I dont wana start anything but... I am curious to opinions I know it was discussed before but I am wondering what you guys think of the dynacorn shell. I have a fastback already that I have been working on for a while but I was wondering if it was worth fixing or just using it for parts for the dynacorn shell. my car needs quarters, floors and cowl and possibly the rockers. I like the dynacorn shell cause it uses the best parts from each car and has better materials then the original. I know that they still need alot of work to be finished but so does mine. What do you guys think? Thanks in advance
new 1967 fastback body
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BarnStang
Founding Member
If you go this route, here is an article you may wantg to read up on. You may have already seen this. Good article. http://www.mustangandfords.com/tech...orn_replacement_mustang_body_shell/index.html
THe last one I saw the door gaps were pretty poor. But that was some time ago. It would certainly be rust free. And you could do anything you wanted to from mild to wild. It's still a pretty steep price to pay for a car you have to assemble. THere are still rust free cars out there for less than that. Harder to find. That you could transfer all your parts to. I personnaly feel the price is unrealistic for what you get.
THe last one I saw the door gaps were pretty poor. But that was some time ago. It would certainly be rust free. And you could do anything you wanted to from mild to wild. It's still a pretty steep price to pay for a car you have to assemble. THere are still rust free cars out there for less than that. Harder to find. That you could transfer all your parts to. I personnaly feel the price is unrealistic for what you get.
CanyonCarver515
Member
I agree. These prices are completely crazy, especially if the fit requires a lot of work from a bodyshop.
Consider this: back when these cars were in regular production, factories were pooping them out the doors faster than can say wow, and they had proper fit. What can possibly so hard about making parts that fit right. That's beyond my understanding...
They would have to have good dies that would stamp the parts correctly. They would then need the jigs and nests to assemble the parts correctly which would cost millions of dollars to duplicate. When Ford made these cars the money spent to assemble the cars correctly was worth it because of the huge numbers that they sold. Dynacorn will sell only a small fraction of these bodies compared to what Ford sold.
I worked in an auto stamping and assembly plant that builds the Ford Explorer body panels and can tell you that there is a lot more to it than what you would think.
reenmachine
Dirt-Old 20+Year Member
I am guessing he hasn't used one yet though -- no one I have talked to who has would say this. Surprisingly, shops like CDC and Gateway that have built Dynacorn cars have been very frank about the large amounts of work they had to do to make the bodies acceptable for a high-end car.
zookeeper
Founding Member
But how bad is it? My fastback was a low-mileage, one-owner, never hit car when I got it, and the door gaps were still not as good as a modern car. I haven't seen one in person yet so maybe I should wait until I do, but the pics I've seen make it look pretty good, even the bare metal one on the cover of Hot Rod mag a few months ago. Exactly what is so bad about the Dynacorn bodies? In my opinion, door gaps are minor, window glass not fitting would be major.
I have to agree with zookeeper how bad is it really? I thought that the features that the car comes with was a better start than what we have now? Even though the fit is better on our cars, from what I understand they arent the greatest either. Both cars require alot of work then correct? I am probably gonna repair what I have only because I dont have th cash to lay out like that. Do you guys think that the changes made to the dynacorn bodies actually help the car like the one piece seatpan or not really?
zookeeper
Founding Member
If I had to make a choice of spending $8,000 on a rusty original or $15,000 on a new Dynacorn that needs a little tune up around the doors and trunk, I'd be inclined to go for the repro. I HATE rust, and it seems as though it's never really gone once it starts. One of my buddies spent $17,000 at the bodyshop on his '67 coupe replacing the floors, doors, quarters, trunk, rear frame rails and painting the whole Frankenstein's monster of a car. It looks nice now, but I know what it looks like underneath all the filler.
reenmachine
Dirt-Old 20+Year Member
CDC told me that they had to cut the driver's A-pillar and add 1/2" just so the windshield would fit in. The A-pillar angle was wrong and that made it nearly impossible to fit the wing vent assemblies and actually get the thing to seal up. That of course made it almost impossible to align the windows. The whole left side apron/cowl/firewall area was askew, and the gap between the top of the fender and the cowl was big enough to put your thumb in. And this was the "after" on their SEMA display car.
Another one that a customer bought had to go straight to the frame shop right out of the crate. Dynacorn paid for the repairs.
There are many more stories like this that I have heard, literally from everyone who has touched one of these things. You do what you want, but to me it's always worth the time hunting for that rust-free (or close to it) original. It's not like it's rocket science to add in the extra structure if you want.
Another one that a customer bought had to go straight to the frame shop right out of the crate. Dynacorn paid for the repairs.
There are many more stories like this that I have heard, literally from everyone who has touched one of these things. You do what you want, but to me it's always worth the time hunting for that rust-free (or close to it) original. It's not like it's rocket science to add in the extra structure if you want.
zookeeper
Founding Member
You'll get no arguement from me about doing the best you can to find a rust-free car to start with. As hard as fastbacks are to find, I waited for a nice one, and encourage others to do the same. But on the east coast I can see nice ones being hard to find. I saw a TV buildup of a Dynacorn fastback for Sammy Hagar ad they didn't mention any of the problems you did, so I assumed they were close right out of the box. Anyone else have a Dynacorn horror story? Pics would be even better!
Don't know if the price is crazy. It's probably more expensive than you think to make a whole body. Making perfect body parts is very expensive. Ford could afford expensive dies, because they made ~500,000 of each part (in case of early Mustangs, at least). They could spend a million dollar on a die for a driver's side Mustang door and it would only cost them a dollar per car. And besides, factory body panel fit wasn't all that impressive (although I have to admit that, considering my age, all I've seen in 30+ year old cars, so who knows what happened to them in 3 decades)
That doesn't automatically mean that the Dynacorn body makes economic sense for a Mustang restorer though. One of the things is that you always need more parts than you think. Even if a car needs "everything", there are still tons of small, usuable parts on a project car. Steering columns, seat frames, pedals, window mechanisms, glass, stainless trim etc. Wether this is of value or not depends of course on how much you intend to modify the car but all these small parts add up quickly when you need to buy each and every one of them (like with the Dynacorn body). This is of course a non issue if you want to rebody a rusty car you already have.
I don't know anything about the quality of the Dynocorn bodies, but A pillar modifications to make the windshield fit sounds scary. But how knows, maybe Dynacorn is eager to make a good product and they manage to solve the issues quickly.
As for the reinforcements; they are nice, but they're commonly available convertible parts and adding them to an old body is not too difficult (easier than rust repair).
I guess these Dynacorn bodies are mainly interesting for high end restomods where the cost of the body (or project car) is only a rather small portion of the total cost.
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