New body shell

[TrevS]

Hi all

Is it possible to buy a complete new body shell for an Etype minus bonnet, doors and boot hatch? I am wondering if it might be a quicker restoration process to re-shell my car and then use it as a restored car and then work on restoring the original shell over time. Does anyone know of any companies producing shells and what are the sort of costs?

Thanks

Trev

[abowie]

http://www.martinrobey.com/

http://www.martinrobey.com/downloads/BODYSHELL.pdf

[TrevS]

http://www.martinrobey.com/

http://www.martinrobey.com/downloads/BODYSHELL.pdf

Perfect, thanks for the info. Really useful

Trevor

[christopher storey]

An alternative ( which personally I would rather have, because they gave me quite excellent service ) is a Hutson's shell . In any event, I think you will find that Hutson's produce many of the panels for Robey

[neil4444]

Hi Trev,

Don't assume your doors, bonnet & boot wil bolt straight onto a new shell, they will need them all to build it up for you. You will then need to do the same for restoration of your original shell. Hutsons built my shell (see My 1962 OTS project on restoration thread) and I too would highly recommend them. It won't be quick though but certainly worth it in the long run. I think your proposed approach would be overcomplicated & costly & might not be much quicker anyhow.

Regards,

[abowie]

I must admit that to be honest I agree with the comments above, to some degree.

The basic lag time we have with a bare metal resto on a body shell is 12 months. There's an average of about 500 hours of work, plus all the inevitable delays.

Then you have to reassemble the car.

What you're suggesting is essentially doing the process twice. Personally my approach would be to see if you have a shell that is economically worth repairing. If it is, do so. If not, sell it to someone else and use a new shell.

[TrevS]

Thanks for the info guys. It's just something I was thinking about and thought I'd see if anyone has ever done this. Basically my car is fine at the moment, it was restored about 3-4 years ago by the previous owner but I know at some point I'd like to restore the car and after restoring a rusty old Ford Anglia a few years ago I know that the most time consuming part of the project is normally waiting for a bodyshop to sort the metal work out.

My thinking was that if you have to leave your car at a shop for 6-12 months to get the body done properly would it be easier to order a new shell and then when ready, strip the car and rebuild onto the new shell. I'd imagine this would reduce the time the car was off the road and also give you a much better finished product having a nice solid new shell. As good as I think my car is you just never really know what's underneath until you start stripping a car back so I also wondered if a new shell might work out cheaper than the labour that goes into restoring an original one as I've heard numbers like £40k thrown around when talking about restoration.

Ultimately when it goes to the time to restore the car I'll try and keep the original shell etc but always good to know what other options are available.

Trev