I bought a 72 Cutlass with this Ram air hood on it. The outside looks very good. No cracks, paint is very nice, but the under side looks patched up.
The pictures shows like there's bondo at the front and the fit of the metal on the fiberglass is not good. Looks like they filled in with some kind of filler to make up for a poor fit. This is probably a good example of a poor after market hood. Ron&Barb.

 

Ron,
More pics of the car please. You buy that while you were down in FL?? I'm not surprised at the underneath 'quality' of the all fibreglass hoods. I think a lot of those all fibreglass hood are made by the same manufacturer and sold by Parts Place, Tamraz, Year One, OPGI and BAP for 'varying' prices set by their administration. Agree the underneath quality doesn't look great.

 

Thorntons has had several over the years they have improved on. Pricetag reflects their quality

 

Still nothing beats original. Damn things are near impossible to find

 

I agree Troy has improved on his manufacturing process. He only had a single die in the past and orders were very slow to fill. Now he's spent millions on the retooling and production to achieve a seriously comparable product. So I don't think the price tag reflects the quality, it reflects his break even price per hood sale to recover his investment over the long run. Granted his hoods fit better off the line because I believe he used an OEM one to shape the mold.

They are out there and not impossible to find. In some cases they may need a lot of help to re-finish; others the seller seems to want the same or more than the Thornton hood. I just did a quick web search and inside 30 seconds found this OEM OAI hood for sale

I read with interest a comment made by Joe_padavano (Technical Editor this site) about OAI hoods in which he states that the OEM hoods didn't line up much better than a lot of the repros out there. After all working with fibreglass and mass production will give those results.

 

Well it sounds like I'm not the only one with this issue. I guess I'm lucky it does fit good. I put the only pictures of the car for now. Barb.

 

My old Glasstek didn't look any thing like that POS under it......I sure wouldn't throw Glasstek under the bus till your sure its one of their hoods,Just saying....Who knows what a previous owner did? Thorntons are great hoods,For my application ,No thanks,Never will be a show car and if he spent millions on R&D and the tooling how many hoods would he have to sell to make his money back? What are they now $4K lets say $2k profit X 50 sold per year.....Ouch that math hurts....

 

You're right and I apologize for that comment - I'll go back and ammend it. Although a lot of the repro functional airbox hoods are made by them and distributed by PP, Tamraz, OPGI, Year One, BAP... there are others too. Point taken.

If you're interested in seeing the tooling Troy went through there are links to the pics on the Thornton FB page. Not sure but I think he also expanded his shop for production and storage. His price is 2499.00 per hood + shipping. I'll have to go back and look, but I believe my comment about development costing in the millions is correct. Not sure if you need to log into FB but here's the link to some of the pics for the OAI Hood Project

 

My hood does have a steel underside, may not look that way.
I've learned alot about the quality good and bad. I'll just keep it closed and know one will know. Thanks for the information.

 

If its steel it isn't a Glasstek......theres are fiberglass undersides,Now I am very curious on whose hood that is....I think the stuff you're seeing is the glue that might hold it all together? If it is that is a pretty bad job.....

 

This has a steel underside, I tested it with a refrigerator magnet. It's bolted up with regular spring hinges. I knew it was bad that's why I posted it. I see now I have the only one this way. I don't have any idea who made it. The hood fits perfect, well maybe that's just my opinion. Thanks Barb.

 

I thought that looked like a steel underside when viewing your pics last night.

What makes you think it's a repro??

Looks like an original with some bondo work in the nose area of the steel underside.

In your other pics (like the 2nd pic in the first set you posted)...that "globbed" stuff around the triangular metal openings stamped in the hood underside...looks factory to me. They laid on the adhesive and pressed the underside skin up into the fiberglass outer skin....the "spooging out" of that chalk/adhesive is VERY typical on a factory hood.

 

It's good to gain some knowlege on my car good or bad. Thanks Barb.

 

Another clue - in the two pics you last posted (3 posts before this one).....look at your second picture.

There are some small raised circles/pads/reverse "divots" in the metal underside back around the air cleaner/scoop area. I can see at least a couple in that second pic. These raised pads (they are approx 1/4" to 3/8" in diameter) are where the ram air hood screen was spot welded to the metal underside. While your screen is missing (Thornton sells repro screens if you need one) at least this is another clue that you likely have a factory W25 hood on the car.

Without stripping off the paint on the underside it would be hard to tell exactly why there is aftermarket filler, etc up in the nose area or other areas. It's either rust repair or collision damage repair(or both)....very common on these hoods. If it matters to you those filler-worked areas could possibly be smoothed out/reworked/blended in better and the hood underside could then be painted with the more subtle looking satin black on the underside like the factory did originally.