Art & Inspiration The Edsel Raven

I'd take the back doors off, take out the length you want to remove, leaving the center door pillar in place for the front (now only) doors to close on, then fill in the resulting hole with the skin of the old door, and the inner section with the inside panel of the old door. No need for any of the old rear hinges, or any of the surrounding sections of the old back door, just the outer skin and the inner skin.

When I 2 door'd this Chrysler, I left the old rear jamb in there for strength, some said it would show up in the bodywork, and they might be right but for the paint that's on it you never know it's there.





Center door post in place (in your case, totally unchanged after the removal of the door) with the inner skin in place (mine from a donor 2 door, yours basically just the inside skin of the old door welded in to fill the gap after you've taken out the appropriate length)



Then the old rear door skin is cut down to fit and welded in to make the rear quarter panel complete. Mine had to be shortened about 10" due to the longer door length, yours will be shortened to match the new length of the body, but same thing basically.

 

LOL! You know it's all going work out just fine when you start talking about things like "adding in some more shortness". That must be the same mindset that does things like "adding lightness" by drilling holes wherever possible.

 

the one that baffles me is when guys sleeve lightening holes...Am I missing something here???

 

I don't have photoshop, I have MS Paint, which is really crude! so I do crude cut and pastes. But I do have the car, and a camera, so I can play with the "real thing". I did some math, ***uming I want to take 3 feet out of the car (to get the rear deck close to the front seat), to keep the proportions similar to what it has now, I figured one foot out of the rear overhang, and two feet out of the wheelbase. I put tape on the car, the measurement from the outside of one stripe, to the outside of the other, is 12" for the back pair, 24" for the front pair. So when you photochop it, just remove all the blue lines, and that gives the desired shortening. A strange way to make a scale drawing, but hey, it's easy to do.

Oh...about the proportions...I lied, it's not really right, because I did the ratio aft of the front wheels, not the overall car length. So it does look a bit screwy still. But it also cuts out as much as I want to cut out. Maybe it should get a little more off the back, a little less out of the middle? I don't know.

The before and after.

 

Photoshop using your blue tape lines as a guide:

 

My honest opinion, it's too short now. The rear overhang length looks good, but you need to take out less from behind the doors. I think it stepped over the line from possible factory look to clown car with that much gone.

 

Looks like a kiddie pedal car....

 

The Raven has the front fender lengthened and the windshield moved back. That's why it looks in better proportion than today's valiant photo shop efforts.

 

Consider this one compared to yours above, note the tape lines are in the same place, and the rear overhang is shortened the amount of your tape, but the rear only takes out maybe 14" instead of 2 feet.



Even this is pushing it in my opinion, but it still works for the most part. It's easy to get carried away on a project like this, check out some pictures of chopped Mercury roofs for an example. Lots of builders figure "If I'm going to go through the work, may as well go BIG, make sure the changes are noticeable and bold". But then you look, and the subtle chops that take out just the right amount are stunning and look like they belong that way, where as lots of monster chops look like a joke when they went too far.

I think this can be done and turn out great with some restraint. But I'd rather drive a 4 door post Edsel than a miniature Shriner-ized version.

 

The one above looks much better in proportion.

 

All this is fascinating. Cars that are too short are goofy. Use about 6-8 inches out of the back doors to lengthen the front doors. Then shorten the car by about 1/2 of whats left of the back door. I know you dont want a roof but someone else might want to do this with the formal roof instead of the Custom 500 roof shown in these pictures.

 

Of course your right... Like chopping a car only an inch and a half can make it look perfect. So far, we're only messing with ones and zeros. It don't cost nuthin.

I'll keep working on the plan. That extra ten inches in the middle makes it look a lot better.

 

I like where this is headed... Do it!

 

Here's the exact same picture as above, with no more length taken out of it, but this time the front doors are extended to the length of a 2 door car (best guess). Could be done by extending the existing doors using pieces of the old back doors if need be.

 

And another with the proposed rear door corner rounding (getting outside my abilites here, forgive the crudeness.)

 

Rounding that lower door corner makes a lot of difference in the visual appeal.

 

I think the shortened car above needs to have the front wheels pushed forward about 3-4 inches. It might be as simple as moving the body back that much on the frame then pulling the bumper in to match..

 

Does two things, we hen done on radius rods for example it keeps them from filling up mud/road dirt. The other thing that it does is makes you legal with some sanctioning bodies.

 

It would make the car look a lot better. The thing is, the front suspension is pretty far forward on the frame, so it would take some work up there to make it happen. I was looking at what it would take to move the engine back in the ch***is, and move the fender opening forward, and maybe scoot the wheel forward in the wheel opening, and some other tricks. It looks like a good way to make this project too involved for me to want to tackle it. After all, it's just an Edsel.

pic of what I was originally aiming for...the early T bird. I got to restore a 55 about twenty years ago, they are neat cars.

 

it kinda defeats the purpose, doesn't it?

 

I guess the NHRA doesn't want anyone to zing holes in their ch***is.

 

could you use a different front bumper that's shorter where it wraps around the side, then move the fender opening forward? I know, getting out of hand here, but its a thought?

 

Shoving the front wheels forward does look nice for proportions but would be a nightmare to do. You can't really make the front bumper wrap around into the wheel opening, so you'd have to reshape the wheel opening to make it work, not to mention re-positioning the entire body.

I like it, but I think the amount of effort it would take would make the project unfeasable. We're already approaching that point without touching the front end.

 

In my opinion the front needs lengthened. Look at the picture of the t-bird above. Lots of front fender behind the tire. This would involve moving the cowl and windshield back. I also think it needs longer than 4 door length in the doors. The tricky part with shortening the quarters will be that the character lines stamped in the quarters are running at a tapered angle. Getting that right will be a challenge.

 

As long as we're doing that, let's shorten the rear wheel opening a bit. That would actually be fairly simple, compared to moving the front wheels forward.

 

You all are getting a good feel for the challenges I've been thinking about the past couple months. It's not easy...but somehow, there's a way to do it without too much work, and make it look good.

I has also thought about shortening the bumper, so it doesn't wrap as far back. It could go forward as far as the headlight bezel. But the headlight bezel is kind of hard to change! the Tbird has very little overhang in front of the front wheels.

 

When I worked for a larger company with many heads of heads. The head of detailer for home floor plans and cut lists for the floor workers to cut and ***emble cabinets got pissed off at me when I sectioned (using scissors) a planned view and re***embled with tape faster than he could on his computer. He said to me, "you and your paper doll's !!!". To this day I still get a giggle from it when I see stuff like this.

 

Exactly what I was thinking. T-bird bumper would probably work, but $$$.

 

Ive done that!

 

heh...I work with the high school robotics team, the kids learn CAD modelling. I like to show them how to solve design problems using "paper dolls". It's so quick...