depends on how the rest of the car is built. if it is already an "axled" gasser style car it would make no difference. a primo convertible would knock the price down by a couple grand at least. what kind of goofy question is that???
I am building a i beam axle hot rod. 210 2 door post. if i did go ahead and cut them out and applied a lip, how hard would it be to fix them afterwards. and how much would it devalue the car if i left them cut.
It's impossible to say. As they said, it depends on how well it's done, and how it fits with the rest of the car, and how much the car is worth altogether. Anything made of steel can be fixed, but it is a lot of work to fix it so you can't tell it had been done. You have to finish the inside as well as the outside.
If the car is sold with a straight axle, I can't see the radiused openings being a minus. So, why fix it, if it has a straight axle? It would be a pain to get it welded up and not warped to heck. Then major amout of block sanding, etc
I had my 26T/ Chrysler with Automatic trans at a small show, and a woman asked me if the Automatic trans devalued the car!! I said DUH, I don't think so!!
It depends on your point of view. To a auto restoration purist, any modification is heresy and the perpetrator should be flogged with an NOS fanbelt (correctly date coded, of course). To most of the crew on this board, it's a matter of personal taste ... we may not like it, but figure that we don't have to live with it and the next owner can fix it. In the meantime, we'll just make snotty comments about it or think that we could have done it better!
When I got my 55 it was a stock bodied car with a Big Block and in Primer. I paid $3,000 for it. I radiused the wheel wells, took the front bumper off, re shot it in Flatish Black, did a simple interior and a roll bar and put some 5 spokes (Torque Thrust ) on it. Sold it for $27,000 - I think it added to the value!
If you can radius and add a lip to the wheel well, you should at least have an idea of what it would take to put it back the way it was.. If you don't, then put the cutting tools down!
I modified my 55 for me not for anybody else. I put a radius into some perfect rear quarters and took some verbal abuse for it but it's the way I want the car. Mine is not in a currently fashionable 'gasser' style but bears more resemblance to a late sixties street racer. In terms of value I would say that it may affect things for the purist but over here in Europe any well built 55 still has a high value. You need to build it because you love it not because it's worth $xxxx.
who cares, its your car, make it look however you want. if it knocks the value down a little its only money, it grows back.
Sure it will in some peoples eyes. As far as I'm concerned you are just fixing the factorys mistake, they should have come that way off the assembely line.
Hasn't happened in the last 50-60 years so I wouldn't worry about the radiused openings going out of style. They NEED radiused IMO. Or put Nomad openings in, I always like that touch but you don't see it much.
Fads come and go. Do what you want at this time. If you want a 60s era 55 try to make the rest of the details match the era. Done well a 60s era 55 with radiused wheel wells will command plenty of cash. Radiused wheel wells pretty much lock you into the 60s gasser look era. If that is what you want stick with it. I think back about all the 63-67 Corvettes that had the custom wheel well flares installed in the 60s. Most have been restored by now but they were the hot lick back then.
I dont understand the logic. youre either doing something to a car because its the car you always wanted, in which case, why would you be thinking of selling it, or its not the car you want, and youre just restoring it to sell it, in which case altering a car is way going to de value it because who wants to have to un do all that work. also why waste the money on it?
And here I thought a Devalue was a French car from the '30s. Silly me. I think that a Nomad style fender opening would be very cool but there's nothing wrong with radiusing. Just don't let the tires stick out past the body sides. Back in the day that only showed you were too lazy to do it properly. That hasn't changed, imho.
The Jalopy Journal
