Rebodied cars and do they get certified

[JIM]

Let me share this, several years ago I was asked to do the undercarriage of a 1970 LS-6 Chevelle for a customer. We were to remove the drivetrain, and interior and bring the car to concours standards. This was a Numbers matching car complete with history and Buildsheet. The car was never modified and appeared a Super nice original low mile car. Upon removal of the inner fenders and onto the heater box all hell broke lose. This car had been creamed on the right side and had the right cowl off a 1972 chevelle with vin# under the blower motor opening. This was a very nice fix and done back in the day, No one knew. It was only visable from inside the car and had a winshield post and all installed. Does it hurt that car?
Number 2
I had a 1970 L-78 that some idiot started to graft Air Conditioning into and cut away part of the vin # under the heater opening. It had complete buildsheet and most of drive train. The new owner had to graft a firewall section and bitched about it. Does it hurt that car?
Number 3
I work on these cars daily and just finished a 1970 LS-6 for another customer. It had been Hit hard in the front and had also had a frame put under it. We figure this car was hit almost New as the frame was 40 days after the car, the sheetmetal on the front looked original paint and so on. Once apart again the right side had been crushed and the cowl and firewall panels on the blower motor had been poorly brazed in. and even the lower inner fender attachment was screwed in place all had GM part#s, hense no vin at all . does it hurt that car ?

3 Senerio's of real live accident or Idiot owner damage in life. Whats Your take
all real documented cars with firewall issuses
Jim

[camarojoe]

In all 3 cases mentioned, the original car was there... yes there were some repairs, and some numbers missing that were originally there, but the real car was still what you were looking at. Now if you would have told me you started taking a car apart, and found that it was actually a complete 72 chevelle with the 70 LS6 vin numbers and panels welded into it, that would be a different story... once again, theres a big difference between repairing and rebodying.

[COPO]

Joe, I don't quite understand what you do or do not consider a rebody. You seem to be saying if someone replaces every body panel one at a time, then it is OK because it was a lot of work and was harder than a tag swap? While this is the extreme case, where does one cross the line? No one has yet defined a rebody.

[camarojoe]

In contrast, I don't see why its so hard to determine what is a rebody and what isn't. Yes, if you FIX the car you have, its not a rebody... if you turn a totally different car into one you have tags or documentation for, its a rebody... all the NOS sheetmetal in the world can't turn a car into a rebody...but taking one car and turning it into something else can. Some of you seem to be trying to say that replacing various sheetmetal pieces with new ones can eventually turn the car into a rebody... no way. I dont care if you piece by piece fix or replace every panel on your car, as long as you never bring in a different car and start taking smaller pieces (IE: the tags and firewall) of the original car and attaching them to the other one...bottom line is you gotta FIX the real car...not simply wheel in a different car and weld the real firewall to it. Seems like a simple enough explanation to me.

[COPO]

So getting a donor body or two, cutting it up and then rewelding it piece by piece to the few bits salvageable from the "real car" is OK because it is more work and the real car is "fixed", than say back halving a clean intact donor onto the front of the "real car" ? I'm not picking on you, I just don't think this question is quite so black and white. There have been some good thoughts on both sides. Personally, I wouldn't want a car that has had extreme surgery like that and recently passed on a Supercar even though it was a good financial deal and a neat car.

[camarojoe]

You need to use the structure of the real car...that doesn't mean you can't do some major sheetmetal replacing, but i dont care how "bad" the car is, it can be fixed without replacing every square inch of car from the firewall back... If you don't have anything else but the firewall and tags of a real car, its a rebody.

As a side note to this... if you think its OK to replace the entire car with another car, leaving only the firewall and tags of the real one, then that would mean any clone yenko could become a real car if you found a rusty real yenko and welded the firewall to your clone... I don't think anyone anywhere would consider this clone to all the sudden become "real".... but yet thats essentially what you're saying is OK to do if youre starting with the rusty/damaged real car instead of the other way around.

[davepl]

While on the topic of rebodying, I thought I'd bring up this example:




This is a Canadian car, 1 of N (where N tends toward 0) Pontiac 2+2s with a 427/390 and M21.

The car is a total basket case; even the firewall is cracked. Being built in Canada, though, its fully documented by GM Canada.

I have a 427/390 M21 2+2 clone about to be built at Musclecar Restorations in Wisconsin. Its on my own Laurentian that was first car 20 years ago, and that my Dad bought new in '69.

Now, for my purposes, I'm doing it because the car is special to me and me only, and I'm not trying to impress anyone with it or pass it off as real. But if someone else was dumping 100K into a car, it would be very tempting to tag the trim tag, VIN, and other items from this total basket case as the basis of such a restoration.

I think -that- would be the kind of thing everyone agrees on as "bad": transferring only the identity of a basket case to a donor vehicle.

Where the line between that and rebuilding a basket case by transferring parts for B to A rather than from A to B is a discussion I'll leave open to you guys!

[Belair62]

I've seen this car posted elsewhere...very cool..can't wait to see the one you are building/making...very unusual..do you have the emblems and the side gills ? What else is different on these ?

[davepl]

Yes, I actually found NOS 427 emblems (very rare, being Oshawa-plant-only), and have the side vents and all other emblems.

The buckets and console I have from an old 2+2 I had as a teenager, the shifter and floor hump come from a '69 Impala SS (as did the originals).

Interior, suspension and drivetrain are done, and now it goes off for a frame-off!