Wide Body Festiva

[quaddawg]

I love Shoguns (who doesn't) but I HATE the wheel flares in the rear.

I took a pic of mine and Photo Chopped it real quick.

Rough chop, but you get the idea.


First one is the beginning picture of the quarter view, followed by three chops of the widening, once again, I KNOW it's a rough chop, just wanted to get an idea of what it would look like.

[project b6t]

sweet concept... would be beyond rediculously hard

[htchbck]

^^^ not too hard :lol:... all you would need would be custom front and rear glass, custom bumpers, and a custom hood... ... and a completely custom frame (including floor pan, roof, and realisically the quarter panels since their part of the unibody) to mount all of that on... but hey, you could use the same fenders, doors and rear quarter glass ... awesome looking concept though!

[quaddawg]

The glass would be a bitch, everything else is pretty straight forward. Shoot, Chip Foose could do it with his eyes closed. ANY good sheet metal guy could cut a Festy in half and widen it. Not much different than making a limo, only the other dimension.

Seriously, A good shop could do it in no time. The glass would be pricey though.

You wouldn't need a frame, just reinforcement where you joined the body back together. The unibody could be modified, just widened.

It sounds hard, but really isn't all that bad.. (except the glass....)


In essence, just like stretching a limo, you hack it in half, and ideally, you use TWO Festys, and you take the section width from the second festy, weld it back together with strategic strengthing, and your done.

Of course it is more complicated than that, but with two Festys, you would not have to fab anything by hand, just smoothing and filling the welds. It's done all the time, just not to Festys.... 8)

[oxbrain]

Most of your wiring would have to be custom. Same with the engine mounts, axles, interior, gas tank, entire suspension, etc.

It's probably easier to just make a tube frame.

[htchbck]

yep... with a regular limo the only actual non-body piece you are modifying by extension is the driveshaft (and even then only if its an RWD car). With this idea you'd actually be changing the entire side-to-side cross section of the vehicle... thats a bit harder to do than just a adding a chunk that really doesn't interfere at all with functionality. I'm not saying don't try it, I'd love to see it done, just saying make sure you've thought of everything before you start. I'd hate to see one get split down the middle and not finished because it turned out to be more complicated than originally intended.

[quaddawg]

Oh, I am not going to build it, it's just an excercise.

Since you are putting a SHO in it at the same time, you don't have to do any other special wiring, other than what you were going to do.

A custom dash set up, yeah. But you guys are really over thinking this.

Strip down two festys, cut on in half, lengthwise, take a section out of the other, and weld the whole unibody back together, strengthening where needed. It is actually easier than sectioning or channeling a car, how many thousands have been done like that?

I don't understand the comments about motor mounts, etc.... hell, you have to do that anyway to put an SHO in a festy.

It's all strictly straight forward fab work. I am telling you guys, the glass is the only thing you couldn't do yourself.

Haven't any of you worked with french wheels, power hammers, grinders, plasma cutters, welders, etc??? It would in no way be easier to make a frame...

CUT THE FESTY IN HALF, and add a section down the middle, when you do this, there are NO mechanicals in the shell. The engine and all drivetrain is out, and won't be going back... remember, we are building a SHOgun here, not retaining a festy drivetrain. It's all custom. I have seen people do this sort of thing, just not exactly this sort of thing. I have worked on a few projects similar myself. I have watched a Cadillac narrowed. Same thing, but we are widening.. Glass is MUCH easier to narrow... but it can be done.

Cutting the unibody structure and widening it is relatively simple, then you just hang the SHO drivetrain in the rear, the same as you would do with a 'gun, only you have much more room.

The front suspension is relativley simple, no different than if it weren't widened.

Haven't you guys seen this sort of thing done?

Oxbrain, everything you mentioned has to be custom on a Shogun, so, no difference there, only you would have more room to work.


Like I said, this is just an excersise, I don't have the facilities to attempt this anymore, much less the funds, at least not at the present.

I have been around a long time, body shops, hot rod shops, and I even ran a custom Harley shop, YEARS ago.. (I am 45) I know the people that could do this, but I don't plan on attempting it. at least not any time soon.


I will try to post some pictures of similar projects that have been done, if I can find them

I am having a hard time expressing the concept I guess, as this is a fairly simple, if time consuming, process, and this would not be a first at all.

[htchbck]

ah, right, I forgot that we were talking about a shogun cause the only place that was mentioned was in the first post. In that case, you are right, not nearly as complicated without the fest drivetrain. It would also probably allow you to use the steering and front suspension from the SHO, since you would be widening the whole car to that of a taurus width... hmmm, interesting :idea:

[quaddawg]

ah, right, I forgot that we were talking about a shogun cause the only place that was mentioned was in the first post. In that case, you are right, not nearly as complicated without the fest drivetrain. It would also probably allow you to use the steering and front suspension from the SHO, since you would be widening the whole car to that of a taurus width... hmmm, interesting :idea:

Yeah man, you are getting it. Just picture two gutted festy shells, some saws alls, plasma cutters, whiz wheels and a torch.

Once you get it welded back together, weld in a good cage for strength.

THEN, drop in your drive train. For that matter, you could then put in a pretty sweet Front engine, rear drive set up, with plenty of room for a driveline tunnel.

Either way, even an SHO would drop in more easily.


I am not saying it isn't a TON of fab and body work, just that the concept is doable, and not technically hard at all.

[25Horseplay]

This is a pretty cool idea! It opens up alot of possibilitys for drivetrain combos! The only real trouble areas are front and back glass, which could be made from Lexan.

[htchbck]

lemme know if you ever decide to do it I'm no stranger to using sawzalls and cut-off wheels on festies :twisted: and that would definitely be something worth driving up to OH for... plus we could always take the two sides of the car we use the middle section from and stick them back together too... maybe a single seater three wheel festy with shortened axels?

[quaddawg]

[htchbck]

it definitely looks cool, I hope someone builds one sometime... personally if I ever got my hands on a good SHO motor I'd be swapping it into a first generation taurus station wagon, but the festy swap is neat too. On a side note I just got done looking at you cardomain pages quaddawg... I may just have to find a tracker now to make into my summer project for this year those little things look like fun!

[GenevaDirt]

LOL...can anyone say....PACER!

[quaddawg]

lemme know if you ever decide to do it I'm no stranger to using sawzalls and cut-off wheels on festies :twisted: and that would definitely be something work driving up to OH for... plus we could always take the two sides of the car we use the middle section from and stick them back together too... maybe a single seater three wheel festy with shortened axels?

Oh snap! That would be awesome, and power that one with a narrow motorcycle engine.. like a 120 horse RevTech V-twin.....

Only, we should shorten that one the same as the width we narrow it....