My '56 Olds Thread. Chopped 4" in the front 5" at the rear I'll post pictures as I download them. Here's a shot of the start of it...
56 Olds is a beauty. You're starting out with a great looking car. What are your plans for body mods? I'll be watching this thread
It was a perfect car to start with. Infact, it's my second '56 88 Holiday that I've owned. Love the lines of this car. Anyway this was a Cali car its whole life. No rust, pretty well cared for. Bought her in Chico, CA and drove her back to Detroit. I never intended to turn this into a project but one thing led to another. It started with leaky dry window seals and the removal of all glass...then beofre Steele Rubber could send the new ones, everything snow balled. Started with replacing the dash with a mint dash from a parts car '56 I had laying around... pictures coming as with the rest of the story....
my uncle is building a 56 olds, but his was a hardtop turned into a convertible with a scratch built carson top. looks cool though cant wait to see more pictures.
The 1951, '53 GM LaSalle. This is what I'm going for with my build. But I'm trying to keep it late 50's early 60's with out alot of the "fu-fu" (not there's anything wrong with "fu-fu") I just wanted this to be "Styled" and clean. ***Pictures are from me when I was at a luncheon at GM Heritage Center
Soooo back to the car. The Olds was a daily driver, drove it from Chico, CA across the country and back and forth to work. Dropped it down front and rear, cut 2.5 coils out of the front and had Eaton Springs, spit me out de-arched heavy duty rear springs with reversed eyes to drop it in the rear. Ran big Bias Ply Firestones from Universal Tire with 5"WWW to get her to sit just right. (pictures to come- not downloading for whatever reason)
With that said... Time seemed endless and the chop started to take shape, First I started timidly about only removing 1.5" in the front and 2" in the rear. But that's alot a work for such a small amount of metal being removed...like an old Hot Rodder once told me, "if Yer gonna be a bear, be a Grizzley bear" so came another .25" and another .25" getting the roof sitting right. Roll the car outside then step back 15 or 20 feet and look at...that's when I started to notice that the side trim (which I'm keeping on the car) started looking weird with the new roof line in the rear, so the rear posts started getting lower, to keep that angle set right, when you look at from the side...resulting in a back glass that is like a mailbox slit.
Due to the angle of the front pillars, pointing forward and wanting to keep the roof profile "Stock" and not lay the glass down, I moved into the package shelf like 3 inches. Wanted the roof from side view to be upright as if I had never touched the roof to drop it.
In these shots... I've got the roof at the rear where it lines up with the side trim (I'll try and get a side view shot to better illustrate it) also I sweet inside shot of how low this thing is
Think of it like a Factory Custom Club Coupe from 1956.... I really dig those early club customs with that short rear quarter window
Plans for this: Chopped Roof, Graphed in '56 98 Taillights, C-notch the rear frame, mount gas tank in trunk on top of frame, rebuilding the engine/trans, cleaning up the firewall for a neater paint job, installing a new brake booster and duals to replace the single manual brake (which was a fun drive through New Mexico, in a blizzard ((see pict)) Interior redo, paint, and a super super sweet engine set-up. If I can locate a Conti kit for the rear I'll extend the rear quarters and make her longer to go with it.
Yup, people think it's all sunshine here in the desert in NM but it can get pretty nasty up around the continetal devide between Gallup and Grants!
Metalman tell me about it... got into a steep crawl near Gallup. But the Olds Held the course. I was happy though to get back into Texas.
Starting to figure out my side scoop, using the stock trim as a template for the opening. Trying to figure out how much of an opening to make it. I want it functional, as I plan on using some air to vent the trunk space for the gas fumes... Just picture a little stainless mesh and some teeth sticking out of the opening. The LaSalle has something real similar and subtle on its rear quarters so that was my go to vision for this mod
The front glass will be easy, like the easy side glass, it's the backglass I need to figure out still.
Looks good, like that u drove it home that must have been a mission, but sounded like a cool one. Good look with the bulid and the "back glass."
Hello, I curious about what you are in the process of doing. I have been trying to hash out in my mind how to do mine, short of taking the top of another car that has a more graceful flow to it. Mark
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