VCCA Home Forums GENERAL DISCUSSION New User Forum 1935 Chevrolet Holden Body Phaeton

I am looking for some information maybe some reference photographs of a 1935 Chevrolet Holden bodied phaeton. I am completely new to this forum and I hope I posted this in the right section. My dad has an Australian bodied car that has been sitting in his equipment yard for years. My dad has the title for it and is willing to give it to me for a restoration. He says this is a fairly rare car here in the states and I would love to restore it.

Now for the bad parts. The car is in rough shape and someone before my dad owned it did not know how to weld at all. There is no way I could realistically restore it to factory condition it's so bad. However, that is not what I'm really looking for. I want more of a resto-mod with a small block in it. The previous owner did some really bad things. My dad said that the car was owned by someone previously who took the car to a body shop to get it worked on. Apparently while at this shop the doors got stolen. My dad has another 1936 Master sitting in the yard as he thought he could adapt the doors to fit the phaeton but it would need a lot of sheet metal work. However I am still missing a front driver's side door. Also the rear doors from the 1936 appear to be wider and don't fit into the doorway of the phaeton. I think this might be related to my next problem which is the door pillar and rocker panels unless the phaeton rear doors were just made a little more narrow.

The rear section and the front end are in fair shape. The real problems start around what i would call the B-pillar where the rear door mounts. The pillar is basically hollow (I think there used to be wood inside to stiffen it?) and it is welded to the rocker panel in a weird way. Next I think someone basically made their own rocker panels and I would call them side skirts? They definitely don't look factory. I am looking for some reference photos for this area on a phaeton to see if I could even rebuild it to look somewhat stock.

Any information or photographs you can provide would be a great start for me. Also if you know of anywhere that has sheet metal parts for these phaetons would be great. If I put this in the wrong section please let me know.

Lugaidh
Welcome to Chatter.
As a first time poster you have posted correctly but I will suggest you post in the 1933 - 1936 forum a little further down the page.
I have not researched the sedans from down here in Aus though I probably should, but 1 thing that has come on Chatter regularly is the Holden bodied Chevs have several differences to the US built cars so the doors may well prove to be the 1st of a lot more work than you thought.
Tony

Tony,

Thank you for the response.

After looking through Google for a while I think I've come to the realization that these almost no two of these cars are made the same. Everyone seems to have something different its crazy. The closest car I could find to mine is this cream colored one online. Mine looks so close to it but it just doesn't have the fender spare wheel holders. Mine has that same flare on the belt line of the rear quarter panel and it has the same window frame.

I will go to my Dad's house and take some some pictures later today to see what you guys think.

I think I added the image right. I hope it shows up

The image worked yes!

Also my grill is different than this one. My grill looks closer to this:

Lugaidh for one that is a RHD GMH bodied 36 phaeton in USA of the Cream colored pic!

They made many different styles from around the world like OEM RHD Canadian / US bodied 35 in Sth Africa, OEM RHD Canadian / US bodied 33s in India. I was actually surprised as to how many OEM RHD Ford & GM cars of this era I could find via Dr. Google. RHD GMH bodied 35 that was sold to the USA, 6-wheel equipped, This is his current restored RHD GMH 35, still over in Australia, Plus A possible future project, a 35 GMH Master phaeton over in Australia, OEM RHD Canadian / US bodied 34/5 in Pakistan, damn they're everywhere Non OEM front seat, running board step plates, wheel covers and rear wheels suggest something amiss? You can really notice the wheel arch pressing and that curved pressing in the rear 1/4 compared to GMH bodies. Here are a few pics that I just mentioned above!

Here is my advice STOP right there and go no farther before you get in so deep he can never recover any $$$$ spent. There are people who have the skills to do the repairs, but if you do not own those skills , going to cost significant amount of money.

Would most likely have to search in Australia where body was made for missing parts and good luck with that.

Just my Thoughts!
Rory
1934 Chevrolet Standard Holden Sports Roadster new rebuild
1933 Ford 3 Window Coupe
1934 Ford Sedan new construction

Rory is correct you would be best to slow down on the work and search down here for information and parts (I have really only researched what information I need for my 38 truck) availability before getting in too deep $$$ wise. There are several Aus Chatter members though they dont all show up often, Terry Hicks is more into the later 30's models but CJPs29 (Chris) may well be able to help as well, but there are others as well.
Tony

Well I think you guys might be right. It is really far gone. I can’t seem to post my pictures on her from my phone.

To post pictures direct to chatter you need to be a dues paying member of the VCCA. If you want to post a pic up load to a photo hosting site then post the link on chatter.
Tony