Hot Rods Replicating Old Modified for the Street

When I built my 40 coupe (my avatar), I looked all over for the old rule book, but to no avail. I probably just didn't have the right connections (as in none!). But I ended up buying an old pro stock chassis, stripping parts I re-used, then I copied the front end design and set my wheelbase to match that one, built my frame rails "straight up" and eliminated the "driver offset" and added "outriggers" to my frame to base the roll cage hoops and body mounts. When all done, I sold that old chassis but kept the front end parts and old Frankland QC (which I had an old racer/shop owner rebuild for me and got helicut small gears to make the car tolerable on the interior sound level!). So that's how I approached it. Mine is never going to race, never going onto the track and never will be subjected to "tech" to insure rule compliance. I just wanted to be "close enough" so it would properly look the part. Hope that answers the question and hope the question was even aimed at me so I didn't waste your time. Interesting you would ask a very good question nobody else seemed much interested in finding out!

 

Here in the northeast, by the mid 70's rules were beginning to be tightened up to standardize cars, so we could travel from track to track and be legal, or mostly...

There was a minimum wheelbase in 75 of 105 inches as i remember (maybe an inch or two different but not usually measured). Most cars had the left side at the minimum, and the right side would be slightly longer. Mine measured 105 left side, 106 right side. We'd square the rear axle to the chassis, not counting offset, then adjust the 4 bars on the front to get that lead.

With stagger, we were doing all we thought would help make the cars turn left... And then weird setups on the brakes to initiate turn in. At least that's what we thought!

 

Great looking Chevy Coupe , I was born in Bath but we lived in Brunswick on Jordan Ave. my dad worked at the Bath Shipyard as an electrician . We moved back to Virginia in 1945 . I have only been back to Maine once since we moved toVirginia.

 

The cut down I am roughly copying was built using the front half of a 1953-4 Ford sedan and the rear half of a 1967 Corvette (for the IRS - they couldn't keep U joints from breaking so reverted to an old QC perhaps a Frankland). Phil Libby of Beech Ridge fame built it and sold it and I had heard it went through a few hands and ended up with Joey O'Brien who raced it several years as the red #44 in the late 60's to early 70's I'm told. I did measure the wheelbase but as I type this, those chassis station notes I took crawling over the car at the Museum at NHIS (three trips) are out in the shop and only mattered to me to try to keep near the dimension to retain the "look" of the car, as much as possible for a street rod. I am using what tools I have on hand (no slip rolls, home made sheet metal brake and only a small jawed shrinker/stretcher which is ineffective on the metal I am using so to get a compound curve I have to relieve and pie cut the "inside of the bend" to get it to "turn". It looked horrendous at the first state, but it is coming together now. I have roughed the sheet metal panels for the passenger side. I hope it will come out okey, if a bit slab sided looking (but it is not as boxy as some builds I have seen). Here's how it looks in process. I may regret posting this, but here goes...

 

I should have specified that was parts of the frames that were used. Nobody remembers what the turtle deck came from. I do really like the appearance of the original car. Here is a rear side view and this perspective is great!

 

I did get up close and personal with it before the build!

 

Thanks for the kind words about the coupe. Too bad not to get back to Maine once in a while. It is still a great place. Our area, of which you speak, has of course been subject to development a good bit and the Naval Air Station formerly at Brunswick was fairly recently privatized and developed. Been to a cruise in there as recently as last year too. There are plenty of lovely places in Va too, but some areas where the congestion and traffic leave me a bit cold. Once you get away from that though, it is lovely. I have driven through the westerly portion of VA on I-81 and that is scenic for the most part too.

I went slowly on the new project last year but now seem to be getting after it better so perhaps there will be demonstrable progress to photograph and post before too long. At 80, some days I repeat steps (not too bad but makes me feel a bit fragile. I quit ice hockey about a year ago this month due to my balance on skates getting a little..."questionable" (it is a fast game!). Also the depths of COVID kept me in the house a bit more. But I am climbing the mountain (I had no idea what the build for a body shell having never done it, so I started very slowly. I now have a good bit of the passenger side in place and it looks as if it might come out okay.) Apologies if this is a repost, but here goes...

 

AS an update, I am making some progress on creating from scratch a rather rudimentary (or perhaps just "rude") body for my current project. I continues as a work in progress, but at least I feel some forward movement.