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Rather than drop a wad on having a bird replated, my customer and I hit on making a Caribbean hood for his 54 pickup (Packard Shipper). Really pleased how it turned out, and had a lot of fun doing it.

Used a center section from a damaged hood to make the scoop. This ends up being sturdier than popping the center up as Mitchel Bentley did. Even with the double skin the hood is much lighter than an original and does not need a hood prop. I also made it functional as I have cut two vents in the lower hood. One will blow cool air down by the carb to lessen percolation issues, and the other drops some cool air where the air filter can pick it up. May not really help but makes me feel better.

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Nice, did you brace it all the way underneath, in the middle, or just at the opening?

Why is the original one heavier than this one?

I think the reason it was heavier is because they literally used a ton of lead body filler to shape and finish those scoops!

Interesting and nicely done! I'm planning on doing the same thing for my Panther project, i.e., 53-54 style rather than 55-56 style Caribbean hood.

Why didn't you cut out the entire section under the upper piece rather than just those two little vents?

Craig

On the original style, the hood was cut along the crease lines and the center section raised. This required that side sections be fabricated. M-B used rather crudely formed pieces with a lot of overlap, spotwelded in, and then a ton of lead to smooth it all out. Check out the workmanship on the bottom of a Carib hood sometime. All those pieces made them prone to flexing in use and consequently cracks would appear in the lead over time.

I left the bottom layer closed, except for the two windows, for rigidity and to direct airflow where I wanted it.

hrrmmmmmmmm i wonder what that would look like with a black scoop on a citrine/onyx 55 constellation...hrmmmmmmm

Would a 51-54 hood fit a 55-56?

Gasmonkey did the scoop in a different color in one of their shows.gasmonkeygarage.com. I don't always like what they do to cars, but it looked ok on the car they did.

good question....hoods look similar....but if it was me i'd use a 55/56 hood.

Ross...i'm really liking this.

i wonder what a 54 scoop would look like on a 55?? hrrmmmmm.

if only i had a spare hood laying around to have some fun with.

Hank

55 and 6 hoods interchange for fit with each other, but not for appearance. All 51-4 hoods interchange.

A similar scoop would not be hard on a 55 hood because it has the sculptured cusps. Harder on a 56.