Projects A tale of 3 chops and the revival of the 41 to 48 fords

Posted my 48 on the first page of this thread,here are some newer shots

 

I have looked through this whole thread...Of ALL the pictures shown I don't see any that are massacred like some 49-51 Ford shoeboxes have been built in the past or are being done now and are liked by many....I see where quarter window shape is important, I like the 41' ford/merc noses, not fond of skirts or the big butt look but there wasn't one I would have thrown out of bed...!!...

 

I remember in the early niniety's, I was selling shoebox roofs like hotcakes , I had alot of calls from body shops that were trying to fix bad chops on shoeboxes, alot of them had roofs that resembled a skate board ramp and had roofs that had been ruined.
These cars are one of the harder ones to chop with all the compound curves in the roof , so they tend to keep the novice guy with a stick welder away, and ya, the quarter window is the hardest part to get right on these cars.

 

I recently chopped my tudor.
looks fine to me.

http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?p=8199365#post8199365

at the moment I'm still busy with the small things.

 

my 48 3 wimdow is (was) a business coupe. I did the chop as a short door coupe then moved the b-pillars and added long doors.
I just cut the A pillars and split the roof from quarter window to quarter window. then moved the whole roof forward to line up the A-pillars then layed down the rear window

 

Over the years ,I have seen some chopped two door sedans and most of them lean forward in the front and look terrible, this one I like alot, the chopp is mild and stylish and a great improvement to a stock one, great job.

 

I haven't a bad chop on this whole thread.I still like the proportions of my skinny butt ford. first time I've had it out in the daylight in 12 years. moving to my new shop

 

only thing I would change would be to get a Bigger picture, Really like the LQQK

 

A car that really hit home with me that is more hot rod than kustom was Joe Kress, American Rodder editor in the 90s, hardtop turned converible. It was absoluetly B.A.S. I rember this car to the day. It was like in '94. It was in red oxide primer, pinstriping, chopped convertible top, red steelies just freakin awesome. It ran something like 11s or so in the quarter. Was ridiculously cool. I think it was like a 45ish or so. Been awhile. I couldn't find a picture of it but man it's worth seeing. Good luck on the build man.

 

Dave it took me days to get that photo posted. the only one I have is to large to post then I got that one and it's to small. I clicked on the photo then zoomed it to 200

 

thanks.

 

update

 

Looks good!!!

 

Well we are finaly back on it, the hardest part to do on a business coupe is the rear sail panel, when the sail panel gets leaned forward , your end up with a half inch gap between the top center of the deck lid and the sail panel, we added on the top lip of the deck lid to make up for it.

 

Very cool !!

 

Here is a differ'ent aproach to chopping a club coupe (slanted pillar posts) it gives the car the aero sedan look, notice the use of a forty rear window instead of the stock oval unit

 

Looks like your getting close to paint! It looks great!

 

Ya , finally bought the skirts and hoping to get a full week worth of work on her durring easter vacation, custemer cars come first so the project gets pushed aside but looks like we are finaly going to have a chance to finish the bodywork.

 

That looks superb, do you have any more pictures or details ?

Thanks Pete

 

The drip rail at the rear suggests it's a business cpe.

 

That would be correct if it is a '41 Otherwise, from '42 they all had that type of driprail.

 

My bad. But the slope of the drip rail sure looked like business cpe

 

I would like to show a few photos of a project that I am involved in. Some years ago I got this idea that it was time for me to get or build the custom car that I had built in my head for so many years. Back in '78, I was fourteen years old then, I saw a photo of Jesse Lopez '41 Ford in a swedish magazine. Actually it was a drawing, but nevertheless, it got me stuck.

Fast forward about thirty years, I start to talk to Fabian Valdez about my ideas. Soon I am the owner of a '41 business coupe, and Fabian gets to work on it. The plan is to build a car that is an amalgamation of my custom car influences, the more obvious ones are Jesse Lopez' club coupe and Paul Janich's business coupe. It will have a cut down '48 Caddy grille, with all the organic forms of the Lopez original. I found a nice grille on Ebay that was sent to Fabian, as well as a pair of long '41 skirts. As a wink to fellow Swede Karl Jonasson who restored an older '39 Merc custom, I plan to use a '51 Ford dash.



I got a pretty nice and unrestored Crestliner steering wheel for it, with that "interesting" smell that some of the older wheels have. Caps will be the classic Sombreros, and a Car Craft from '56 gave me the idea to use tail lights from a 1941 Packard.



That's it for details, it was something that kept me busy while Fabian worked on the first of the critical parts of this project. Here is stage one, with the top cut into pieces:



A- and B-pillars, door done, starting to shape the rear part.



Other side taking shape. Flows nicely:



Check out that shop! Cool stuff everywhere.

One more:



The thing is that I haven't seen this car in real life after the project started, only in Fabian's photos. To finally be able to check it out for real will really be something.

I am going to add new photos as I get them.

 

Great to see some more of your Project Christer... I have been looking forward to see and hear more about it.
I saw Fabian's photos on his FB... but with a bit more info they look even better.

Have fun...

 

By the way, In late 41, ford made a club coupe, super rare, a friend of mine owns one, it would be cool to see a picture of one.

 

Thanks for posting that chrisman, I see Fabian made new rear corner panels for the roof, good idea instead of fighting the old panels, man those things are a bitch! please keep posting the progress.

 

Funny I've never thought of them as being particularly rare. How many do you want to see?

http://www.carnut.com/cgi-bin/02/image.pl?/show/02/pbo/nat056.jpg

 

Thanks for posting

 

Until I got my 41 I thought all 41's were pretty scarce. But now it seems as though their everywhere