Re: '38 what-if

Posted by Mahoning63 On 2012/10/14 20:27:44

Has any car ever had such skirts? Would be quite an engineering challenge, not sure if more complicated if skirts were to move up/down with wheels or stay fixed in the vertical.

The only Rollston I could find appears to be on the 1508 chassis and is very similar to Packard's own Victoria. Was after something a little more compact and sporty that straddled in between the Victoria and convertible coupe. I like the elegant and racy downward sweep of the body aft of the doors.

The idea has a pretty straightforward lineage. Borrows the skirts and split windshield from the '34 LeBaron Speedster and the roll down side quarter windows from the Cord 5-pass convertible. Was at the Packard museum in Warren OH the other week comparing the One Twenty pace car (convertible coupe with fender skirts) and '38 Twelve 2/4-pass convertible coupe. Wondered how the big guy might look with the little guy's skirts (not that they would fit). Also pondered how the new body proportions might look were the big guy's greenhouse to be extended rearward to just ahead of the rumble seat decklid (there's about 7-10 inches of sheetmetal to play with). The car would have been pretty easy to do by Rollston et al with no new body sheetmetal fab save for some minor edge work. The wood underneath would have needed reframed in the area altered. The skirts would have needed to have been carefully shaped to clear the wheels without looking like they were bulging out too much. The inward curve at the bottom of the Senior rear fenders really isn't designed to accept skirts. One trick might have been to install the Super 8's slightly narrower wheels in the rear while keeping the Twelve's wider wheels up front to fill out the wheelhouse a bit more. The 38-42 Jumior skirts work well enough although they aren't flush like the 35-37 Juniors or '34 LeBarons.

Of all the mods I have bumbled through and probably at times burdened the club with, this is one of my favorites.