Chopped 57 Fairlane

I hit my head on the roof of mine as it is. I'm 6'. Chop, nahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
But, Hey, looks good on you though.

 

Seen that car on ebay a few times.

 

Here are a couple of the Sweeney car at last years (09) Portland Roadster show. This was a local car back when it was built and if memory serves me correct it actually started life as a rag top and got a 58 roof put on it. I always liked that car and studied it a good bit at the show. My 57 hardtop was in the body shop at the time and I was considering cutting it. I got over it and went on with the Paint work. I still love this car.
The Wizzard

 

That looks.......awful. Way too much chop.Looks like they chopped it just for the sake of chopping excessively with no regard to aesthetics .Thats my 2¢.

 

Not a 57 but close here's Tony's old 56

 

I usually agree with those who say mid to late '50s cars shouldn't be chopped, but two cars come to mind that will ever be exceptions to prove the rule; the '58 Chrysler Joe Wilhelm built for Clif Inman and the Ron Sweeney '57 Ford Von Hunter built shown at the bottom of Riks post.

Although both Ron Sweeney and his buddy John had already graduated, because they each had girl friends going to my high school, the first time I ever got to see the Von Hunter built Ron Sweeney car up close was in my high school parking lot sometime in late 1963 or early 1964. Ron Sweeney had recently traded the car straight across for his buddy John's red '62 409 Impala (that was the latest news at the time on the high school motorhead rumor mill), and the owner whom I presumed to be John was sliding the rear quarter windows in. I asked why the windows slid in instead of roll up and he explained it was because it was originally built from a wrecked convertible and used a '58 top (notice the ribs in the roof panel) that was chopped about 2 inches. I wasn't brash enough, nor did I know enough at the time to ask why no one had built mechanisms for them to roll up and down.

While I did think it was beautiful enough, I didn't realize I was looking at a magazine feature car until sometime later when I got my hands on a copy of the Car Craft magazine with it shown as one of their top ten customs from the year before. Only recently have I managed to find a copy or the April 1963 Car Craft it was first featured in. Reading the captions I see it described as being built from a tudor, oh well.