Technical Calling All Coupesters! Let's See 'Em!

Yes, today is different than the 40s-50s or even 60s. Back when, hot rodding a car was not so anal and purist. I've even seen a handful of 32 Ford 3 windows that were cut down, only because the builder wanted an open car. These cars had so little comparative values back then, so cutting a good body was not a big deal......heck, they already torched the whole floor and subrails out to channel..

Today, yes, a "new built" coupster is made from necessity, on a car that can't be saved otherwise, and has so little value to part it out.

When I got done cutting away all the destroyed pieces of my 5w coupster, I should have quit, but there were almost no panels or pieces that could be sold. In hindsight, mine was far too much work, and hours, but that is partly due to me wanting a 32 cabriolet with side windows, and I could not find one in my budget at that time. Should have waited..

here is a recent progress pic. Working on it today, but needed a break.....breaks are becoming quite pleasant

 

You should be proud of that car , man... It looks good... How did you do the top, is it one piece?,

I had a mint cabriolet in the 90s that someone capped the doors and leaded them shut and cut the a pillar and leaned them back , and put a carson top on it ....I bought a whole nother body just to get stock doors , Roy idman ended up with the leftovers in retrospect the car should have been left alone probably as the 40s coupester hotrod it was..

 

My top is made from scrapyard 1/2" square tubing framework, then skinned with 6 sections of sheetmetal welded together.


On your 1990 Carson topped car, yes I bet you now wish the outcome was different, but even just 2 decades ago, our decisions were just a part of those very different times.

I predict that in the near future, a lot of rebuilders of old rods, will regret unchanneling, or erasing other old time mods.

 

I guess it depends on the owner , some guys dig the attention, some guys dig the cars and some really dig the history, I like my cars the way I want them which is probably why I start with garbage
, I don't think I would have it in me to take a loved hotrod that the guy kept since the 50s , took care of it till the day he died just to buy at an estate sale and unchannel it and re chassis it.. It bums me out a little when I see it happen, I don't really like the east coast style cars but I wish people would that liked that style would be able to get the survivors those cars are hotrod history also it would be nice to see them preserved

My car lost its orig hotrod chassis in the 70s and most of the stuff on it so it wasnt a super big deal by the time I got it.. No one gave a shit about cabriolets except restorers till recently too

 

Coming along






Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G890A using The H.A.M.B. mobile app

 

Its a little hard to tell from the image, but the first Model A project i got last year was an abandoned coupester project. 28/29 Roadster Cowl and shot pair of Roadster doors mated up to a beat up pair of sports coupe quarter panels, tulip panel, repro steel beaver panel, original parcel shelf and glass deck lid. I am using many of these parts for my couprielet project. I have decided to have a go at fabricating proper roadster style quarters for the roadster front half so that i can sell it on. I figure it will be easier than trying to reshape the beat up old sports coupe quarter panels.

 

1930 coupester ; '30 cowl, '30-'31 doors and '29 cabbie quarters...
1928 cabriolet, from sport coupe...
1930 coupester ; '30 cowl, '30-'31 doors, '29 sport coupe quarters...
1930 pickster ; '30 cowl, '30-'31 doors, '30-'31 rear cab...

 

OK, NOW it's in paint:

 

A buddy of mine who was big on swap meets found a pair of the center panels from a '28-9 touring and added them to the front edge of the coupe 1/4's ....because he was running a B motor on '32 rails and had room to move the body forward. Way more cockpit space and looked alot less coupester-ish

 

Anyone remember this one?

 

Work in progress here....widened cowl, cropped windshield posts, flush doors, anti-sectioned rear quarters level with door tops and to give them some 'volume'

 

Nice start, but I don't think you are going to be happy adding to the quarters instead of subtracting from the doors. The slim profile is what makes the roadsters so slinky...and the sports coupes so frumpy. Do it your way, of course, but at least consider cutting down the doors even though it's a ton of work. BTW: Sloppyjalopies here on the HAMB has posted a couple of how-to posts on fabricating the door tops to make them both lower and slimmer which might be of help.

 

Nice mods.....and I like the wider doors to be able to get into the car, and the wider cowl leaves more footroom for the gas pedal?

I like taller door tops myself, so I made mine taller......as that way; the side glass bottom edge lines up better with the lowest part of the W/S glass frame. On my car at least, it lets the door glass be shorter, or more chopped looking.


.

 

Update to September 2018. Along with quite a few suspension changes I also stretched the frame two inches, re-chopped the windshield another inch and a quarter and leaned it back a little more. It's pretty much done now except for a little detailing here and there...

 

fantastic thread guys... keep it coming even if I am a coupe man myself

 

I built this one 15 years ago

 

That's a fine looking ride right there.

 

my old coupster.

 

27 Chev........Started with 27 coupe quarters and cowl. Now

 

wow!! that is perfect!

 

'30 truck cowl, '32 cowl top, tilted and narrowed posts, '30-'31 coupe / fordor doors w/ roadsteresque caps, , '30-'31 sportie quarters, '30 tulip, '29 sport coupe subrails, '52 truck dash speedometer hole removed, filled...

 

I have seen some extremely nice coupesters and some that missed the mark, I believe the guys with a eye toward the traditional styles will always build a winner! HRP

I missed this old build from California by about a hour, the tag was from '93 but looked like a East Coast build, missing it still haunts me. HRP

 

I have seen the pix here, but no idea on the title...
a guy used a roadster tulip [maybe '28 0n the '30 body]…I think the '28 cockpit combing is more like the '30 sportie quarters...
then cut and slid the upper quarters forward the difference between the sportie and roadster tulips
[5" or so]... measured it is 5" longer...
filled the gap with a 5" section from another quarter...

 

need a pair of these quarter patches...
I see things man !
the lower bead along the '30 coupe's panel below the decklid is about 1" wide...
the quarter bead is about 3/16" wider and tapers...
the panel below has a slight arch left to right...
the quarter has a very similar arch front to back...
the below deck panels are about $100 …
34" long so I can cut [2] 5" pieces a little too wide each side,
making them from 2 pieces I can get the extra width with 1 weld instead of adding a sliver...
long enough to get the 4 pieces needed plus a couple spares in case of pooching a cut...

 

used [4] 5.5" sections of '30-'31 below deck's lower bead... [2] on each side...
cockpit shortened 5"...
before ;

after ;

 

I agree with the windshield tilt being needed, but can't figure how to cut the A pillars without taking the door tops down also. Don't want to do that, in fact on the lookout for window tops so I can roll up the windows. Or how did you guys with the hardtop look windows make them without the full window frames? I made a top pout of bugeye sprite bows and cut up, dyed bimini top to keep the wind off my neck. Now trying to stop the top flapping at speed or slow. Not trying to make a sport coupe look like a roadster, it was all that was available. But it's mine and I enjoy it. Just not the wind on the back of the neck so much.

 

Some trucks, '35 to '47 had stamped steel frames around the glass, not perfect but I used some to make '34 cabbie style window frames...
got one hanging down in the garage if you need a pic ?
had 2, but needed an extra one for making a squarish angle in front, I let it curve out back...
no pix pre computer...

 

My 32 body was a coupe shell that had the roof cut off a long time ago. I built the top of each door from the beltline up.

I made door glass frames from salvage 1/2" square tubing. I made twin vertical window tracks from cutting one side off of 3/4" salvage square tubing, lined with black felt. Both of those tracks need to go as far down in the door as possible, and must be 100% parallel. The glass framing must fit snugly in the felt lined tracks, but still be able to slide.

There has to be front and rear lower parts of the glass frames to be straight & 100% parallel, and to go down inside the door as much as possible, so that when you slam the door with window raised, it still is solidly held.

Window regulators need to be a twin arm gear type like used on vintage convertibles, or go with a modern Jeep "center lift" enclosed cable drive to get the glass to come up dead straight.

All of this is not something you can do in a week with lots of beer. "Close Enough" won't cut it when designing this stuff. It takes serious work & thoughts to make it roll up/down like a new car. You also need stops in the door so the window stops at the top without being able to go too far if the door is open, and also have stops at the bottom with glass down...and have a factory look of the top of the window frame level with top of the door, when window is down.

I also built retainers to hold rubber seals into the roof. The roof is solid, covered with cloth.


window is up here, and shows handmade garnish moldings at top of door panel.below:

 

My Son and I built this one in the 80's. Bought a clapped out model A body for 200 bucks that had the top cut off, no firewall, floor, or inner fender panels. Watched our pennies and tried to build it for a few hundred dollars, Saved receipts and ended up at $ 2500. Had a blast and cruised for about 10 years, traded it off.

This one was a '28 sport coupe that needs a new home cause I don't want to paint it and the herd needs thinning....

 

@F&J the only question is where do you store all the cassette tapes? love the car man