The good ones among us can...
The good ones among us can see designs in our heads but Chris Ito can illustrate it so others can see it too. Here's where his idea for a bobbed hood started.
There are at least a hundred good reasons to put a hood on a car but only one to take it off. And it's not a good one, either; it's a great one: a car built the right way and with the mechanical brawn or at least the looks to back it up looks bitchin' without a hood.
But not all cars lend themselves to going without a hood. By the close of the '30s most manufacturers integrated the hood with the rest of the car's shape. To remove any piece from such a body is to break its continuity, a key element to the streamline movement that inspired those designs.
As a formally trained automotive designer, Chris Ito understands the significance of continuity. And as a hot rodder, he also understands the lure of an exposed engine. But stuck intractably between those two is a '40 Ford DeLuxe.
Ito trimmed the hood, preserving...
Ito trimmed the hood, preserving just a little bit more than what was necessary to retain the grille's continuity. At this point the inequity between the stock-height hood and lowered cowl is obvious.
You could say that car's nose is greater than the sum of its parts. The grille sort of withers away into the hood, so removing it basically destroys one of the car's hallmarks: its streamlining. Or as Ito sees it, "I don't like the way it look when it just stops." So he did what came natural: he hit the sketch pad.
He concluded that the hood doesn't have to go away entirely to sufficiently expose the engine. As his sketches indicated, only the first few feet, the ones that cover up an otherwise unremarkable-looking panel and an uninspiring radiator, were needed to preserve the grille's continuity. In fact, covering those anonymous parts actually drew more attention to the subject at hand: the engine. The rest, for the most part, was unnecessary.
He cut the hood top much the...
He cut the hood top much the same way as the bottom, only using the beltline as a guide. Cutting along it is also convenient, as the hood top rolls abruptly just below it.
As luck would have it, a local resource had a deluxe hood just rough enough to cut up yet good enough in the right spots to use. "It was run over but it was perfect for what I needed because the back half was flat. I got it for $15-like I said, it was perfect."
Note that your car will likely need a hood that looks considerably different from Ito's. It's because his car is channeled, and in a novel way too: only the core of the body and not the fenders moved down. That the fender mounting points were relocated higher into the body meant a stock hood would be too tall to fit. The solution meant sectioning the hood but in the end Ito sectioned it considerably lower than the cowl itself. As the rest of the car's body is pretty low, it works, but it probably won't on a car that hasn't been channeled or sectioned.
But as the photo of Mike Small's '40 shows, there's more than one way to skin this cat. By re-shaping rather than heavily sectioning his hood top, he made his work with a stock-height cowl. But just as beauty is in the eye of the beholder, talent is in the hand of the craftsman.
The hood's most prominent...
The hood's most prominent features, the character lines that descend into the grille, defined the bottom-most cut. Ito began by trimming along their topside in one consistent line.
The strip Ito trimmed away...
The strip Ito trimmed away lowered the top but it also eliminated its transition to the base. To rectify the shapes, he made several vertical cuts in the base, bent them inward slightly, and used the overlapping metal as a cutting template.
Before he actually cut and...
Before he actually cut and welded the pie cuts he test-fit the hood. A good thing, too; Ito concluded that the hood looked ungainly and blunt at this height.
To lower the hood top equally...
To lower the hood top equally until it fit at the nose would make it too low at the rear so Ito trimmed the lowermost cut line at an angle. Naturally the more aggressive cut eliminated more of the shape transition, which in turn required more aggressive pie cutting.
With the profile set, Ito...
With the profile set, Ito trimmed the hood opening. Ending the hood abruptly wouldn't fit either the streamline or the '60s styling, so he cut its sides to taper scallop style.
Manufacturer's hem or flange...
Manufacturer's hem or flange sheetmetal edges for structural integrity but it's a task beyond many enthusiasts, even ones as versed as Ito. Instead he bent and welded 1/4-inch rod to the edge (arrow). It may make accomplished metal shapers cringe but it is an effective and period-correct solution.
Once satisfied with the shape,...
Once satisfied with the shape, Ito devised an attachment method. It consists of a J-bolt that hooks to a hole drilled in the core support and passes through a crossbar in the hood's inner structure. He says it's only for the time being but if human nature is any indicator hardly anything is more permanent than a temporary solution.
To better integrate it with...
To better integrate it with the firewall, Ito modified his hood design with a graphic, only rather than lay it over the body color he started with a Wimbledon white base.
Once the base flashed, Ito...
Once the base flashed, Ito masked the white base in a scallop. He then applied the Hot Rod Flatz Old Gold Metallic to the remainder of the hood.
With paint kicked and ready...
With paint kicked and ready to go, Ito peeled the tape to reveal the scallop and bolted the hood to the car. He then defined the edge with a contrasting pinstripe. Talented in many ways, Ito admits striping isn't his strongest suit. Eastwood carries the Beugler Deluxe Pinstriping tool that he used.
Though satisfied with the...
Though satisfied with the shape, Ito said he felt that it lacked the last bit of oomph to put it over the top. He found it in the form of a SO-CAL Speed Shop bullnose. SO-CAL intended for a Deuce shell, so Ito flattened and re-contoured it to fit.
Ito's friends asked him to...
Ito's friends asked him to bring the car to a show in Denton, a bit of a challenge as he started the hood project the Saturday prior to the event. He laid the final stripe the following Saturday morning.
Mike Small sectioned his car's...
Mike Small sectioned his car's hood, but as his '40 isn't channeled he couldn't section it as much as Ito did. Instead, he reshaped the profile. It probably required considerably more work than Ito invested in his but it stands as proof that it's possible to make such a hood for a stock-bodied car.