vette427-sbc

Im thinking about switching to a long hood on my '69 and was wondering the differences in hoods over the years.
First off, what would be the ideal year hood to get? I know they make aftermarket long hoods for early cars, but Id prefer to not pay $600+ on a hood that I will be cutting up.
What years did the materials change? (SMC/fiberglass)?
What do I do about the trim on the top of my fenders?
Any pics of a long hood on your early vette?
Merry Christmas

dboz

Your best bet is to find a '73 hood. I took the trim off the fenders and built them up to match the hood. No pics, car is gone for the winter.

Easy Mike

You will need an aftermarket 68-72 hood designed specifically for replacing the cowl vent and wiper door.

No stock long hood will match the older cars at the fenders along the bottom of the windshield. Stock hoods will bolt up, but will sit about half an inch high at the corners.

Lupigiato

My 68 with a long hood. PO did the conversion...

rogman16

Lupigiato--

Your car is smoking HOT!! I love everytime you post a different view of your beauty...

Rogman

Lupigiato

Thanks Roger

John 65

Is it the overall look you are after ? I know some guys change to a longer hood because of a missing or broken wiper door system. I think the shorter hood looks soooooo much more aggresive, and a working wiper door is pretty trick too. It dont hurt re-sale either.

vette427-sbc

I do prefer the look of the short hood, BUT I would really like to eliminate the wiper door. It is heavy, and another thing to not work.
The hood will be a custom variation of an L88 hood and the rest of the car is pretty modified, so I could care less if it looks original anyway.
Ill look into the AIR wiper covers that were on the early race cars. If they arent too expensive I might just go for that

Lupigiato- Car looks great, as does the hood conversion. Ill have to check it out in person some time

couperdecar

I'm confused by what you're saying. He wants to put a long hood on to make his car look like a more desireable model.

StingrayLust

I prefer the long hoods as the lines are much cleaner, matches the rest of the car. To me, the biggest styling mistake on the 68-72 C3s.

Easy Mike

Duh...Since the 68-72 hoods were designed and in use four years before the long hoods were introduced, how can they be a "styling mistake"?

Lupigiato

Interesting discussion. I bought my 68 with a lot of modifications - which I like - even with the 69 doors, but replacing the hood would not be an area I would think of changing, unless I needed more clearance for the engine bay. The 73 hood on the car now doesnt have the hood latches installed as they do not line up to the mounting posts and need to figure out how to make adjustments to install correctly (will search threads). With that being said, I've only had mine for 7 months, so i havent run out of things to tinker yet and have been taking care of higher priority items.

StingrayLust

Duh...I know the long hoods were designed later. A "mistake" by definition is "an error in action, calculation, opinion, or judgment caused by poor reasoning, carelessness, insufficient knowledge, etc.".

Just saying that the design of the early hoods added complexity and loss of the clean lines. Obviously somebody at GM thought it too was a mistake and corrected it in '73. For the most part, no one knows something is going to be a mistake until after the fact, then one can judge whether or not is was a mistake. It's now well over 40 years since the design and I'm calling it a "styling mistake".

It's my opinion and I'm sticking to it.

Easy Mike

The change to the long hood was almost certainly a money saving step and not styling. It was cheaper per car to get rid of the cowl vent and wiper door.

Dose11

So it was a financial mistake

Easy Mike

Shame on you. Since when does GM make financial mistakes?

Priya

Since they changed the styling and not just the length.it was obviously at least partly about styling. I never liked the look of the early small block hoods. I used to think the early big block hoods looked good and then one day I looked at one and thought "The scoop reminds me of a coffin." and now they're ruined for me, they just look morbid. Now I think the best looking hood ever made for the C3's is the 73-79 model although the early LT1 isn't too bad.

Clubby99

No better feature than a fully functioning wiper door

WESCH

Hi

When I bought my 68, it had the long L88 hood on it.

Makes the nose look longer somehow. I did buy all required parts to go back to wiper door , but am reluctant to do so.

I like the long hood more and more.




Rgds. Günther

dboz

The long hood look better. The picture above with the cowl area near the windshield looks much more aggressive. I needed the long hood for several reasons. One, the wiper door was all boogered up, probably from winter time operation in the 70's. Two, I need more clearance for a better engine setup. It was cheaper to go with the long hood, get rid on the busy wiper door, which looks bad when up anyway, eliminate some of the vacuum garbage. Purists won't like it, but I do, so I went with the better looking hood.....IMO.