Is this true ?

[tippytoe]

I was at a local car show a couple weeks ago & was talking with a gentleman about 69 Chargers. Long story short, he swore that a Coronet could be converted into a Charger simply by re-skinning it with AMD panels. I felt he was full of dookie because of the different roof and back window between the two models. I assume the inner structures around the roof/rear window areas are different, but I may be wrong. I blew off that part of the conversation (the guy was actually pretty car smart) until this morning & got to wondering if there was any truth to what he said.

Any of you heard anything like this before ?

[cdr]

yes you could,but you would have to get a doner roof for the inner structure

[Mike DC]

  
You could convert a Toyota Prius to a '69 Charger with enough AMD metal and transplanted junkyard Charger shell parts.  That doesn't mean it would be practical.


AMD makes most of the unibody now.  What they still haven't made is fairly cheap & available.  There are some differences in the rear roof structure area etc, between the Coronet and Charger but nothing that couldn't be transplanted in theory.  But you would probably end up transplanting & replacing more of the car than it would have taken to fix a rusty Charger shell.


Honestly I expect someone to try this sooner or later.  It seems suited to a racecar project were it wouldn't matter if some of the details weren't right below the skin.

[Troy]

M.A.R.S. made a Charger convertible out of a Satellite. I think they said they could use any B-body convertible. The underside (frame, most floors), cowl, radiator support, windshield and pillars, and drive train are pretty much interchangeable on B-bodies. The Charger has unique outer sheet metal and much of the interior. I don't know that the inner roof support (around the rear window) is any different though. It would be interesting to see if buying a relatively cheap Coronet or Satellite and welding on the Charger sheet metal would be cheaper than buying a rust bucket Charger and having to replace all that metal - plus anything attached to it that had rusted away. Then there's the fact that you'd have to buy everything else that makes a Charger a Charger - grill, grill trim, headlight assemblies and vacuum controls, tail lights, dash frame, gauges, dash pads, door pads and panels, seat covers, headliner, headliner bows, rear window and trim, tail panel trim, sail panel trim, emblems, wheel lip moldings, bumpers and bumperettes, hood turn signals, and on and on. However, much of that would be needed for a rust bucket any way so maybe it's a wash?

The big difference would be the value when finished. The Charger could be sold at Charger prices while I'm not sure what the "created" car would be worth.


Troy

[Mike DC]

                   
I'm surprised we haven't seen someone taking all the repro metal and selling prefabbed undercarriage sections by now.  Like, the whole rear subframe in one piece with floors spot welded to it, ready to slide up under the sides of the rusty unibody. 



When you do it all piecemeal, it would seem like there are too many panel alignment issues to let someone else weld together such a large portion of the undercarriage.  But I would think that by the time the replacement chunks become that large, it actually no longer matters as much.  As long as the huge repro chunk was assembled symmetrically to itself then the final result would be okay. 

It's the same reason that an aftermarket Art-Morrison type frame doesn't need to be built to match the quirks of your particular 40yo body shell.  It just needs to be shaped for your make/model/year and be straight to itself to work.  You will pound & tweak your old body shell around it however you have to.

[Indygenerallee]

These cars were put together fast and with very low quality control, If they sold the whole rear underpinnings all welded together they would probably fit half the cars.... They were off that much....

[Mike DC]

  
But that's just it - you would be buying such a large piece of the car that it probably would work.  



What if I showed up to a swapmeet with a rear subframe intact from a parts-car:  The subframe rail assembly and the rear floors, from the backseat all the way to the rear bumper crossmember, all in one huge chunk, with no rust on any of the sheetmetal including the trunkfloor.  The sheetmetal had all been carefully detached from the rest of the donor car by drilling out all the spotwelds and preserving the flanges, ready to spot-weld it all again.  

Would I have any trouble selling this?  No way.  

Somebody would be happy to buy the whole chunk and slide it under their rusty car as-is.  If it didn't fit perfectly they would "make it fit" because after all, it was an original intact chunk of another car from the same factory.  If it doesn't fit perfectly then surely the dimensions of this donor part are equally as legit as the body they are putting it under.  


So why doesn't the aftermarket sell this?  

[Troy]

These cars were put together fast and with very low quality control, If they sold the whole rear underpinnings all welded together they would probably fit half the cars.... They were off that much....

The frame rails/subframe assembly itself sat on a jig so, of all the pieces on the car, those were most likely to be straight and square. I doubt I'd ever buy a car that needed that much replaced though.

Troy

[Ghoste]

His statement could have been driven by the guy that made a Charger convertible by taking a Coronet convertible and adding Charger sheet metal.   Did away with the need for that pesky roof structure part.