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A few months ago I decided to buy a W-25 hood for my ‘72. After a ton of research and reading I landed on a Fiber Concepts hood. I made a few calls to the owner Rob and he generously spent a lot of time with me answering all my questions. So I went ahead and ordered one from him. I felt good spending $1200 for a hand-built hood that would need less prep work than the Glasstek that didn’t seem to have as good reviews.
The body shop I had do the work is an extremely respectable place that I’ve had do work on other vehicles for me and the results have always been terrific. I know the owner well enough to trust him with any work. The hood arrived and the shop owner called me to come look at it. He pointed out quite a few things that were going to have to be fixed on it and several fitment issues (my car was already there at his shop so he had it mounted before I got there). The sides didn’t match the fenders, the front edges were way off, the scoop cutouts were jagged and didn’t match each other. We looked it over and he said it would take more work than he had expected but if I wanted to go forward he would make sure it turned out great.
he called me yesterday and said the car was finished. It looks and fits good, but it ended up costing me $4600 to get it that way. Pretty unhappy and disappointed with my purchase.
He ended up putting over 50 hours of labor into fixing and fitting the hood to make it right.
would I do it again? No way. Was not worth $6000 to add this hood. Wishing I had tried the Glasstek or searched for an original steel hood.
Awesome job, there are other stories on here about how bad the aftermarket W25 hoods fit, Thornton price sounds high until the bill is presented to fix a bad fitting glass hood..
The hood looks great! I’m sorry to hear about the ordeal (and money) you had to go though to get it right, and your not alone. I got mine from Fiber Concepts about 3 years ago as well and it came with several issues. There was high spots on the top side from glueing the air box together, the intakes were all messed up, the underside was VERY sloppily finished. Also the hood latch section didn’t line up and had to be cut correctly. The fit was ok I guess with the exception of the middle front section. I talked to Rob about the issues, and he ended up giving me money off. At about the same my neighbor got one from Thornton’s and he just basically just painted it and bolted it on. He also got a free OAI air filter intake with his purchase.
Minnnesotajeff - sorry to hear about the hassle but the end result looks amazing! Do you mind telling a fellow Minnesotan who did the bodywork/paint and the name of the color you chose for the exterior? It's really a striking color.
The interesting thing is that I heard that total cost before but, maybe that's for an OEM hood. Adding to, I have a whole new appreciation for not only the 442 but, 442 replicas.
I had an original OAI hood that I had saved for many years to ultimately put on my Vista Cruiser. When it came time to finish the car, the shop (located in Anoka Minnesota BTW) said it would take about 40 hours work to get it to fit. I bought a Thornton replica and they said it only took a few hours to prep it.
So, my experience was that, although the Thornton was costly, overall it saved money versus fixing an original hood. I later sold the original hood to recoup most of the Thornton cost.
I'm pretty shocked by the cost to make those hoods fit and appreciate the commitment you guys have to getting that fit and look. I considered one but no way I'll do it now. I'm pretty happy with my stock steel hood. Probably one of the few cars with an OEM hood that hasn't been converted to a 442.
Hi Terry, It is Shannon’s Autobody in Brainerd. The color is the original color of the car. It is called antique pewter and is code 18. I love it also, it looks gorgeous in the sun
Sorry to hear about the cost, Jeff. When I had my all fiberglass hood put on (1997?) it was paid for by the insurance company as I had hit a deer and crunched the original steel hood and at the time we couldn't find a good used steel hood. So it could have been the body shop who put it on did a bunch of repairs to it. I never saw it before it was painted/installed. Well it sure does look good now that it is done!!
Minnesotajeff - thanks for the info regarding Shannon's ... they are now on my radar. Also, i didn't realize that was a factory color in '72 ... just AWESOME.
I had the exact same experience with a factory original hood for a 70. By the time the body shop was done "making it right" I had the same kind of money it. Much better to buy a Thornton hood. They take much less work to get right.
My OEM hoodwas pretty darn straight and it still needed a day and a half worth of touching up.Since mine was original I'm glad I kept it and very happy with the results. We have all had nightmare body shop issues. My body shop took off my fenders, ordered repos and when I told them to reuse the originals they said they already had the junk guy take them away. They had a few leaded areas on them but were orignal flat style fenders and then the body shop admitted in the end that it took them more time to straighten the repos than it would have to reuse the originals. I'm still upset over that 12 years later.
A few months ago I decided to buy a W-25 hood for my ‘72. After a ton of research and reading I landed on a Fiber Concepts hood. I made a few calls to the owner Rob and he generously spent a lot of time with me answering all my questions. So I went ahead and ordered one from him. I felt good spending $1200 for a hand-built hood that would need less prep work than the Glasstek that didn’t seem to have as good reviews.
The body shop I had do the work is an extremely respectable place that I’ve had do work on other vehicles for me and the results have always been terrific. I know the owner well enough to trust him with any work. The hood arrived and the shop owner called me to come look at it. He pointed out quite a few things that were going to have to be fixed on it and several fitment issues (my car was already there at his shop so he had it mounted before I got there). The sides didn’t match the fenders, the front edges were way off, the scoop cutouts were jagged and didn’t match each other. We looked it over and he said it would take more work than he had expected but if I wanted to go forward he would make sure it turned out great.
he called me yesterday and said the car was finished. It looks and fits good, but it ended up costing me $4600 to get it that way. Pretty unhappy and disappointed with my purchase.
He ended up putting over 50 hours of labor into fixing and fitting the hood to make it right.
would I do it again? No way. Was not worth $6000 to add this hood. Wishing I had tried the Glasstek or searched for an original steel hood.
That totally sucks you had all those problems, BUT if it's worth anything to you... that is one SWEET-looking ride!
Just curious - from my Corvette days - how long did the body shop allow the glass repairs to cure out during this process? From my experience fiberglass work cannot be done fast, the work needs to gas out and settle in for very long period so as not to show back through months later.
Modern shops are all about speed speed speed which is counter to our quality quality quality thinking
