans - like yours - have the same wheel arch that you do. The 4 Dr. Hard Tops have the radius-style arch that you want, BUT since they don't have a "B" Pillar they wouldn't work. Hope you can get it done...somehow !
Not sure this entirely accurate. The '54 and '55 models do use the smaller wheel opening on 4 door sedans and wagons. Oddly, a '55 post 2 door has full radiused wheel wells. In '56 However, the all the pics I can find in the Standard Catalog of Buick show ALL '56 models with full radius wheel wells. That said though, the ONE pic not illustrated is the '56 Special/Century 4 door sedan. But the fact that '56 wagons and the larger bodied Super/Roadmaster all went to full radius wheel openings in '56 strongly suggest '56 Special/Century sedans did as well. Ray
Well, I like your idea, but I don't care what you do- that right there is a great looking Buick as-is!
The Jalopy Journal
