what do you think of reproduction bodies?

I paid $3000 for my 29 roadster body and it is whipped. $6500 for a new body is a steal compared to the thousands of hours I will have into restoring mine. However I have more time than money, and im a decent fabricator. Plus I get a huge sense of satisfaction restoring an original. Its such a trip back in time thinking about the guy who put that rivet in, that I'm drilling out.

The guys who say the prices are astronomical are nuts. Do you have any idea the ammount of $$$ and time it takes to design and tool up for an operation like body production???

 

I think it comes down to whether you prefer rust and dent repair, or building chassis and engines. The latter seems more like hot rodding to me.

 

^^^^^^
hmmm, or you're a racer at heart? I'd say hot rodding is really a marraige of the two. Besides, if you can build a chassis and not do sheet metal, I don't know how fast I'd go on your chassis...

 

Thousands of hours????

Decent fabricator.... perhaps. But "slow" fabricator sounds more like it.

I've never known anybody build a chassis and not do sheetmetal work.

Apparently your ass must hang out.

 

I suppose that there are lots of reasons that people enjoy cars.
I only worry about my daughter and I liking a car. I hope that being around them when she's young gets her into them when she's older.

I also drive my cars everywhere. I drive them because they are fun to drive and don't spend a lot of time at shows. I do go to them, but not a lot.
I can never afford to have cars that all the other car guys love in the first place.

To each his own. I do enjoy looking over the cars that were built with the intention of being impressive. Lots of hours and dollars go into most of those cars.

 

yea but do you want to be seen in public with her, that's the real question.

 

I've owned both real steel and fiberglass cars and loved them all equally. Its kinda like your kids .... they are all different but you love them all equally.

 

if he calls it a replica or a clone I'm ok with that. I just have a problem with the guy or gal who calls it a 32 Ford or Cobra when it isn't one.

 

What makes a '32 Ford? To a T guy it's the T engine that makes a T. To Euro guys, it's the original chassis.

If I put an original body on an aftermarket chassis with a Chevy crate motor, do I have a '32?

What if I put a fiberglass body on a Henry Ford chassis with a '32 flathead?

I deal with all this by not caring and judging a car by the the sum of its parts.

 

Start thumbing through your Rodder's Journal collection. Plenty of very traditional looking builds using repro steel bodies. I wouldn't kick any of them out of my garage because it's not "real".

 

<HR style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #e5e5e5; COLOR: #e5e5e5" SIZE=1> <!-- / icon and title --><!-- message -->
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<TABLE border=0 cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=6 width="100%"><TBODY><TR><TD style="BORDER-BOTTOM: 1px inset; BORDER-LEFT: 1px inset; BORDER-TOP: 1px inset; BORDER-RIGHT: 1px inset" class=alt2>Originally Posted by countrysquire
Maybe owning a car with a replica body is kinda like screwing a woman that ain't real pretty. Sure, you'd be more proud of it if she looked like Christina Hendricks, but you enjoy it just as much anyway.
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Or you could think of it as a girl with aftermarket boobs, lips, etc. Not original equipment, but can still be a lot of fun. Or so I've heard.....

 

I paid less for my chopped, steeled out, glass-fibre, Kilbourne, 32-3W body, than Walden Speed Shop gets to chop a steel (real or repro) 32-3W body. I'm not a mathematician, but I tend to be a thrifty fucker. I call it my 32 coupe, and if you don't like that, you can kiss my ass.

 

Seriously,.... who cares what you have a problem with?

And by the way, This is what a "Real 1938 Chevy Coupe" looks like.

 

That's actually easy - Its a modern re-body, as long as its done to factory spec. There will always be an asterisk after its name to explain the build, however.

Start pulling fiberglass molds and its a replica

 

It is interesting that so much concern is expressed over original vs. repro. Read the editorial in the July 2012 issue of Street Rodder and come to the realization that the government is working to make our concerns a non-issue by legislating our cars off the road, regardless of body manufacture or material.. Wake up and worry about a real issue, and than do something to combat this threat.

 

weasel, i know all about willys history so thank you for the lesson. first i never said it was a real steel willys, what i said was it was and is not a KIT car.kits come with shit, mine didnt come with shit.and with all due respect, to you it is not a 41 willys. but to me and a few others it is a 41 willys glass body.i know its not a real steel car. hell anyone can see that but what should i call it my pretend 41 willys car.lol well thats funny to me anyway.this is the only way alot of us can play in the game. i have always lovede the 41 willys. but i can not and would not give what a rusted out peice of shit is bringing.i like this body because its not rusted and its lite.i acually prefer this to a steel one for building a hotrod or a fast street car, whatever you want to call it.well i think ill go out and tinker with my WILLYS. lol

 

I am in the within sight of the finish line restoring an original deuce roadster body into which I am buried. I easily could have had 3 Brookville bodies for the money I have invested just to say (It's an original Henry). Dumb?, probably but I'm a deuce bigot. As for the reproduction steel bodies I've done somewhere around 15 Brookvilles so that speaks for itself. I will do more when the economy gets going again. I've only done a couple of glass cars in the past 40 years so can't speak with authority about that.

 

It bothers me when a guy with a kit car calls it a "32 Duesenberg" with a straight face and clueless fucktards accept the answer and say, "oh wow, what a beautiful car" having said that, my steel 34 Ford 5 window is all kindsa beat to hell, but I love it.

 

Some guys dont mind wearing a [/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT]prophylactic or drinking near Beer. Big Differance

 

I have a friend who was awarded a "Best Deuce" award at a big GoodGuys show with his Hercules replicar '32 woodie. Not a single original Ford part anywhere on it (including drivetrain). At what point does a vehicle like that become a '32 Ford? After-market bodies allow many of us to enjoy the hobby that we otherwise could not afford, but let's not kid ourselves.
I still think one of the funniest things that I've ever seen is faux patina (rust) on a 'glass bodied car...

 

Let's imagine for a minute what the hobby would be like if no reproduction bodies had ever been made........no Brookvilles, no fiberglass T buckets, etc. First of all, it would mean that thousands of enthusiasts would never have gotten a car on the road, and secondly, the demand would certainly exceed the supply and those $40K Deuce bodies that we all complain about today would be so expensive only the very rich could even begin to think about building one.

So if you look at it that way the aftermarked reproduction body builders have done those of you who will only accept real steel a HUGE favor.

Don

 

Not suited for the general hot rodding public,, just to damn expensive!!!

 

Right ON! I was around some of the 50s stuff and a lot of it was unsafe to drive. Owners/new owners looked to 60s parts before 40s parts for performance.

 

I am not a good person to ask when it come to reproduction V original. For me life is all about going faster and doing it on the cheap.

I look it it this way I would llike to get my hands on a Fiat or even a Simca look alike. Real steel would be the bomb but my time is running out, I am getting a little long in the tooth so to speak. If I could lay my hands on a glass replica, preferably one that was already used and abused so I could get in cheap or free I would settle.

On the other hand I would also like to have an american bantum coupe, not a ford sedan cut down to resemble an american bantum coupe, and even though I have seen some good copies I really want to land a steel one.

I guess that makes me a walking contradiction.

 

Wake up guys !

Pay attention to what Keith wrote !
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We are to the point now that many of the repro bodies such as Brookville are good enough that individual parts will interchange with Henry's orginals. Good enough that restorers use them. If you want to get into a dust-up over what constitutes "original," read up on restorations of steam locomotives--every steam locomotive that ever ran on any railroad went through dozens of modifications and upgrades over their working lives. Every steam locomotive in the US in running condition has had its boiler replaced at least once. Many engines have been rebuilt into a different wheel arrangement, changed from saturated to superheated steam, or been fitted with different type valve gear. By the time they'd all been through the backshops once, no two engines were identical. By the end of its working years, all of the ones that operated on Class I roads were much more modern engines than the date on the builder's plate would suggest. So what does it mean to restore an engine like, say, Southern 630 at TVRM in Chattanooga? Put it back to its original configuration as a saturated engine with Stephenson gear and carbide lights? Or back to its final configuration as it ran in the late '40s-early '50 when it bore little resemblance to the 1903 builder's photo? Whether we're talking about an "original" '32 Ford (which would still have mechanical brakes and the '32 V8 engine which would have been considered a lemon by today's standards), or an original steam locomotive, the issues are the same. Southern 630 was restored to its appearance in its last working years--in other words, you could say it's been "hot-rodded." And, if we were too worried about originality, we'd be restorers instead of hot rodders and customizers. And very few restorations get done without some repro parts--and in some cases a repro body.

 

I haven't read the article but I would contend that the reproduction bodies - glass, steel or aluminum that have flooded the market and that people have tried to register or registered as genuine cars of the year they represent have been a catalyst in bringing to attention of the pols that there is a vote garnering but totally illogical and unjustified 'feel good issue' they can capitalize on to get on the green ecoloony bandwagon. That they are attempting to kill an entire industry, thousands of jobs and deprive the economy and their self serving agenda of the resultant taxes doesn't apparently appear on their radar - but hey who ever said you have to have common sense to be a politician? Back in the day it was just a handful of guys altering real old cars which would not have been an attention magnet. I call this unwanted attention and attempts to legislate the hobby out of existence 'The Coddington Legacy'....

 

Anybody that makes a statement that a Brookville body is too expensive knowing that an original is twice as much will never be my economics teacher. Just like my daddy said if you want to play, you got to pay. 296 V8 if you can find me an original body for just over the Brookville price then I will buy it.

 

I have to say that I love the real steel cars and the new metal cars. I did purchase a Fiberglass 32 and really love it. I put a steel hood on it. No problems so far. This car is really fun to drive. I think it's cool that we now have more 1932 Fords on the street than Ford made. Life is short. Enjoy it - whatever it is made of.

 

i dont care if its all henrys stuff or a glass body. as long as when its done it looks like it was intended to be.