77 to 73 Malibu Trunk/Taillight/Rear Bumper Swap

Rago wrote:If you are just wanting the opera windows, have someone with a 74 show you how they look from the inside. Since that was the first year for the opera windows, they did some odd stuff from what I'm told. The glass was still full size, but they just added metal on the outside if I'm not mistaken.

This is so true rago and I still have the inner rear plastics to show that all they did is used the triangle shaped plastics and put a padded board the same color as interior of car in between the triangle to make it opera sized on inside..... Remember maligoon thats how them windows were full triangle glass covered into opera sized out side

Thanks for the pics, Limey. That's... an odd approach by GM. lol

Here's a low-res (so my edits aren't so painful!) mock-up of the direction I'm wanting to take this and yes, I sold my soul to the 73 front end over the 77 stacked headlights!



There doesn't appear to be an easily solution to get the three main pieces that really make the look - the 73 Laguna nose ,the 73 Chevelle rear, and the smaller opera window - all on the same car.

looks cool
but those wheels look like the baldwin motion wheels

They might have been cropped off an image of one, yes. Ditto with the pipes. Probably impossible to find that style of wheel elsewhere though, eh? 10" slotted mags seem to be the closest thing.
It's got a little bit of Baldwin style 73 in there, some 73 Laguna, a pinch of 77 Chevelle SE and a hood I think compliments it all well.

I should also clarify that I do not own either vehicle in the image. The large one is a 77 with a 73 nose found here:
http://rides.popularhotrodding.com/ride/1185655/malibu406/1977/chevrolet/malibu/index.html

And the smaller image was found here:
http://image.hotrod.com/f/evel1957/9496325+w450+h338+cr0+re1+ar1/1973-chevrolet-chevelle-at-shell-taken-2007.jpg

So your Basically looking for this ?? but with a 73 Laguna Nose and rear spoiler from a 75 -81 camaro??

Limey, exactly - that's all I'm asking for. Doc Larry linked me to a picture of his spoiler build so I've got an idea as to how I'm going to do that, but am I missing something obvious that would make myself not have to reinvent the wheel as far as the normal body parts go?

I wouldn't mind recreating the 77 window size with sheet metal as shown in that picture, but I would want it to be able to actually use the 77 glass as well. Something about the thought of having glass hiding underneath the body steel just doesn't sit right with me. If there is an easy way to mount 77 glass to the 73 body, I could use the 77 interior trim to make it look a little more normal.

I feel like to achieve this, I either have to fabricate parts for a 73 to take a 77 window, or I have to fabricate parts for a 77 to take a 73 rear end. I'm really liking this look and I don't want to compromise unless absolutely necessary. I've tossed the idea of using 73 Camaro tail lights on a custom 77 tail panel, sort of similar to what Doc Larry did, but I don't think that looks nearly as good as the stock 73 rear end.

If the way that they did it in 74 doesn't feel safe to you & chopping two cars in half to make one is a little too much for any sane man, then you are left with one solution. Chop the top from a 74-77 Classic & put it onto a 73 car. Note that it has to be a Classic model if you want those Opera windows. Cutting up a Laguna is just sacrilege & Base models came with large quarter windows all the way through 1977. Then again, base models also got lucky enough to have round headlights through 77 as well. No four eyes on mine.

Chris, why am I not surprised to see that you had a real set of Ansen Sprints? You truly are either blessed, lucky, or spoiled to have such a collection of parts.

My dad had real Ansens on the '71 Malibu he had. Got a picture of it with them. But I'm too lazy to dig it out.

I might see about making a 77 window just work on a 73 body if I can find one to take a close look at/buy at a decent price. The way I see it, the existing window mounting hardware would likely remain in place and I'd just be adding sheet metal to the body, so if someone ever wanted to come along in 80 years or whatever and redo everything to be all original, they could just chop it back off and it wouldn't be terribly hard to restore. Tearing into the 77, on the other hand, would be virtually non-reverseable and require just as complicated fab work to turn back into a 77 rear end. And I'd feel pretty bad about cutting off a top entirely and ruining the donor car completely just for a damn window style.

I MAY have a decent 73 Laguna I can buy for $500-1000 with very little rust, and again before there's panic, reversal will be completely possible for anyone wanting to go 100% Laguna again. All I would need to do as far as body work goes would be the window and get the Chevelle chrome bumper. If I'm happy with how it turns out, I can maybe even toss the Laguna's stock 350 into the 77 and sell that to someone while just keeping the Laguna. It would be sweet to keep both cars but... well, we'll see what prevails: logic or the coolness of having two decent G3s.

We'll see, guys. Thanks for the replies.

there's a guy parting out a 73, the next state over....maybe that might help??

here's the link:

http://yakima.craigslist.org/cto/2153904995.html

I have the inserts that change to opera windows on my 74, don't need them, & am in Hillsboro, OR.

It's amazing that GM was able to get away with that.

why? had interior plastic and exterior metal just glass in middle. GM jsut devised a away to use existing bodys to meet minor design changes and in the process made it optional for guys like us to customize our rides with out having to be a pro body man. and they saved a butt load of cash in the deal