Been kicking the idea around of extending the rear quarters on the 50 Fleetline. I like the looks of the 51-52 Chevys better. What would "flow" on a 49-50 Fleetline? I think the Caddy quarters would be too much on the early bodystyle. Are there any books that cover extending the quarters? Come on you closet custom guys......
I don't have any books..sorry about that..i just have some useless idea's.. You could alway's find a set of light's, or lenses that you like and build your own extensions to fit them. Thats what i did on my '53. I used 54 Lee lenses ( i know, not all that original at all, but...), and built the extensions so that they could be mounted from the inside of the trunk. The quarter extension's are 'one off', and add about another 4" to the length of the quarter, and the lenses are tunnelled about 4-5". Just something different if you didn't want to use a complete quarter section from another car.
This is a '54 and the '52-'53 had more chrome around a smaller more verticle tail light (ignore the Continental kit...)
There was an article in custom rodder about six or seven years ago where they lengthened the quarters on a merc for Packard taillights. They built a skeleton out of 1/4 or 3/16 inch rod then skinned it with sheetmetal. I used a similar method on my chevy and it came out good. I'll check my pile of old mags and see if I saved that issue.
And if you don't think you can handle that, you can always find your lights and cut the ends of the fender off to use to blend them. Most any of the '55-'61 cars with fins that have a flat/rounded top could be used to make something. I'm debating between canted and vertical '60 Olds lights for mine, just because that would be different. I think the curve of them will be close enough to the curve in the rear pan to look right back there, canted or horizontal the way they came on the car. I thought about slicing up some '60 Imperial fins to stick on there, but I figured big fins would look gay and since it looks like the '56 Pontiac wagon bumper I have here will just about bolt on I don't want to add anything to make them stick out further. If you cut them down so they mimic the '51 fender shape, except add the round taillight mount, they might be okay though. Sell the $100 each Imperial lights if they're there and put some '54 Buick or '55 Olds lights in them. I can see a chopped '51 fastback with '57 Chrysler fins blended in, though, as long as they don't stick up too high. Cap them off and use '59 Buick taillights at the bottom, set just inside... or cut in some '60 Chrysler taillights maybe... As far as books go, the Barris Custom 4-volume set that was put out a while back has pictures here and there, as do some of the old mags - you pretty much have to dig through a pile though. I wouldn't be surprised if the Tex Smith How To Build Custom Cars book has some good photos of stuff, too.
Just start collecting some of those old precious lil mags if your not in a hurry...lol Alot of great ideas, tech & tips in my opinion...But what the hell do i know,,,i'm the type to drink Rosanne Barr pretty! Dirty
Hey Root on my Dodge i put some 56 packard taillight ***emblies into it. This extended the rear fin about 8 inches at the top and roughly 10 inches at the bottom. The packards were alot wider than my 56 which made for a challenge of getting everything to blend in and not look like it was just thrown on there but the effort was well worth it. The lines just flow and it stretched the Dodge.. It has a totally new look in the back. I think its mostly going to be up to what your eye likes and what makes the car flow.i have seen one 54 chevy that the guy went and put 91 cadillac lenses into and it came out really nice. but i think your car is more round than square isnt it.
Yeah it's more round. I'll see if I can find some old pics while it was in 1 piece. OK, here's one. I bought the Gene Winfield tail lights for it. They look a little better installed. Still don't know.......
Here are a couple pix from Rik's page http://public.fotki.com/Rikster/11_...m_cars/49-52_chevy_customs/xp8290142_jpg.html http://public.fotki.com/Rikster/11_...evy_custom_cars/49-52_chevy_customs/ab38.html http://public.fotki.com/Rikster/11_.../49-52_chevy_customs/677125-50foordoorfa.html http://public.fotki.com/Rikster/11_...cars/49-52_chevy_customs/694707-mvc-002s.html
Thanks Ron. I dig those a lot more than mine. What are these? I'll try and post the pics. They are the last 2 pics I believe.
Although these look like they have the least amount of bodywork....not that matters to me. I do everything twice.
The black 2-door looks like it is using '51 front park-light surrounds with custom lenses. Neat trick !
I was looking at an old article on Harry Bradley's LaJolla '51 hardtop and it occurs to me that '62 Chrysler taillights and fender caps would work really well on a '51-'52 Chevy. His has the same general shape but with custom made taillights on it -
The Jalopy Journal
