Here in Australia a hood is a bonnet. . . Anyhow I've been working on an 1948 FX Holden bonnet and the more I look at it the more I'm thinking that I need to build a Boattail body. . . . Because I really need yet another project. I'm thinking 32 rails 28 29 cowl flathead Cad engine. Actually my 16 year old son needs a good kick up the bum and maybe this may provide a father son bonding opportunity. . . As soon as he lets go of the game controller. Tried to find some inspiration here but nothing really has jumped out at me. What can we find?
That would work with a little cutting. I have a 39 Hudson Terraplane hood/bonnet for that same reason. The plan is for a boattail speedster body, for my 28 Hudson. It only came with a cowl, but I'm stuck, due to cowl being to nice to cut up, and it sure needs some of the width taken out to look right. The Terraplane hood is perfect for what I need. I've found late 30s, early 40s hood's, make the best shapes for boattail rears.
Hi, X38. I may need to borrow your 32 frame jig. I also wonder if anyone has built a 32 style body without the swages. I'm thinking like smoooooothed out.
Perhaps a bit abrupt, due to the shortness of the car and the fact that the body tooling was widened by 4" at the last moment? Here are some pics to look at: http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/specials.720448/
We used a 1940-41 "Oldsmobile" one piece hood. I worked very well. I thought it was a Chevy hood but but I was told Chvy hoods were two pieces. Gary
48/53 Chevy truck hood that was split in two and the panels rearranged so that the original center is now the bottom edge of the boat tail. I put a filler panel in the middle after trimming away the old bottom edge of the hood.to get it flat. I'd like to run the ridge that is the old front edge of the hood but not the tip of the boat tail all the way up the back if I can figure out how to shape a panel to do it.
The nice thing about that hood is that the flares on either side could be integrated into splash aprons to cover the frame. No cutting needed! See my avatar and 2ndchance's post #7.
In general, hoods from the late 30's to 40's vehicles work well as boat tail material- especially from larger cars like Cadillac, Lincoln, etc. I'm still looking for my "perfectly shaped" hood from a '46 Hudson
The builder of these to cars used 1940 International truck hoods. The rest was hand fabricated out of aluminum.
Chevy... I can see the international now that you say it. Great job! This is a project that I could get into, Would it be better to use a ford chassis with the transverse spring that way you may not need the splash shield/aprin to cover the frame?