Here’s the 1955 Chevy after the patch panels have been added and the body has been squared up. (Image/Alex Taylor)

Cut up, cleaned up, patched up, ground up, squared up, braced up, body-fillered up, and ready for primer and paint! Lots going on for this update on the 1955 Chevy Quest for the Sixes project—which is good because the May 31st race day deadline at the Summit Midwest Drags is rapidly approaching!

New lower, front quarter panel on the passenger side sans rocker. (Image/Alex Taylor)

If you remember the last update, we left off with a shell that was still wobbly, with just a few patch panels added. This time, we hit it hard with body straightening and panel patching, which included new front, lower quarters on both the driver and passenger side, plus new rockers on both sides.

Here’s that big roof dent prior to body work, right after pulling the car up from the lower shop. (Image/Alex Taylor)

Somewhere along the 55’s rough past and colorful history, it was riddled with bullet dents and a major dent over the rear driver’s side window caused by some sort of heavy object. While it looked unfixable, after a couple hours of hammer and dolly work, we got the roof looking almost as good as new, with little sign of what was once there.

…And now the dent’s gone! (Image/Alex Taylor)

Dad finished up the rockers by boxing them in and raising them above the stock floor location, which left us with a fully connected shell at this point. Then we braced and squared up the shell based on measurements from other 1955 Chevys sitting in the shop. We did some light body filler work to smooth the patch panels in afterwards.

The ’55 ready to move into the paint booth. (Image/Alex Taylor)

With the metal in acceptable shape, we moved it into the paint booth with the intentions of just primering the inside and the exposed bare metal. But, it was already masked up and ready… and we were close to seeing a big change…so, we went ahead and painted the jambs to match the original’s patina’ed blue. Then we worked on adding patina back to the freshly painted patch panels, and dusting a light semi-gloss clearcoat over everything…

And WOW, what a big change!

The 1955 Chevy in the paint booth after primer, matching paint, and semi-gloss clear had been sprayed. (Image/Alex Taylor)

With it all said and done…can you even believe this is the same car from just a few weeks ago?!

Seeing the shell in this state just gets me so excited for what’s to come! Check out the video below to see it come together and don’t forget to check out the Summit Racing Instagram (@summitracing) to get future updates too.