Interesting Piece Work

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This page features a handful of the many challenges Kidd Darrin’s throughout the years has been presented with. Many were fraught with numerous considerations above and beyond the actual fabrication of the piece itself such as weight, fitment, the desire for hidden fasteners, and more. Suffice to say, it’s never as easy as it looks!


	1934 Ford Grill

This grill was built from scratch for a 1934 Ford. First a jig has to be made to assure proper alignment and contour of the finished grill. Then the Perimeter gill piece is bent to the outside shape of the grill shell. Bars are cut and welded in one at a time assuring that the spacing is perfect between each bar. When the bars are all welded in place they are then cut to proper length. As a final trim, a 3/8” solid bar is bent up to finish the newly made grill to the cars grill shell opening. In this case the bar was done in 3/8” stainless and polished to finish. The grill itself was made in 3/8” x 1/8” flat steel. It was fitted to the customer's grill shell and all the brackets made and installed. After all that it gets sent out to be chrome plated once all welds were ground down and finished.


	1936 Ford Phaeton Removable Top

The idea was to create a lift off top for this car. The challenge was to make it light enough that the customer himself and his passenger would be able to easily lift it off and place it back on at various shows. The solution was to create a lightweight framework from .032 T-6 aluminum and English wheel the shape into each of the six panels that would comprise the top itself. Once covered in foam and vinyl the top proved to be a simple and manageable piece for two people. The inside was patterned out for a suspended headliner and all the inner suspension bows and hangers were fabricated. The finished top is held down by the front two OEM latches and the back is secured on two threaded stainless tapered pins.


	1951 Mercury Chopped Top

The ‘51 Merc is the toughest year to chop of the three popular years, 1949, ’50, ‘51. The rear glass wraps around the sides on a '51 and it is very hard to make the chop look good. The ‘49 and ‘50 have a small oval shaped rear back light that does not interfere with the cuts. To make this Merc even more unique, we made it into a hardtop with working rear 1/4 windows (power). The rear lower quarter panels on the '51 Mercury are made removable by the factory (bolt in). But we scrapped those and fabricated our own one piece full lower rear quarters but without any wheel well cut outs or skirts to fool with. This made for a flowing smooth uninterrupted line down the side of the car . The newly fabricated lower quarters were made to be removed in a matter of minutes since the tire could not be removed with them in place.