The first step in the process was to prepare the wagon to receive the door, pillar and rear quarter panel from the coupe. The front door of the wagon has been removed to be replaced with the longer coupe door. The original door pillar from the wagon, in the red square, has been removed to accommodate the new longer door and pillar that will be welded in from the coupe.

The second part of the process was to fit the coupe door. Although based on outside appearances we were pretty confident that the top, bottom and front edge of coupe were identical to the 4 door wagon, we were relieved when we hung it and it was a perfect match all the way around. V-Rex already has a more aggressive  attitude.

There is a lot of metal work required to get V-Rex ready for the pillar and quarter panel from the coupe. A lot of cutting involved. The front exterior fender will come from the quarter panel of the coupe so this portion on the wagon was cut out.

We spent a good bit of time layout out how the interior of V-Rex will work with the changes to two doors. We want to use as much of the coupe interior support, finishing metal pieces and panel trim design as possible. Here the coupe rear door panel is put into place so that we can understand where body structure and support for things like panel clips need to be placed. In a later picture, you will see the interior metal structure of the coupe in place where this red armrest/door card is positioned.

Hours and hours went into measuring the best places to make the cuts to complete the pillar and quarter panel move to the wagon. These cut lines, highlighted in red were the winners. This enables us to bring over the pillar in complete form which not only gives us strength, but also a factory seam for the rear of the door. Cutting the window at the top and then down after the curve gives us the curve that we want for the front of the window as well as all of the mechanisms required to have a push out windows, something that we wanted to retain. Cutting the rear quarter panel at an angle gives us a better weld line and some room to match up the belt line trip with the wagon. Note that we left the rear lower quarter panel behind the wheel for a later cut in order to enhance the rear profile.

As mentioned earlier, this is not for the faint of heart. And please keep in mind that we did not destroy two good running restorable cars. We picked two project cars on purpose. In this picture the side of the coupe is removed along the cut lines. These cars are made so well that after both sides were removed from the coupe it still drive around the shop yard to its storage place. It still has many good parts on it that will be offered up to others that need specific items for their restorations.

And here is the right hand side tacked into place. Notice how nicely the belt line trim line lines up as well as the gaps around the door. We will order the pieces that we need to complete the compound curves around the windows.

Just for grins we hung one of the fender flares to get a feel for how it might come together. 

One thing that we continue to do is to look for parts that can help us get to our objectives faster - especially with the metalwork. We want a curved radius at the rear of the new side windows, while retaining the pop-out capability. To shortcut our window metalwork we found this prefabricated piece from Duffys Metal Shop that was designed for a VW van. It will work great. The cost was $150. We'll cut this in half vertically and have just what we need for both windows.

Here is the inside with the interior elements from the coupe. Note that the pillar behind the door is tacked into place. The interior metal trim pieces from the coupe are also into place. We were surprised that the coupe did not have a side impact beam of some sort in the middle of this space, most likely due to the very strong construction at the top front, back and base of this area. We will be adding in an integrated steel bar across this space within the cavity -- not visible from the finished interior -- just for additional safety.

One of the benefits of having a coupe donor is the ability to use the coupe interior metal pieces to finish the wagon. Here you see some of the interior metal pieces that we will be using for the wagon to form an integrated flow for the interior from front to back. Notice how the curve to the front and the curve to the back provide symmetry. Again, the whole idea for the car is to achieve a factory look.