Hot Rods Boat Tail Builders

Just day dreaming as usual. I'm about to build a 30 roadster but have always had a soft spot for boat tails.

I know most people use 40 hoods as the tail section, but what does the chassis look like at the rear? Does it need to be pinched in to fit inside the tail section? As I'm still looking for a suitable hood (I'm in Australia so it's not easy), its a bit of a guess at the moment. What rear end/suspension do most use? I'd like to use my 39 banjo and buggy spring, but again worried about the width.

I guess when making the tail it could be moved further rearwards, therefore giving more room for everything to be concealed by a 40 hood. Just worried about the portions.

Any advice or pictures would be great.


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http://www.nwvs.org/Technical/ConstructionStories/JohnsSpeedster/Speedster.shtml Here is a link to a boat tail build, he covers chassis narrowing.

 

There's a bloke on the ozrodders forum building a boat tail on a morris Z ute chassis, he's using a morris minor bonnet for the rear. I'm not sure how well the proportions would go on a 30 roadster but it would certainly be worthwhile looking into seeing as they can be bought pretty cheap.

Cheers
Dave

 

The typical boat tail of the late twenties - early thirties like Essex, Auburn or Stutz used an un modified chassis and more or less standard fenders. At the rear, the gap between the tail and the fender was filled by a metal panel. This panel was horizontal and contoured to cover the chassis.

If you look up some pics you will soon get the idea.

Another idea that has not been exploited is to make the body of conduit tubing, suitably contoured and welded together, covered with cloth fabric like an old biplane. Or, panelled with expanded metal mesh and covered with vinyl top material like the old Bentley LeMans bodies. Such fabric had quite a vogue in the twenties and thirties for light weight sports type bodies both open and closed. You could look up Weyman bodies although there were many others that used a similar system.

 

'32 Boat tailed V-12 Auburn from www.fountainheadmuseum.com

 

Here are some ideas...

 

What about an Aussie boat tail.??? trim the sides off a FJ Holden hood.

 

Here is some pics of the coolest boat tail speedster ever built (in my opinion) the rear end pics shows you one way to deal with covering the chassis.

 

When ever anybody mentions a boat tail auto this is the first thing that comes to mind.

Doc

 

Boat tail cars are so cool. Many of the "eagle-beak" (as my wife calls 'em) '40s hoods can be used. If you can find one, you might consider using a '40s Hudson hood...they are split from the front fenders differently than most others. The horizontal panel at the sides is part of the hood instead of part of the fenders. And the middle "bubbled" portion is very deep. You may have to section the center to narrow it, which could produce a stylish crown down the centerline. Lengthwise, you could shorten it by removing a portion from the rear of the hood, (now the front) and that would effectively narrow it where it meets the body.

 

whats the story on this? I think i really like it.

 

That's Edsel Ford's second speedster, based on a (1933) Model 40 chassis, designed and built by Bob Gregorie.

 

To my mind a proper boattail has always been something different to a streamline or sports-racing tail. A proper boattail is just like a boat's bow, like the Amilcar skiff in Banjeaux Bob's post, with a distinct deck defined by the beltline, and quite a lot of tumblehome below.

Terminology aside, both styles predate '40s car hoods by anything up to two decades. Both styles tended towards limited production in which pressed sheetmetal wasn't really an option. That is why I'm not really fond of the '40 Ford hood approach for any but the loosest interpretations.

Sports-racing streamline tails were the result of a lot of work being put into aerodynamic advantage as it was understood at the time. The most work was in achieving the compound curves to the top part, for which reason the sides of the body were usually formed in simple curves, more often than not vertical. Compare how much flat and vertical there is in the tail of a Bugatti T35, for instance, which had the backing of an established factory: so much simpler, geometrically, the bodywork on more obscure stuff.

So, the way to do a more historically appropriate sports-racing tail based on a '40s hood would be to trim off everything that tends towards the vertical, fettle the edge as necessary, and rivet on simply-curved aluminium sheeting.

The line of the lower edge is important also. It has a huge influence on the sort of feel the car gives in side profile. Again, take a look at some historical examples, e.g. this Alfa Romeo:

 

I'll second that motion!

 

Thanks everyone for your input/pics, keep them coming.

Anyone got any chassis/rear end suspension pictures?


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I have always liked this one:

 

<style>@font-face { font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }table.MsoNormalTable { font-size: 10pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; }</style> I&#8217;m currently working with an old T-speedster boat-tail body. At some point it was put on a Willys chassis, and metal panels were fabricated to cover the frame corners and parallel leaf springs. You can kind of see what I&#8217;m talking about in my avatar, although it doesn&#8217;t show the fenders that it came with.

I&#8217;m now putting it on a Model A frame, because the buggy spring setup will allow me to narrow the frame and tuck the rear corners under the boat tail. No panels and no fenders.

It comes down to which you prefer: the &#8220;classic&#8221; open-wheel speedster look of the early &#8216;20s, or the &#8220;big cruiser&#8221; look of the &#8216;30s Auburns and such. Both styles are very cool.

 

That 36 is just perfect. The boattail shows superb craftsmanship.

 

That is very nice!


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Here is a current photograph of where I am at on my project.

 

Always thought this boat tail creation is awesome.

 

Didn't Wescotts make a boattail 39 Ford at one time? I seem to remember one, maybe in the 70s.

 

How about a 36ish Ford pick up?

 

Wow is that cool , anymore pics of it ?

 

Since you asked.

 

I've pulled about a dozen photos of that #14 car that Ned Ludd posted off the net as inspiration for my roadster.

Here is my pieced together effort sitting on the late 20's (I think) Chevy frame.

 

bugatti T35 wooden skeleton

 

That ^^^ Ricky, sounds like a really cool start to a boatail build !

 

I dont recall seeing this before ! Anymore pics? I am thinking something similar but as a chopped 3 window....

 

I would love to see more ideas about this truck idea