58 Bloomington Gold/Top Flight - Body Panels

[Eric S.]

Re: 1958 Corvette

Hello NCRS Members,

Has anyone seen Bloominton Gold or NCRS cars with bad body panel ft of the trunk/hood/doors where it sticks out quite a bit above the body line?

Thank you,
Eric

[Joe R.]

Re: 58 Bloomington Gold/Top Flight - Body Panels

Eric,

The 58 was the first of the series for 58-62 and the 58 cars had very bad body panel fit. I have observed a couple of the first 10 58's and the body panels, trunk and hoods had pencil drawings and markings indicating where to cut and repair. This was before paint was ever applied at the factory!!!

JR

[Eric S.]

Re: 58 Bloomington Gold/Top Flight - Body Panels

Picture 005.jpgPicture 030.jpgPicture 029.jpg
Thank you JR.
Have seen cars as how mines is that is original or even Certified Award cars?
Aloha,
Eric

[Dan H.]

Re: 58 Bloomington Gold/Top Flight - Body Panels

Eric, I restored 58 sn 003, it fit quite well, had filler build up to help align the hood and front of doors. All else was very good. My own car, sn 297, also had the factory tweaking to the hood and doors, but overall fit good. Looks like your trunk has been distorted by a really bad gasket fit at some time in it's life. The GM replacements were dreadful at best, hard to close doors and trunk etc. How do they fit with no gaskets? Haven't seen one quite that out of shape. FWIW.
Dan

[Joe R.]

Re: 58 Bloomington Gold/Top Flight - Body Panels

Eric,

As stated before the first few 58's were sad as far as panel fit. The above 58 that I refered to was SN 004 and even the inner fenders were cut and repaired along with the trunk fitting terrible even after repair. By the end of the run SN 87XX the body panel fit was excellent. You are just going to have to do what is necessary to make what you have acceptable in your sight.

Good luck,

JR