aluminum hoods mystery solved

['82turboGN]

My dad back in 1989 went to California for his honey moon and visited Mike at NOS, Art at Art Carr and Kenny at Duttweiler performance. At Duttweilers shop my dad found two crates, each with 10 aluminum hood skins in them. He asked Kenny about them and he said they were factory prototypes sent to him for testing. He put one on his white car and said he hated it so he offered my dad one for free but my dad didnt have any way of getting it home and thought if kenny said they were crap he didnt want it. Hes kicking himself for it but this year at BG he asked Duttweiler about them and he remembered. Kenny just got rid of them. So yes Buick made them. They were made to be grafted onto the steel structure of the factory hood. Kenny's white car was put in a shootout against mikes car at NOS. It was featured in Hot Rod. Kenny had the aluminum hood on the car in the shoot. So that car most likely still has the aluminum hood on it. Only one with a factory aluminum hood in the world.

 

[novaderrik]

so it was a factory made aluminum hood, but not factory installed.

 

['82turboGN]

True not factory installed, but factory made and installed by the buick god himself

 

[Bweavy]

I know a few people ended up with the aluminum skins. They were given away.

 

[Turbo-Archie]

he said they were factory prototypes sent to him for testing. .

Thats what I thought if they even did exist. Not on production cars.....




..

 

[H2Ogbodies]

That's pretty interesting indeed. I know the 3rd gen Montes are kinda looked at as a GM step-child compared to the Cutlass and Buick lines, but I was intrigued GM went to a lot of work to make a handful of complete aluminum hoods only to abandon the work. And, while thisnhood is a prototype, its as much a production hood as the steel one-everything lines up, no gap issues, the body lines are dead-on....everything.

Its the most obscure (and dare I say maybe the most rare?) of all Monte parts at least? I still want to try and find some documentation somewhere about it....not sure where to start other than the GM Heritage division possibly.