I have seen folks mafe clones and tribute cars and take great care to trim and cut things, after woning one for 39 years I can tell you that fit and finish quality were not high priorites in the 60's. We keep a piece of seam sealer we took out of the car to fill a "gap" in the rear whell well area. It's approx 13" long and varioes in width and thickness fron about 1/4 inche thick to about two inches wide. The rear deck lid was off by about 3/16 of an inch side to side and the doror were equally as bad with their alignment. During the restoration we have disciverd other "high quality" modifications. Here is a pitcure of the craftmanship used on the reat quarter window opening. It appears that it was airchisled out and htne beat with a ballpeen hamer.
Looks "correct" from what I recall when I was trying to make the trim "fit" a little better after I bought 1446. Mike
Below is a quote right out of the rear quarter window installation sheet. Tools needed: "Cold chisel and hammer (an air chisel is desirable if available)" My friend's father owned a 69 Shelby and when they removed the Thunderbird tail lights, The cut-out extension also appeared to be air chiseled, so this craftsmanship carried through the sixties. Question: If you clean-up these areas during restoration, does the car lose originality?
Left areas like this "as is" with photo documentation before during and after Just got car buffed out this weekend, looks great but the painter wants me to make the car mobile and bring back to the shop so he can touch up some small spots and finish sand it with 3000 grit paper and then rebuff the entire car. He is a perfectionist, and he works cheap, he's my brother in law did the finsh bodywork and paint for $1100 total cost. Took him a year to do it, but actually only about two weeks of actual work. Attached a couple of pictures, still have to clean all the buffing material out of all the cracks and crevices
The car is looking great! You might find it interesting to read the info on the 65 GT350 website from Michael Sangster, the Shelby American Fabricator who built the first prototype quarter window............ http://www.1965gt350mustang.com/employee.html
'66 Shelby 1/4 windows have always been a problem area. Until you have actually removed them for a paint job, or more likely, to fix a water leak, you haven't lived yet. Once you have removed the the window pieces, you are left with a rather crude and rude scene. The high school dropouts that were employed at SA, make the Chainsaw Killer look like a rank amateur. I just went thru the process of cleaning up this area. It needed some metal work and a lot of welding to clean up the discrepancies. Looks tons better now. I am going to try to repair my inner panels, even though they are warped from heat/age. I pre checked the reproduction ones that I bought and they leave a Lot to be desired. The fit is terrible. Meanwhile, it's time to polish out the plexiglass and trim. Hopefully it will all be back together not too distant.
