Scrape, basically, what NOT to do with a zephyr

So, what your looking at here is a zephyr built by terry cook. Better know as "scrape" Terry is the old editor emaritus for hot rod magazine.

Some years ago, terry took it upon himself to build a kustom like no other. Well, he succeded to some extent.

He also managed to do some of the WORST things you could do to a traditional car. With out even going into the fact that he installed neon back lighting to the headliner, the car sits on HYDROS.....yeah, you read that right, hydros. Moreover, the cars sports an import cars rear window for its windshield. Furthermore, the car sits on a chevy impala wagon frame that was narrowed. After touring the show car circuit the car was retired. Eventually it wound up getting "bucked" and having molds pulled off it for fiberglass repops. Not long after that "deco rides" was born. Terrys company that markets the cars.

The bottom line is though, as good as the car looks at a quick glance it just dosent stand up to close

scrutiny. For street rodders or the uninitiated, I suppose it could be something to make you stop and stare.

For us however, it does in fact make us stare, but for a much different and more disturbing reason.

Whatever DER FUEHRER will be someday, it WONT EVER be anything like this.

Hopefully, one day, I get these two cars together for a picture. That is of course after I manage to stop laughing at "scrape"

More work on the first of the fenders. According to Diablos drawing, the bumper bracket hole has to be
closed off, and it turns out that this fender at that spot is all torn, and bent in the wrong direction.
so, welding is going to be neccessary.
First thing to do is to cut a template of the hole that needs to be filled by the 20 ga. cold rolled steel.
So the black construction paper works well for that. (see pix) -
After transfering the shape from paper to the steel, its time to weld. Welding in the filler piece and first drill stopping and then weld repairing the tears is important as ALL the body work on this car is going to be simply the best I can do. I have to keep reminding myself that this inst some quickie ebay bullet that Im going to flip to get money to support my sudanese pigmy monkey porn habbit. In anyevent, with all the metal work done, its time for some fiberglass kitty hair, then onto the skimcoat of filler.
So much for today....

fender workings

here are a couple of shots of the passenger side fender that I have off, and have begun to strip. All the parts, including the main body itself will go to bare metal, and I will do as much of the repairs as possible in steel, then use only as little plastic filler as possible to correct whatever I cant, or dont want to do in steel.

Also pictured here is the wire brushed body ID tag on the firewall...badass huh?

The Concept

The gravity of what I am about to do is, and has been foremost on my mind. With a production run of just 387 cars, I get to work on something that is more rare, than say, a yenko camaro...and certainly better looking...hahahaha.

Nevertheless, the point is, Im only really gonna get one shot at this, and it has to be right. I dont want to short change this thing, or shortcut it, like I see so many other people do these days..(jawa Sr. , s.h.o.k, ...et al, insert your names here). This isnt to say that I havent short cutted shit in the past, oh no, just the oposite...the reason Im really really concerned about NOT doing this is BECAUSE i have had such a propensity for it before. Hence, the over riding theme to this thing, above all else is to NOT RUSH anything. Now im not kidding myself here, Im not like, overnight going to start turning out Steve Sellers type work, (fuckin bastard) But more than that, before I start any serious work reshaping anything, I have to have a clear roadmap of where Im going. There is only one way (in my mind) to do this. And, thats to have a concept to work from.

Enter DIABLO. After countless discussions, (like 3 if i remember correctly) My brother sat down and hammered out the artwork you see here, and in fact its one of these pieces that I use for the very header of this blog.

Not much is done here, but then again, this is a goddamn zephyr, so not much needs to be done.

Mild chop, lowering, headlight, and taillight treatments. A little bit of work on the lower portions of the fenders, and thats about it. The only thing I will be doing that we dont see in these drawings is that I am going to install a split light for the back window out of a 36 FoMoCo product. At this time there is still some debate as to whether I am shitcanning the current quarter windows for a smaller 39 chry. units, or not. Well, time will tell on that one. For now, trip out as I did at Diablos BAD ASS artwork. And if you get a chance visit him online-

www.diabloartwerks.com.

Work begins....

Now that the car is on the dolly and actually within site of the front door of the shop, I begin with removing the passenger side front fender. SPECIAL BONUS: got a neighbor who GAVE me a very nice 1966 327 as his contribution to the project. So here are a few shots of the cars new motor as well!

Onto the dolly we go....

With the help of a rented tractor, the zephyr gets loaded onto its work dolly....

Now what...

A few shots of the Zephyr as it sits on the ground here at the shop, waiting to be placed on its newly construced dolly.

I built the dolly as a means of moving the car around easily until I can get the running gear I want underneath it.