Chop Finished... Rake Mocked...

The chop is completed. Here are some detail shots of the rear... very smooth.

Chris from SFSS and I mocked up the stance of the car and it's really exciting to see. More than just moving the front and rear of the frame up and down we had to consider the tire diameter and suspension that'll be used. The goal is to give the car a traditional but aggressive feel. One thing I enjoy about late 40's to mid 50's hod rods is how raw they are. Details of these same types of cars change as the 50's progress. Motivation for this car comes from those styling changes. So where the car is ending up stylistically is late 50's early 60's.

4th Stance... love the rake.

This is a 30" radius circle, my tire will be a little larger in diameter than this. A 16 x 7.50 Firestone is about 31.3". However, the gap from the top of the tire to the top of the wheel well will be similar to the cardboard circle.

3rd stance.

Second Stance.

1st Stance.

There's more soon to come. Engine and transmission details are on the way!

The Ruler... Salt Flats Speed Shop

Here are some shots from Salt Flats Speed Shop. The coupe is back under the knife. I've got a great feeling about the progress so far. Chris, from SFSS, is quite an impressive metal man.

As I now understand, chopping the car this way allows for less distortion by keeping the welds near the belt line.

Here's the inside, unfinished.

I was a little skeptical of using after market sheet metal parts, but this lower panel from Mac's fits pretty good.

Here's the relief cuts that'll make the pieces go where they're intended.

I've got an original 1932 tank and a lot of times original pieces don't fit perfectly in an after market frame. I've heard about guys having to grind some of the frame rail to get them to fit properly. That's not the case with the Ionia frame... the tank dropped right in and the only thing keeping it from lining up was the steel tubing coming out of the pickup, a pretty simple fix.

Once the chop is all welded, then it's on to filling the roof.