Touchy subject

[68 nova 10.5]

Originally Posted by 450rdawg

We had the car for almost 12 weeks. Most of the car was decent, the usual surface rust and lots of dings from 40 years of use. The only other major work the car required was around the back glass. We had to pretty much re-fab the lower channel and that was a job to say the least. The customer wanted it built as a driver car so we had to make preperations for that as well. We ended up with roughly 260 hours in the job including work spent prepping and painting the frame. He wanted POR15 on the frame; which I thought was a little strange but not a bad idea for a driver, and opted for full gloss on the wheel wells, fire wall, core support and cowl panel. We must have spent at least 20-25 hours just getting the cowl panel right. It was a little beat up. Beatiful car though (Twilight Blue Metallic)......I think that's the right color.

wow thats impressive that equals roughly 22 hours per week!

[SS_Dave]

It costs too much
Its not a 69

[fst64_v8power]

kinda partial on that one

[Bdubya]

If i'm not mistaken, Dynacorn bought the original tooling and dies for these bodies. So the bodies should be exactly the same as the came off the line back in '70. And i'm quite sure the factory didn't do any smoothing to the bodies prior to paint! If I had the spendable cash, i'd buy a replacement for my '70 Malibu. If it was an SS, i'd still do it.

[Berg]

Kind of an older thread but i'll drop my .02 anyway. I have seen "street legal kit cars" that use a donor vehicle. Some of them use an S10 and you end up keeping the door structures, firewall, and cowl panel area with the A posts for the windshield. I can't find out what happened to it but I guess it is basically considered bodywork. I don't see any harm in the reproduction bodies as people are using clean Malibu bodies to make SS cars and there are so many companies out there reproducing 621 Bellhousings and Winters intake manifolds and guys out there media blasting and restamping distributors and alternators and decking engine blocks and restamping them that it is getting hard to tell what is original and what is not. I have seen a local shop make a 72 Malibu into a 70 LS6 complete with fake build sheet. I don't agree with it at all and the guy that bought it must have gotten ripped off too. He had all sorts of "fake" cars in the past including a 69 Z28 Camaro with a 302... It looked very convincing. The fact that he came up with documentation somehow really makes you wonder. He used to buy total rot boxes and cars that were totalled out 40 years ago and left for dead and does all sorts of immoral and unethical things to put them back together. out of the 4475 LS6 Chevelle and El Camino's that rolled off GM's assembly line in late 69-70 it makes you wonder how many of them would have realistically survived and out of the ones that are on the road these days how many of them are genuine. I think it would be cool for a track car to do a rebody or something that doesn't have to be totally clean or straight and will be cut up and tubbed out and have the wheel wells stretched and a full cage and firewall cut, back halved etc... I'd rather see it done to a reproduction car that doesn't need to run interior or any of the stuff that would nickle and dime you during a real restoration. I think it would be fun to build a car from scratch out of 80% brand new parts. I think this would be a great deal for all these movie cars they have to build up and smash. They could make them out of the cheapest reproduction pieces available and smash the hell out of em! Afterall, at that point it would only be money - not destroying a classic.

[Bdubya]

Berg brings up a good point. ALOT of movies feature classic cars in chase scenes that get slammed and destroyed, these replicas could offer an outlet for studios to have a musclecar featured in their movie without sacrificing an original one. Although many times just painting up an original Malibu, Charger, etc. is probably cheaper than buying one of these.