I kinda think its perfect,not too much catwalk for me,and it looks better then the zephyr.I never thought i,d say those words.maybe because of its ride height,lol.I would still like to see a what a longer door looks like
I think it might be the volume at the rear of the trunk that is larger than the volume of the roof. A little more volume in the roof might make the 1/3 of the hood, 1/3 roof and 1/3 rear. I had exactly the same situation on my first chop on my 39 Cad. The bum was to big and roof too short. Took another two goes to lengthen my roof and shorten the catwalk to get it right.
I Love it to be honest.. It gets me pretty much every time I look at the pic .. The idea was to give some physical presence of a 3 window so that It could be considered viable to have a go at building it .. I like most of the chopped early mercurys but I had a notion for what I call a Hollywood Custom, something Clark Gable might have driven, Not that Im a dapper chappy, I just like that look .. There is evry chance there will be tweeks to the profile since A my skills aint so well honed I can pull it off and B some times from a different angle things might not look quite the same ... But the Photoshop James D performed brought the idea to life .. so much so infact that well out of sequence I made a start .. chopped off a further chunk of the existing roof and started to whittle down some polyeurethane foam in the vain hops I can saw, chop and sand it into submission so I have a hard buck to lay the shaped steel on.. I only have a couple of hours in this so far, and anticipate many many more chopping s****ing and sanding this stuff until it looks like we have made it Ingore the profile on the foam just now, this is just the start of the process. I haven't done this before, Im on a steep learning curve.. Collected these from the local crusher, got them for free as they cant do diddly with them Stacked a few together and cut them down to rough size , stood back and scratched my *** for a bit untill I worked out where to start and how to make a curve from a stack of foam.. Its not pretty but its a start. Plan is to get a rough oversize roof shape and whittle it down with a saw and... well a saw .. Its hardly anywhere close to being the correct shape here. Ive not got a clue if its the right way to do this but the big corner will be getting the chop, then the rear edge will need a fair old chunk removed to make it slope better.. The catwalk or upper rear deck area as I cal it is well within a sensible depth, pic is misleading.. its actually shaping up to be a ***y curve in that area .. And plenty fillers for any balls ups
I will just add, I have plans to lengthen the rear fenders forward in to the quarter panel, just a touch... and also to modify the tail creating a short tailpan from the lower section of the m***ive trunk lid... also would like to pancake the trunk making the curved sides part of the rear quarters and then move the remains of the trunk up and into the rear deck panel, which will reduce the depth a little but not for that purpose , I just think the trunk lid looks like its slipped a bit, kinda like the dudes that wear the waist of there jeans down the middle of there ***... LOL ... always thought that though, well before the 3 window idea I had plans to shift the upper deck panel ... BUT these are all just ideas floating around for the future...
Here is my chop and where I s happy first up with a short roof but subsequently with a little prodding by Rik reevaluated the aesthetics. You need to walk around the car and look from all angles to really be sure. The following few pages will give you an idea. http://www.customcarchronicle.com/forums/topic/39-cadillac-sixty-special/page/6/#post-6867 I do like the idea of the short roof , long catwalk but you probably need to be a 2 seater as well.
OUCH! James, that looks like its been whooped with the ugly stick. Ive made a bit of progress with mine, I've basically ditched the idea of sculpting the foam, that wasn't working for me. adopted another method which seems to have been more appropriate . Rear left section of the roof has been wheeled up and Im happy with the shape . The catwalk has been moved forward around 8 inches and the trunk moved up to the new line .. the rear section of the trunk will be removed and welded to the body so the entire trunk is shorter and narrower more like that or a 36 coupe, not getting too much time on it but just taking small bites at it when I can..
The Jalopy Journal
