Daytona Assy ?

[held1823]

sorry, cobras are hand built cars and the same logic of cars being built by human hands can be applied to daytonas

yes, and no. i doubt cobras were cobbled together in a mad rush to get them out the door. one car was built with pride in craftsmanship; the other with future warranty repairs a guarantee.

[Aero426]

sorry, cobras are hand built cars and the same logic of cars being built by human hands can be applied to daytonas

yes, and no. i doubt cobras were cobbled together in a mad rush to get them out the door. one car was built with pride in craftsmanship; the other with future warranty repairs a guarantee.

It's the running change thing you see on Cobras, and why is one car slightly different from another.   I get where Tony is going.   The human element here is everything.  

[Aero426]

Doug
a friend of mine has a couple of and has restored and researched 289 and 427 cobras in depth

and from listening to him, when cars are "hand built" off of a regular assembly line there are going to be many differences and variables, and i understand when the "human hands" factor comes into play its very hard to document except for original examples due to the "game plan" not being in concrete and possibly have been modified during the production run

like i said prior, im not saying anything is incorrect that has been posted here and i appreciate all of the input, im just trying to get a better grasp of how the paint and assy was done, but it seems there are great variables per almost every car and there isnt too much that can be said that is incorrect or correct.

some cars may have had much nicer "masking" then others and i guess there is going to be some degree of underhood and seal overspray on all of the daytonas but its degree may not be consistant for any 2 cars

Tony, I agree with you completely.    

It seems we may see trends, but few absolutes when it comes to documenting the way Daytonas were converted once they left Hamtramck.    

I am sure the guys who did the work at Creative would be laughing at our modern attempts at forensic science 40 years later.   I would bet that a primary concern of a Creative Industries worker was, "When is it time for my next beer?"

[held1823]

i understand, to some degree, the obsession with putting a daytona back to within the N'th degree of the way it came. but in the case of these cars, that would include the crappy, mismatched paint work that a large number of them came with. ours was completely repainted when it was two or three months old. to restore it "correctly", it would need the same horrendous paint that led to it needing repainted in 1969. anything else is technically incorrect for this particular car's "as delivered" state.

dad and i both worked at the chrysler plant that made the suspension components for these cars, with him doing so back in 1969. there was little attempt, then or ever, to make one inspection mark 100% identical to the next. dabs made with a fresh paint bottle at the beginning of the shift would look totally different than ones made 1000 parts later, by the same employee, at the end of the same shift. i've personally seen parts where a worker might paint the entire edge of a control arm, out of boredom. to restore the car which received that part correctly, it would have to have the same artistic touch, which would instantly throw up a red flag on a judges sheet at any show. yet, the judge would be wrong in this case.

suppose a daytona needed a ball joint replaced under warranty. the original one had a white marking, signifying it was made on first shift. the replacement part, however, might have a blue mark, having been assembled on third shift. the car could just as easily left the factory with one of each color. does a judging sheet account for this? these differing scenarios  are surely applicable to how things went at creative. the painter working his sixth 12-hour day of the week is not going to mask the last car with half of the enthusiam as he did the first one, back on monday. he simply wants to get home, to see the kids before their bedtime.

personally, i say to heck with recreating the overspray and paint marks. there is nothing "factory correct" about a huge white "X" on a rear end housing, when it should have been blue, according to the time stamp on it. that rear end might have been assembled at the end of a midnight shift, and rather than refill his blue paint bottle for the last six parts, the worker just grabbed the day shift guy's bottle of white paint, snickering at the thought of this anathema and its effect on the show judges a decade later.

[TONY]

great input!
i love to hear from people that "were there"

what and where was the plant you and your dad worked at?

i love to hear this stuff

cool

thank you

[pettybird]

sorry, cobras are hand built cars and the same logic of cars being built by human hands can be applied to daytonas

yes, and no. i doubt cobras were cobbled together in a mad rush to get them out the door. one car was built with pride in craftsmanship; the other with future warranty repairs a guarantee.

Eh...handbuilt by the British? 

I know the point you're trying to make but I have a friend with a real 427 AC cobra which is currently wearing no paint.  Each bolt-on body part is coded to the car because they were ALL hand fitted, and the parts wouldn't fit on another car!  There are also 13 individual pieces of aluminium (pronounced correctly) in each fender.  it looks like a quilt in the wheel well...

I'm not at all saying that people at Creative were any better than trained monkeys, though!

[TONY]

ok, ill take it a step further to help clarify

the conversion done to the cars at shelby varied

i wasnt refering to the original a/c build

[held1823]

what and where was the plant you and your dad worked at?

chrysler's machining and forge plant in new castle, indiana. most of chrysler's suspension components over the years came from there.
the brick building in this photo was the original maxwell assembly plant, and had several major expansions over the years, along with separate buildings for a hammer shop and a forge operation. at the time the plant was closed, there was roughly 1.4 million feet of floorspace. in the time since, nearly all of the original building has been demolished. i don't have a aerial overview of the plant near its end, but perhaps larry does? it was a pretty impressive spread, for a machine shop.

i was a third generation chrysler employee, and worked there long after the musclecar era, from 1996 until the plant was closed. dad worked there from 1967 until the plant closing. it's a shame employee "greenslips" for new cars purchases weren't around in 1969, or the daytona would have a really cool byline to go along with its history. my grandfather worked there from 1950 to 1981. dad's brother, and two of his three kids, also worked there.

this history strays from the original topic here, but does offer decades worth of first-hand insight into the variations found in the markings on the cars. there was definitely no rhyme to the reasoning, as i am sure was also the case at creative industries. knowing this, from experiencing it, there is simply no absolutely "correct" template to follow, when restoring any given car.

[maxwellwedge]

For me - the correct way to restore a car is put everything back on that was found on THAT car. Not go by other peoples originals or restorations.

Each car has its own personality/identity. That is the only way I do it - The car gets its personality back. Over 95% of the hobby does not seek that level (aka sickness) - factory warts and all.....and that's fine with me. To each their own.

[69_500]

For me - the correct way to restore a car is put everything back on that was found on THAT car. Not go by other peoples originals or restorations.

Each car has its own personality/identity. That is the only way I do it - The car gets its personality back. Over 95% of the hobby does not seek that level (aka sickness) - factory warts and all.....and that's fine with me. To each their own.

I would say its probably closer to 98% that doesn't like all the warts. But as for me, I'm all in on that stuff. I like it. Heck who am I kidding. I LOVE IT.

[held1823]

just watch. someone will eventually restore a daytona with one type of paint on the body and another type on the aero pieces, some of it correctly peeling off the window plug, all in the name of accuracy.  

as for each car having its own personality, dad once told me that his was a "hateful b*^#*, kind of like your mother"...

[69_500]

just watch. someone will eventually restore a daytona with one type of paint on the body and another type on the aero pieces, some of it correctly peeling off the window plug, all in the name of accuracy.  

as for each car having its own personality, dad once told me that his was a "hateful b*^#*, kind of like your mother"...

Careful or Geno will be striping his car back down to do just that.

[hemigeno]

just watch. someone will eventually restore a daytona with one type of paint on the body and another type on the aero pieces, some of it correctly peeling off the window plug, all in the name of accuracy.  

as for each car having its own personality, dad once told me that his was a "hateful b*^#*, kind of like your mother"...

Careful or Geno will be striping his car back down to do just that.

If we could still get lacquer paint, it would have already happened...

[Charger-Bodie]

just watch. someone will eventually restore a daytona with one type of paint on the body and another type on the aero pieces, some of it correctly peeling off the window plug, all in the name of accuracy.  

as for each car having its own personality, dad once told me that his was a "hateful b*^#*, kind of like your mother"...

Careful or Geno will be striping his car back down to do just that.

If we could still get lacquer paint, it would have already happened...

you can still get laquer paint.

[Davtona]

just watch. someone will eventually restore a daytona with one type of paint on the body and another type on the aero pieces, some of it correctly peeling off the window plug, all in the name of accuracy. 

as for each car having its own personality, dad once told me that his was a "hateful b*^#*, kind of like your mother"...

Careful or Geno will be striping his car back down to do just that.

If we could still get lacquer paint, it would have already happened...

you can still get laquer paint.

Wouldn't it be enamel or acyclic enamel that was used originally?? 

[maxwellwedge]

The factory used acrylic enamel. Creative used lacquer because it dried faster. So the cars have both on them.

[TONY]

lacquer, just like on the nose,scoops and wing on bird  

[moparstuart]

just watch. someone will eventually restore a daytona with one type of paint on the body and another type on the aero pieces, some of it correctly peeling off the window plug, all in the name of accuracy.  

as for each car having its own personality, dad once told me that his was a "hateful b*^#*, kind of like your mother"...

holy crap I just spit all over my keyboard   

[hemi68charger]

For me - the correct way to restore a car is put everything back on that was found on THAT car. Not go by other peoples originals or restorations.

Here here..........

[TONY]

For me - the correct way to restore a car is put everything back on that was found on THAT car. Not go by other peoples originals or restorations.

I totally agree, but sometimes you want to verify/confirm the original workmanship your looking at on a car (especially due to the original slip shod work and care or lack there of to fit + finish in ref to Daytonas), or cars that arent always that good of an untouched original example and therefore original examples need to be used as reference

[maxwellwedge]

Yes True - especially if your starting with a tough car.

[TONY]

even if the car isnt tough, its just hard to fathom all of the variances of overspray from mild to wild and in randomly different places

like i said earlier, its hard to say whats right or wrong because there is no set pattern

[moparstuart]

For me - the correct way to restore a car is put everything back on that was found on THAT car. Not go by other peoples originals or restorations.

Here here..........

It all depend on what your going to do with the car also , if you want a driver then this is really not the road to go .  Personally I like to see a few of these type cars , but i would never own one because I need to drive mine and drive the hell out of it if i want too.        

[FJ5WING]

I agree with Tony...especially if a car wasnt garaged as a second car from day 1. My car was a daily driven ride until 1977, since then has been driven less and less by the next three owners. I've found very little in the way of inspection markings. What I have found hasent fit the bill of accepted either...so now what? Do I use what I have and have to "fight" with someone everytime they tell me thats not right?

[hemigeno]

 

That's actually part of the problem...  We've replicated several characteristics observed on my car pre-restoration, and have had a difficult time convincing some folks that it should be that way.  Photos help some, but for the most part if it doesn't fit the mold of conventional restoration wisdom, it's an uphill battle.  DAMHIK