Hey hambers just recently picked this 53 2 door plymouth club coupe up for my girlfriend as a winter project as my olds is in the paint shop and nearing completion... My question for you guys after searching the hamb is anyone have any experience choping these... after doing some research and a lot of eyballing other rides i dont think this will be a super difficult project... the body is super striaght and floors are amazing so i should be able to get right to the chop... does anyone have any advise of using a new backlite maybe from a shoebox ford or any others and if so does anyone near pa have one for sale...i would also like to retain the b-pillars maybe by slanting them as the roof would move forward a bit... any help would be appriciated
Post a pic in the "Photoshop thread to end all photoshop threads" to see if someone would photochop it for you. Those old Plymouths don't have the prettiest rooflines, but it's similar to a '51 Ford Victoria (check out the "Victoria's Secret" thread). You might look at grafting on a whole shoebox roof, I have no idea if the dimensions are similar. A lot depends on your skill level. Cutting is easy, putting it all back together again is the hard part.
big a thanks for the info ...fortunately i have some friends who are very skilled fabricators who can help with the hands on aspect... i will post pics in the photochop thread to see if i can get some more advise
Ed Sloan's Barris built beauty is reportedly being cloned by a HAMB'er, but I haven't seen any progress reports.
Check the web under "Sniper auto by Troy Trepanier" I think that he did a hard top chop on the car and it was featured every where..............
thanks so much guys ... mo... i live that barris car that is what made my desicion on the plymouth purchase i have been foloowing that thread closely and havent seen and recent posts on the chop as well Mrjynx... thank you so much for the photchop!!!!! i really love the lines of the 1st and 3rd i was pondering a hard top converion but i have never tried that before and am wondering about everything that would need to happen the door and window sills and such any help or advise on doing a hard top conversion???? i feel like it would almost be eaiser to hard top it but again i dont know how to do the window sill part
I think that barris roof lines quite nice so i did one like it. does your girlfriend actually get a say in this? lol
Mrjynx... that last one u made is about exactly what i was thinking in my head ... what rear quarter/tailight sections did you grapht on???? and i show my girl photos of other customs that i like as reference so i guess im kind of stacking the deck in my favor on that one hahaha any other input would be a great help can anyone help with me sourcing info on the actual fab required to make a functional hard top conversion??? thanks again guys
rear quarters are just sheetmetal. inspired by image. I dont understand the windows to be able to help technically tho. but I dont see whats so complicated about it.
mr jynx yeah those rear quarters ar the gnats ass thank you for the inspiration... as far as the window operation i am more wondering about using the old glass as patterns and making a stainless frame to encase the windows as per most hard tops of the time and fabbing the stainless strip that is mounted to the rear glass or tring to find hard top glass for that car and modifying that
Actually I see now how what I did in photoshop would be harder to make work IRL. the design i did keeps the top of the door frame, yet other hardtops dont have a top door frame. the design works for a sports coupe, not a club coupe. Ill have to rethink it.
1955 Plymouth lights could look good also. The Photo-chops all look great. I hope this car gets built.
'MO... thanks for the light pic... mopars are a whole new area for me so this thread is really helping me make some important planning decisions and any other tips tricks or advise will be much appreciated... just cleared a bay in the garage for it last night and started gutting the interior so thinking of starting a build thread??
I think I may be over thinking/ complicating this in my own head I love the Barris lines and the 55 Plymouth taillights and extending rear fender so after some more pondering I think Im gonna shoot for the look of the last roofline and rear window but slanted b pillars in the very 1st the mrjynx posted Will start taking more pics of the tear down and will be starting a build thread ASAP
ok theres a real quick edit before I go to bed. have you thought about colour and wheels, lowering? i`ll do a final version then.
I like the look of the chop with the slanted pillars. My only suggestion would be to take an inch or so more out of the rear to get the roof line to taper down. Just my opinion, its going to look good either way.