Marks Hotrod Garage

Getting a thread started on a 58 resto mod project we are finishing. It has had a few starts and found its way over to my shop. It is owned by a friend of mine who dreamed up a project which he decided would look like a concept car gm might have made while designing the 1958 Corvette. It will have frenched in headlights, recessed bumpers in the front, a frameless windshield and it will be very streamlined. No side windows or top will be on this car. It will have a waterfall style console and we will be slightly redesigning the instrument cluster. It sports a nice LS3 and a 4L60 transmission.

Beggers

I have been eying this car in your shop photos Mark, that's a bueaty. I love the profile of the mods. Have you decided on the color that we are seeing on the rear end?

65 fi

Jerry Magnuson is building a 54 with Cobra Daytona inspired side exhaust. It may be worthwhile to take a look.

Marks Hotrod Garage

There has been no decision on the color yet. Early in this project the guy who put the suspension together painted all of it gold without permission from the owner. I guess he had some left over paint

Thank you I will check it out.

A little gel coat today........

Marks Hotrod Garage

We started working on the rear quarters. They had a nice little lip on them from the last shop and after further investigation they were built completely with bondo. We decided to shave them off.




In case you guys are wondering how to flare a fender here is the secret..........its called a paint stick!!! The quarters are pretty flemsy so we will layer them with some glass to hold the new flare into place. I guess we will add the lip back on the quarters with fiberglass.

Marks Hotrod Garage

Anytime one takes over a project especially when bodywork is involved curiousity is always arroused. Although the car was in primer we decided to dig into it just to see what we might find. It wasnt bad but it wasnt good. Areas with too much bondo and even a few areas with uncurred fiberglass. Guess we are taking this car back down to the glass.

You might notice in this picture we have gently worked the rear quarters outward about 1/2" on each side. I am really not a fan of the stock rear quarter on this year.........almost looks like a motorcycle fender. I know it is a timeless design and who am I to question a iconic car....its only an opinion. Instead of wider aftermarket quarters we pushed these out just enough to make a little extra room for a wider tire in back. We are trying to keep the changes subtile on this car so it doesnt appear too radical.







Since we will be topless and frameless on the glass the interior must be sculptured to make the interior flow not only around the inside but also flow to the outside of this speedster. Its is always great fun to be able to express yourself with fiberglass!!



A little hard to tell from this picture but this door jam area has been narrowed about 2 inches. We will end up with come custom seats about 2 inches wider to accomodate the extra space. After sanding the jams we found bondo covering up a crack in the fiberglass. Guess we will keep looking.

Marks Hotrod Garage

Its been a while since I have updated this build. I have spared most of the boring fiberglass repair we have had to take care of. Someone used quite a bit of bondo on this car and we have ground out all of the bondo and come back in with glass. Locked the car down with gel coat and then moved the car over to our new shop. What we are doing right now is pulling the body off the frame to work on the inner fenders and engine compartment. We are goint to finish the inner fenders right down to the frame to give the engine compartment a finished look. I will do better on the updates because some cool stuff should he going on from here on out. Again the gold paint was applied over a year ago and had already made the cutting room floor. Should be going with a black frame and underbody.

Beggers

Nice progress Mark, looks like the floor turned out well in your new shop as well. That big building is starting to fill up! Brian

Marks Hotrod Garage

I thought the painting would never end but I love the floor. Its really easy to clean and looks so much better than bare concrete. When I got into this place I thought we would have more than enough room. Heck I might have to add on!!

Marks Hotrod Garage

We started building a heavy duty body cart for our C1 project. This will eventually bolt to our rotisserie so we can spin the car and detail the underbody. We are using big 8" in diameter casters so it rolls really easy. Plenty of support in the middle of the body too so we can climb in and out safely to work in the car.






I know it is hard to get a perspective from this picture but the front inner fenders will flow back to the firewall. There will be a small "lip" which will follow the frame. We are looking for an untra clean engine compartment. We are running a Street and Performance front pulley/accessory belt drive system so we will need to allow indentions in the inner fenders for the alternator and the A/C compressor.

Marks Hotrod Garage

Just a little update on the project. We took a few week break on the body to work on some suspension details but we are back at making dust again. The body dolley project was a success and although it is a little heavy duty it is the ticket for working under the car. The last we vettes we have done have been on jack stands and that is absolutely positively no fun at all. Right now we are just working on smoothing the underbody.

Tyler Townsley

Need a spoiler? Here is an idea.
http://thepandatrap.com/tyler/misc1/spoil1.jpg
http://thepandatrap.com/tyler/misc1/spoil2.jpg
http://thepandatrap.com/tyler/misc1/spoil3.jpg
http://thepandatrap.com/tyler/misc1/spoil4.jpg
http://thepandatrap.com/tyler/misc1/spoil5.jpg

This one is manual at this time but could be converted to one that is raised with speed.

Tyler

Marks Hotrod Garage

That is a cool idea......kind of like a Porsche. Looks nice.

Marks Hotrod Garage

Here is a little closer picture of the front. We will be covering the cavity we have created on either side. I really cant imagine anything we could hide in there because the only access in from the bottom. Also, after we got it on the rotisorie we had a little better access the front lower panel. We discovered more work performed by the other shop which we did not feel acceptable......areas with 1/4 to 3/8" of bondo

Marks Hotrod Garage

We contemplated a removable panel this morning but decided closing them up was best. It going to look damn nice on a lift. The underbody is going to be smooth and painted base and clear. There is way to much work to put raptor on it. We will throw some raptor in the fenderwells to catch any rocks.

scott hovey

Is that a Jim Myers chassis update?

Loren Smith

Looks like a stock frame with full welds for added strength.

Hpozzuoli

Very nice. I have seen a lot of your work over at the garage journal. Congrats on the move and rebrand. You guys produce high quality work and will for a long time to come hopefully.

Marks Hotrod Garage

Yes it is. Sorry to say we didnt get to install the chassis on the stock suspension as it was done when we got the car. One of the reasons we fabricated the inner fenders down to the frame is we did not feel the suspension installation was worthy of being seen. We are adding a front sway bar and it should be in this next week. This suspension is about one year old and since then Jim Myers has made some updates to this kit.








Thanks for the compliment. We have based our work on quality and i feel it is a good strategy. I have made a pretty big investment in our new facility and we are looking forward to continued success.......now if we could just turn a profit.



We got some primer on the undercarriage and the engine bay on Friday. I am really excited about the results of our inner fenders. It really looks clean and simple.

Marks Hotrod Garage

Here is a little update on the C1 Speedster project. Believe it or not there has been lots of sanding going on around here The inner fenders look killer when the car sits on the frame. They hug the frame real nice and it just make the engine compartment look sleek. The last shop had removed the hood latches and glassed them in so we had to come up with a solution. Because this is a open top frameless windshield the dash pod really looks like half a basketball sitting on top of the guage pod. We are thinking of a Paul Akins or possibly build our own. Looks like the car is going pearl white with the interior color yet undecided. There is plenty of time for that.

If there is any of you guys out there in central Florida with knowledge of an exceptional interior shop let me know. This car really needs something special.