1968 Chevelle Mild Pro-Touring Build

[theastronaut]

We started this build around last August as a quick daily driver build but it ended up getting deeper than planned. The owner bought it as an unfinished project from a relative and had taken it to another shop to have it restored. He wasn't happy with the quality of work being done so he pulled it out and got on our waiting list. At first we were just going to paint the car and assemble it with the parts he already had so he could sell it, but we ended up starting all over from scratch after finding some ugly repair work under the primer. 90% of the work done to the car so far has been done by Rodney, with a little help from me.


Here's how it looked when the owner bought it. It had been stripped and shot with PPG DPLF epoxy at this point.











When it was delivered to us the car had been stripped again and some rough bodywork had been done, then shot with lacquer primer. We started by getting the panels aligned and straightening out the gaps. We weren't trying to get them perfect like the '65 C10 or the '66 F100, just better than they were since the aftermarket doors, trunk lid, and fenders didn't fit at all.











Door gaps before and after.












Once we started stripping the primer off we found some pretty nasty bodywork underneath plus we found rust in strange places. The previous shop had used silicone, fiberglass, and body filler on top of masking tape to stop up the rust holes At this point we let the owner know that this wouldn't end up being a low-budget job like he originally planned if he wanted to fix it right without finding another body. We stopped work while the owner was deciding if he wanted to fix the car properly or find another body.