Whether the supply of two-door cars is drying up, which we doubt but supplies are finite, or whether four-doors are just becoming more accepted, we're not sure, but we've seen a rise in the number of more-doors being modified. In fact while we were at Brad Masterson's shop shooting this feature, he had three four-door Chevys in for top chops, as well as a two-door Merc and even a Riviera.
Chopping the roof on a four-door doesn't involve much more work than a two-door-obviously there are the two extra door tops, but the side window area needs modifying on a two-door anyway. The interesting part of Brad's chop is the way it was done, without cutting into the trunklid at all. Being a fastback, often the roof is lowered, then the trunklid is sectioned or pancaked to get the lines to flow, but this method involves none of that. Instead the entire trunk and surrounding sheetmetal is lowered between the rear quarters, and then this area is reworked.
While Brad uses a MIG welder for some of the work, he prefers to work the traditional way with gas welding, followed by lead, not plastic filler. Blame it on the way he was taught by George Barris and Bill Hines, but he just prefers to work this way. That's not to say this can't be done entirely with a MIG, though such welds can't be hammer welded in the way gas welds can. So with no further ado, let's see how a sow's ear was turned into a silk purse...
