HELP PLEASE,
OK folks I am starting off this project by asking for some help, all ideas are welcome as I am sure the collective knowledge here can figure anything out. This will get wordy……..
I have a mystery on my hands here, the body is nice but has no makers markings, numbers, nothing and I have looked inside and out, I will start with what I know…and that’s not much.
I recently purchased the body as you see it here from a gentleman in Gatineau, Quebec, he is partners in an auto parts store there and he bought it and some other parts including a chassis from a customer of his. He said the body was not going to work with his chassis so he is going with a 427 type body.
I saw the chassis, it was nicely made, looked remarkably like a Factory Five unit, it had FFR front upper arms on it and had recently had some work in the rear done by another fellow, Atelier Fred Fab Custom Shop ( he’s on Facebook ) to add the thunderbird type rear IRS. This Fred fellow apparently makes a very nice copy of the Factory Five car including the body for the Quebec market. However other then it being a 289 body Eric knew nothing of the origins of the body, what you see is what you get. However the price was very right for me compared to any of my other options.
So it’s a 289 slabside body the basic measurements look good, the front width at the top of the wheel arch is 61 inches, which I think is right for a rack and pinion 289 but the rear is 63 inches which is 2 over, I think, please correct me here.
I am not really concerned about the width though as I will just adjust the chassis to suit it and could get away with a bit wider rubber in the back perhaps.
The body is nicely heavy, looks to average a fat 3/16 where I can see at the louver cut outs and hole for the filler neck behind the cockpit. The edges of the wheel openings are built up to ¼ inch or better as are the lower flange and the door and hood / trunk openings. The body appears to be a rolled chopper gun layup with cloth added at the door and hood openings. Looks well made.
The doors and hood seem to be an inner and other skin bonded together with threaded metal plates at the hinge locations and the doors have 5/16 ( stainless ? ) studs at the hinge location. Doors and hood / trunk are rather heavy for their size if you know what I mean. The hood has a very nicely moulded in hood scoop with blind holes for adding the rivet detail. Everything looks to be unused and other then the filler neck hole, a cut in the lower flange, the side vents, and 2 of the rear bumper mount holes drilled through there is nothing done other than a coat of primer. There appears to be no front bumper holes indicated on the body however I have not sanded off the primer yet to see if perhaps the marks have been filled in for some reason.
The body has a couple of odd shapes however, the front lip of both doors has a pronounced wiggle, for lack of a better term, about a third of the way up, same shape on both?? The lower edge has a large mounting flange, about 2 inches wide with a very pronounced corner shape at the rear, like it was made to go on a chassis with a large flat, straight lower rail of some sort. There is also a glassed in stiffener along the lower front edge.
I don’t know if the doors, hood and trunk belong to the body shell. The gaps are OK at a quick look, could be better, but I have not really shimmed up things either just set them in place. The body does appear to be older just based on I can see a couple of those spider web type marks( gel coat cracks ) through he primer fairly small and inconspicuous and I will be sanding it all down and fixing any other that I might find. I take those as a sign of age but they could also be some sort of handling damage. That’s what I know about the body.
So the question is who made it?? I don’t know how many companies have made a slabside body over the years; I know it has not been the popular option until more recently. The ones that come to mind are Hawk, Mr. Bruce, Allied, ERA, Johnex, and Aurora , but again, I don’t know much…….
I believe Allied is out because there were very few, and from what I have read they were meant to be a replacement skin for a real 289 and are fairly thin. I have never seen one of Mr. Bruce’s bodies myself and have no idea what the insides look like, same for the ERA and the Hawk. I did see a Johnex body many years ago when I was making a deal to buy one from him but did not study it in detail as I was just excited that I could get a 289 body at all. I have seen an Aurora car before but again I don’t remember the detail other than the shape was right. From what I have read here on CC the Aurora car mould was acquired from a fellow who had taken a mould off and early car ( CSX2036??) that he used to build a car. I also believe the Johnex body mould was taken from an Aurora car so??
Being that the body is here in Canada I am leaning towards the Aurora / Johnex body idea but just don’t know, did Aurora modify the width of the body? Are the wiggles in the door opening left over from the Auroura car, I do recall they had weird, large (ugly) domestic car type door hinges? That lower mounting flange is a mystery, it’s very distinct and I hope someone recognizes it. It will not be there in the end, I have other ideas, I may also just use the skins of the doors and trunk too, go with something a bit more authentic looking and speaking of that, it’s a real shame but I doubt I will keep the hood either, as nicely done as it is I don’t think I want to have a scoop. It was a fairly rare thing on a regular 289, not to say it did not happen. It’s just not the look I had in mind, so it might come up for grabs too.
So without further ado, here are some pictures with some close ups of the odd bits.
Please help if you can, I would just like to know more about this and I suppose it would be nice to have an answer for when people ask who made the body. And perhaps I just like history too.
Sorry it got really wordy but I wanted to put it all out there…..
Thanks!!!
