not if i have anything to say about it!

As you can see I have my work cut out for me.
This 1955 Mercury coupe rolling chassis was sent from Ford to Ghia Carozzeria in Italy
to construct the XM Turnpike Cruiser Concept car on top of.
Ford also sent along a 3/8 plaster scale model of the XMTC for Ghia to work off of.

Ghia built the XMTC from the chassis up.
In other words the chassis was first modified modified to accomodate the plans for the car
in that there was an extension added to the rear
of the chassis because the XMTC was to be longer
than any production car of the day. Note the big "X" structure added to the rear of the chassis in this photo.


The XMTC was also built much lower than any other production car of the day standing only 52.4" high
This was accomplished in part by cutting approximately 4" off
the top of the chassis at the foot well areas as shown in these two pictures.


Cutting that much out of the chassis would severly weaken it and surely cause problems such as doors binding.
This was compensated for by adding additional frame rails inboard from the main rails.
These new rails were on either side of the drive shaft as seen in the next set of photos.
They show where these rails ran and terminated at both ends.

So as you can see the new structure was added and then the floors were welded into place on the new chassis.
The rest of the body was subsequently built from there on up.
There was also additional strengthening structure added at other areas under the floor as shown here.


In order to begin the restoration I have to separate the body from the chassis.
To accompolish that I'll first weld trusses inside the body to keep it rigid
while I cut the floors away so I can separate them.
FYI I have a rust free 1955 Mercury coupe chassis to use for the restoration
and I'll modify that chassis to match the original and build the floors on top as Ghia did in 1955.
Stay tuned for future updates.


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