Art & Inspiration The Edsel Raven

How many clowns can fit in that one?
Nope, sorry, too short IMO.

 

You wouldn't have to have a long 2-door door, since there is no need to get into the back seat. But the wheelbase needs to be long enough so that the long overhang behind the rear wheel does not look out of proportion. The fender skirt helps a lot. The Raven image looks good in proportion. Taking the top off also helps the proportions on a short car.

 

Don't have PS, but.....just a suggestion.
Maybe the roof could be lengthened so that the rear portion is lined up with the (new) B pillar; making sure the rear gl*** doesn't get too close to the trunk opening. IDK if that would help with the shortened look or not.
That would necessitate modifying the door gl*** to fill the gap created.....may be difficult to then lower it into the door.

 

Wow, I can see a really cool project there, or a total turd. Its going to be very polarizing. I think as long as you keep from having the door in the dogleg youd be on the winning end. Maybe just a tad out of the rear between the wheels and bumper

 

I get it, really I do. Some design considerations:
Other fixed elements (bumpers, headlights, trim) are already big and in proportion, may have to change em up for balance.
I wouldn't go to excessive removal of length, best to "sneak up on it" rather than end up with several bad ideas.
Balance will possibly include a change in width if really short is the end game.
Sometimes a really rotten 'Bird can be found for a platform, hang Edsel panels on it cut to fit.
Maybe a 4 seat "square bird" is a better direction, although I did hear you say no top. Just sayin, and maybe look at my print again...?
I've lost track of how many great ideas I've had regarding mixing and matching of OEM styles, crossover designs (Buick and Packard pickup trucks, Pontiac Vettes) and even some really radical and expensive full customs. Once we start on em they can go south in a hurry, sometimes they can be timeless examples of imagination that have serious creds and historic value (when we're already dead!). The "juice" is the build. Worth every burn, scratch, pain and all the hours of brain strain. Go for it. What's the worst that can happen?

 

Lining up the top won't be a concern. He already said there won't be one....
Or side windows.....

Having said that, the weird appearance of the rear of the door and how it lines up with the top is how it looks to begin with.

Like I said, I wasn't worried about the top or the side gl*** since he no plan to incorporate either.

And Squirrel, I wish I had a fraction of your "drive".

 

Personally,I think the article is a farce and the subsequent photo is nothing more than a talented Photoshop artist rendition,if there was such a prototype built there would certainly be more than this single image.

That being said, this would be a amazing project in taking what many people consider a homely four door car and turning into something as visually appealing as the "Raven".

To paraphrase the the line from Field of Dreams,"build it and they will come".

I will certainly be following the build. HRP

 

thanks for all the neat ideas, guys!

To get back to the early T bird, here is a neat pic I found of a few design concepts. One thing I noticed is that they had the door over the dogleg on one, but they wound up having a relatively small door on the final car.



Another thing is that the front wheel is way forward, which is kind of hard to do on the Edsel, without a whole lot of work involving frame modifications. I think if I were interested in making it into a great looking car, this would be necessary. BUT....it's an EDSEL. let me say that again. It's a friggin EDSEL. I have the car because an Edsel is still a joke to me. I wanted a car to have fun with, and not give a **** about what happens to it. So, I'm not opposed to making the Raven badly. It's OK for an Edsel to look "not quite right"! They all started life that way.

Sorry if I've offended any Edsel lovers, but I do hope you keep your sense of humor...that's what this is all about. And yes, I am serious about building it.

 

1. Remove rear door handles.
2. Weld rear doors shut.
3. Fill gaps around doors with bondo.
4. Paint.

 

My main gripes with the car right now, are that it's too long, and it has a roof (and mice lived in the headliner for a while, so the roof has rust damage). It really is a BIG car! but losing a few feet out of the middle, would make it about right. It would be nice to be not as wide, but that is a LOT of work to fix. And yes, I've been pondering the possibilities for a few months.

 

Still with the stock length 4 door front doors but I added in some more shortness to the rear quarters. Now you're probably talking 15" removed in front of the wheelwells and almost as much behind the wheelwells. Front fenders remain unchanged.



It's not bad from a side view, I think though if you go any shorter it's going to look really odd in comparision with its width and the height of the windshield.

 

The more you shorten the car the more it will want to be sectioned to maintain balance. Especially as an open car.
How much cactus have you been chewing on anyway? lol.

 

I think this looks great, If it was too perfect it wouldn't be an odd Edsel nomore!

 

Looks like it's getting there. What happens if we lose the vent windows? That will reduce the visual bulk of the windshield?

 

I think the car would look odd less the vent windows. Here's mine on the trailer on the way to NY, no vent gl***.

 

I agree that if it had a roof, it would look odd without the vent windows. But we're planning to do away with that....

 

Vents deleted. That protrusion is supposed to be the top of the steering wheel but it looks odd because it was behind the gl*** (I'm new at this).

 

Also, I think I have extra '59 2 door side trim that would be useful on the rear quarters, and maybe we could swap for some of the stuff on your car that you'd no longer be using (I'm doing a '59 2 door sedan)

 

that's really looking like what I had in mind...thanks! Now, the fun part...what all cutting and moving did you have to do, to get it there? The challenge might be getting the body lines on the side to match up within reason, in metal.

And yeah, parts swapping would help

 

Jim where most guys screw up is taking the entire rear door out (think '70s here).Wheel base is not the problem, it is proportion. There is a very fine line between sublime and abortion.

 

Rough idea of cut lines

 

I think if I actually had to do it in real life, I'd cut the tops of the quarters off including the complete trunklid all the way to the package tray, then I'd shorten the back of the quarters, (eliminating as much overhang as possible without touching the leaf springs) then forward of the quarters (using what is left of the back doors to fill in the gap, also shortening the frame wherever it's the most straight), then I'd throw the top of the quarters back on, sliding the trunklid forward as far as it needs to go. Then you're not ****ing with the length of the trunklid or it's opening, which would be the hardest part anyway.

The cut down the center of the quarters would split it right through the two tone paint section.

 

That's really neat, I'm going to have to stare at the car for a while again....

 

Since the car I have is white, and I'm not thinking of changing colors (yet, at least), the door outline shows up prominently. It wouldn't take much effort to radius the lower rear corner of the door, and it would look like it really wasn't a 4 door to start with

 

Here's what you really wanna do with it. You could call it the George Jettson Edsel.

 

If you're just looking for something easier to do to make it prettier, 4 door sedans and 4 door hardtops share the same doors, the door frames will unbolt out of your current doors, and the roofs are the same as well. If you had a 4 door hardtop donor (59 Ford or Edsel) to get the windows and regulators out of, (and the drip rail trim for the underside of the roof) you could make your car a pillarless hardtop without touching your current paint. You'll have to cut and replace the center door pillar with the hardtop one (or cut off and reinforce your current one) but it could be done in a weekend with the right parts and some ambition.

 

Shorter car...no roof....I don't really care that it's a 4 door, or that it has pillars. Of course, I say that, but the main thing I want to do is get rid of two doors, and the roof that the pillars hold up

I'll see what it would take to turn my sedan into the car you photoshopped. Or close to it. I would move the whole trunk forward. Figuring out how easiest to deal with the rear doors...would I want to cut out the rear jamb, and shorten the rear door, leave the hinge in, but remove the back of the door? this is the stuff I'm thinking about.

Also the frame would need to be reinforced, like they did to convertibles in the 50s. I have some ideas for that.

 

looks like a shriners car...^^



But this isn't half bad.^^

 

Isn't that the way the Nova started? How about a Edsel G***er???

 

Jim any room you have behind the seat you could fill with a hard tonneau, like they did on the T bird roadster conversions of the early '60s. That way you don't have to completely loose the rear door and not have it look too funky.