Re: 56 concept
Posted by Mahoning63 On 2018/11/18 16:37:54
"As I recall, I was told that Creative Industries of Detroit did no lengthening whatsoever to the rear door."
I don't think this was the case. The 1.5 inch body insert is no longer there. There are only so many ways it could have been removed. The least likely would have been to cut the car in half and remove 1.5 inches. I don't think hard drugs were that readily available at the time so we can probably rule that one out.
They could have moved the rear doors forward 1.5 inches, but the cut line location at rear edge of rear door suggests stock location.
That only leaves lengthening either the front door or rear door. Since the rear door needed modified anyway to make the jam reverse opening, seems it would not make sense to touch the front door, which besides removal of sill only needed the handle relocated. And given the hardtop coupe's 5 inch further forward location of C-pillar vs Patrician, they probably would have wanted the rear door to extend forward to enable better rear entry/egress. A longer front door would have resulted in the opposite.
What I think might have happened is that Packard's body shop was told to build a Four Hundred hardtop coupe body but do the passenger side as a Patrician and don't install the passenger side doors, just mount the whole thing on the chassis and ship to Creative. If you look at the driver's side of car you can see the door cut line between front door and body, and it's located much closer to C-pillar than passenger side. Contour front doors on coupe are almost 9 inches longer than sedan.
To help confirm which door got lengthened - front or rear - I did a "what must be true" exercise in next 3 images. In first image I copied the front door rear edge cut line and pasted it approx 1.5 inches FORWARD of existing cut line, depicting the scenario where Creative would have received this car and added 1.5 inches to front doors to get back to original historical photo. I then cut/pasted the full width of the side trim on the front door in altered photo onto the rear door trim, to see how far it extended past rear door. See first photo.
In second photo I put pasted a new cut line AFT of existing cut line, now depicting scenario where Creative added 1.5 inches to rear door. I then cut/pasted the front door trim from that altered photo onto rear door and predictably, it extends back approx 3 inches further or 2 X the body insert.
In third photo searched and searched until I found a F3Q view of approximate perspective as Creative's car. Cut/pasted the side trim. Pretty clear that it matches the second photo; judge for yourself.
There are a few other clues in the Creative photo that tell us that they extended the rear doors. First, there is what appears to be a weld line just forward of fender bulge. This is where they probably added the rear section of another stock front door that had been sent to them.
Second, they appear to have welded the new door section to the body at bottom. This may sound like an odd thing to do but body shops sometimes make temporary welds to hold sections in place so that the main weld can be done, which in this case was the vertical weld.
None of this can be confirmed mind you, just my best guess.
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I don't think this was the case. The 1.5 inch body insert is no longer there. There are only so many ways it could have been removed. The least likely would have been to cut the car in half and remove 1.5 inches. I don't think hard drugs were that readily available at the time so we can probably rule that one out.
They could have moved the rear doors forward 1.5 inches, but the cut line location at rear edge of rear door suggests stock location.
That only leaves lengthening either the front door or rear door. Since the rear door needed modified anyway to make the jam reverse opening, seems it would not make sense to touch the front door, which besides removal of sill only needed the handle relocated. And given the hardtop coupe's 5 inch further forward location of C-pillar vs Patrician, they probably would have wanted the rear door to extend forward to enable better rear entry/egress. A longer front door would have resulted in the opposite.
What I think might have happened is that Packard's body shop was told to build a Four Hundred hardtop coupe body but do the passenger side as a Patrician and don't install the passenger side doors, just mount the whole thing on the chassis and ship to Creative. If you look at the driver's side of car you can see the door cut line between front door and body, and it's located much closer to C-pillar than passenger side. Contour front doors on coupe are almost 9 inches longer than sedan.
To help confirm which door got lengthened - front or rear - I did a "what must be true" exercise in next 3 images. In first image I copied the front door rear edge cut line and pasted it approx 1.5 inches FORWARD of existing cut line, depicting the scenario where Creative would have received this car and added 1.5 inches to front doors to get back to original historical photo. I then cut/pasted the full width of the side trim on the front door in altered photo onto the rear door trim, to see how far it extended past rear door. See first photo.
In second photo I put pasted a new cut line AFT of existing cut line, now depicting scenario where Creative added 1.5 inches to rear door. I then cut/pasted the front door trim from that altered photo onto rear door and predictably, it extends back approx 3 inches further or 2 X the body insert.
In third photo searched and searched until I found a F3Q view of approximate perspective as Creative's car. Cut/pasted the side trim. Pretty clear that it matches the second photo; judge for yourself.
There are a few other clues in the Creative photo that tell us that they extended the rear doors. First, there is what appears to be a weld line just forward of fender bulge. This is where they probably added the rear section of another stock front door that had been sent to them.
Second, they appear to have welded the new door section to the body at bottom. This may sound like an odd thing to do but body shops sometimes make temporary welds to hold sections in place so that the main weld can be done, which in this case was the vertical weld.
None of this can be confirmed mind you, just my best guess.
Attach file:
(112.03 KB)
(111.69 KB)
(93.72 KB)
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